Changes In Reporting Practices
The CDC’s report on autism statistics is based on health and school records for 8-year-old children who live in select counties across the United States. The researchers are part of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, which the CDC set up in 2000 to estimate autism prevalence.
Clinicians scanned the school records for signs of autism features, such as social problems or repetitive behaviors. They use data from 8-year-olds because most children are enrolled in school and have had routine health assessments by that age. However, the data is not based on whether children have been given an actual diagnosis of ASD.
Up until 1990, autism was not included in legislation aimed at guaranteeing an education to individuals with disabilities. In 1990, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act added autism to its list of conditions covered under the act. The new law also added transition services and assistive technologies to its requirements. Autism had never been tracked as an educational statistic before 1990. Since 1990, the incidence of autism in schools has risen dramatically.
Another set of prevalence estimates published in Pediatrics in 2019 found that the prevalence of autism in the United States rose from 1 in 91 children in 2009 to 1 in 40 in 2017. The results were based on telephone or in-person interviews with the parents of 88,530 children aged 3 to 17 years, collected by the CDC as part of its National Health Interview Survey.
Surveillance Sites And Procedures
The ADDM Network was composed of 11 sites for surveillance year 2016 . Children included in ADDM surveillance year 2016 were born in 2008 and had a parent or guardian who lived in one of 11 surveillance sites in 2016. Each site selected a portion of its state to monitor ASD among children aged 8 years in 2016. All sites functioned as public health authorities under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule and met applicable local institutional review board, privacy, and confidentiality requirements under 45 CFR 46 . The racial and ethnic composition of populations in ADDM Network sites is provided .
Increase In Developmental Disabilities Among Children In The United States
Pediatrics published a study that describes how often developmental disabilities were diagnosed among children in the United States, and trends over time. In this study, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration found that 17% of children aged 317 years had a developmental disability, and importantly, that this percentage increased over the two time periods compared, 20092011 and 20152017 increases were also seen for specific developmental disabilities in the same age group. Public health officials and healthcare providers can use these findings to better understand the trends associated with the diagnosis of developmental disabilities and to plan for medical, educational, and social services to support children and their families. You can learn more about the report here.external icon
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A Broader Definition Of Autism
In the past, more than half of children identified with autism also had intellectual disability, and now its about a third, she said. And thats really consistent with identifying children who are perhaps at the milder end of the spectrum.
The new government data cant tell us exactly why the increase has occurred, Christensen said. One of the main things we note this year is that the difference in prevalence between white and black children and between white and Hispanic children has decreased.
In 2012, for example, the prevalence was about 20% higher in white children than in black children, and now its about 10% higher it was 50% higher in white children compared with Hispanic children, and now it is 20% higher.
We dont have any biological reason to think that autism prevalence would vary by race/ethnicity, Christensen said, so the large gaps from the past suggest that black and Hispanic children were less likely to be identified than white children. They also were not getting the necessary services to develop to their fullest potential.
In New Jersey, Minnesota and Maryland, there was no difference at all between black and white children.
Thomas Frazier, chief science officer for the advocacy organization Autism Speaks, said the new government report is really important because its a significant increase. Its a meaningful increase.
Prevalence Of Autism Increases By 10% To 1 In 54 Children
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its new biennial data from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network on the prevalence of autism in the U.S. The network identified 1 in 54 children as having autism spectrum disorder , representing a 10% increase from previous estimates.
In 8-year-old children, about 1.85%, or 1 in 54, were identified with ASD in 2016, based on tracking within 11 communities in the U.S. While these findings indicate that there continue to be many children living with ASD who need services and support, now and as they grow into adolescence and adulthood, they also offer good news that screening and awareness continue to identify children who will benefit from services.
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Why Is Autism Increasing Dramatically
Let us start by reiterating some facts about autism.
- Multiple large-scale studies have established, with adequate proof, that vaccines do not cause autism.
- Autism does not develop due to bad parenting choices.
- Autistic spectrum disorders are not contagious.
Although the number of children diagnosed with autism has steadily increased over the last few years, this is not because more children develop autism now than before.
Experts cite the following reasons to explain the rise in autism cases in recent years.
ASD includes a broad spectrum of disorders with following symptoms, thus accommodating more kids under the title of autism.
Cdc Estimate On Autism Prevalence Increases By Nearly 10 Percent To 1 In 54 Children In The Us
Important progress made in key indicators: For the first time, prevalence rates are the same for black and white children, and significant progress made toward number of children receiving developmental screening by age 3
NEW YORK – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released today its biennial update of autisms estimated prevalence among the nations children, based on an analysis of 2016 medical and/or school records of 8-year-olds from 11 monitoring sites across the United States. The new report demonstrates real progress in early screening and diagnosis, the result of more than a decade of awareness and advocacy work by Autism Speaks and other organizations.
The report reflects a continued increase in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in the United States. Importantly, for the first time the CDC found no difference in the prevalence rates between black and white children, indicating that gaps in access to screening and diagnosis may be closing.
Key findings include:
The CDC report was released in advance of Aprils World Autism Month and World Autism Awareness Day , which Autism Speaks dedicates to increasing global understanding and acceptance of people with autism. To engage in this effort to create a kinder, more inclusive world, visit www.autismspeaks.org/kindness.
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The soonest that a child can get into services, the better the outcomes for the child and more likely to achieve their developmental potential, he noted.
Shapira cited the CDCs Learn the Signs. Act Early program, which offers free resources for parents to monitor their childs developmental milestones. Last year, the CDC also produced the Milestone Tracker mobile app for smartphones and tablets that parents can use to monitor their childs development in fun and interactive ways.
Clarification: A previous version of this story reported that the 2016 report was based on 2010 data.
Autism Prevalence Increases: 1 In 59 Us Children
The CDC estimate is based on calculations on 11 communities across the nation
Disparity gaps between white children and both black and Hispanic children are closing
One in 59 US children has autism, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new estimate is a prevalence rate of 1.7%, up from one in every 68 children in the 2016 report, which was based on data from 2012. The new figure was derived from 2014 estimates for8-year-olds diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in 11 communities across the nation.
The new estimate represents a 15% increase from two years prior and a 150% increase since 2000.
Autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disability, is characterized by problems with communication and social interaction with accompanying repetitive behavior patterns.
Parents know their child best, said Daisy Christensen, co-author of the new report and surveillance team lead in the developmental disabilities branch of the CDCs National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. We want to encourage parents to be aware of their childs development, to be aware of the milestones that children achieve.
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Screening Guidelines For Autism
Continued awareness of autism has resulted in increased routine screening by pediatricians, another contributing factor to a rise in cases. The American Academy of Pediatricians recommends that all children be screened for ASD at ages 18 and 24 months, along with regular developmental surveillance.
The Changing Prevalence Of The Autism Spectrum Disorders
CATHERINE E. RICE, PhD, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
Am Fam Physician. 2011 Mar 1 83:515-520.
Autism spectrum disorders are a group of developmental disabilities characterized by atypical development in socialization, communication, and behavior. The term autism spectrum disorders describes three of the five pervasive developmental disorders, including autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome, and pervasive developmental disordernot otherwise specified. Symptoms of autism spectrum disorders typically are present before three years of age and often are accompanied by unusual patterns in learning, attention, and sensory processing.1 Based on the most recent report by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, an average of one in 110 children was identified with autism spectrum disorders, which translates to about 1 percent of children.2 For every girl, four or five boys were affected by the autism spectrum disorders. Less than one-half of the children with autism spectrum disorders also had an intellectual disability, and 47 percent were diagnosed with autistic disorder by eight years of age.
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The Demographics Of Autism
Studies have found that all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups are impacted by autism.
When evaluating the impact of socioeconomic status on ASD diagnoses, researchers have found that the prevalence of ASD increases with socioeconomic status. This could be due in part to greater access to health care and therefore a higher likelihood of receiving a diagnosis.
Researchers have also identified racial and ethnic differences in the prevalence of autism. Among black, white, and Hispanic children, the difference in the prevalence of ASD has remained relatively consistent over time, especially among those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Black and white children see nearly identical prevalence of ASD. Hispanic children, however, are less likely to receive an autism diagnosis.
Autism advocates are striving to expand access to diagnostic testing and subsequent services for children in underrepresented populations. The sooner children receive intervention services, the more they are likely to gain from them. This increases the chances that they will effectively acquire essential life skills for independent learning and living as they grow up.
Additional Data Sources And Variable Definitions
Population denominators were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics vintage 2018 bridged-race postcensal population estimates for 2016 . For study areas comprising subcounty school districts, a standardization process using public school enrollment counts was used to adjust the population estimates . Each site linked each child to birth certificate information from their state. When successful, this linkage indicates which children were born in the state that they lived in at age 8 years and provides additional demographic information. Information about race and ethnicity came from information abstracted from the medical or education records, which was augmented by data from birth certificates and data from administrative or billing information. Children with race coded as other or multiracial were excluded from race-specific estimates, as were American Indian/Alaskan Native children because of small numbers.
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How Autism Spectrum Disorder Prevalence Is Estimated
As understanding of ASD has changed, so have the methods for diagnosing the disorder and estimating its prevalence in the general population.
It is critical to understand that any numbers measuring autism prevalence in the U.S. are estimates scientists use a statistical method to extrapolate a subset of data to the country as a whole. Research methods for estimating autism prevalence across the country are much more accurate than they were in the ’60s, as well as more broad, so they gloss over fewer cases in the general population.
In 2000, the CDC established the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network to estimate prevalence of autism. It detailed its method in a 2016 study on autism prevalence. Every two years, these researchers scan a representative sample of the school records of 8-year-old children for signs of autism, then extrapolate that number to estimate the number in the general population.
The influence of awareness and resources for ASD on prevalence estimates is clear: without schools screening children and keeping detailed records, and without parents inquiring about their childrens ASD status to doctors, less children are diagnosed. This applies to distinct periods of time as well as to distinct geographical areas.
Who Are These Radical Scientists
Independent, decentralized biomedical research has come of age. Also sometimes called DIYbio, biohacking, or community biology, depending on whom you ask, open research is today a global movement with thousands of members, from scientists with advanced degrees to middle-grade students. Their motivations and interests vary across a wide spectrum, but transparency and accessibility are key to the ethos of the movement. Teams are agile, focused on shoestring-budget R& D, and aim to disrupt business as usual in the ivory towers of the scientific establishment.
Ethics oversight is critical to ensuring that research is conducted responsibly, even by biohackers.
Initiatives developed within the community, such as Open Insulin, which hopes to engineer processes for affordable, small-batch insulin production, “Slybera,” a provocative attempt to reverse engineer a $1 million dollar gene therapy, and the hundreds of projects posted on the collaboration platform Just One Giant Lab during the pandemic, all have one thing in common: to pursue testing in humans, they need an ethics oversight mechanism.
These groups, most of which operate collaboratively in community labs, homes, and online, recognize that some sort of oversight or guidance is usefuland that it’s the right thing to do.
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Prevalence Of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years Autism And Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network 11 Sites United States 2016
Surveillance Summaries / March 27, 2020 / 69 1â12
Please note:. This report has been corrected. An erratum has been published..
Matthew J. Maenner, PhD1 Kelly A. Shaw, PhD1 Jon Baio EdS1 Anita Washington, MPH1 Mary Patrick, MPH1 Monica DiRienzo, MA1 Deborah L. Christensen, PhD1 Lisa D. Wiggins, PhD1 Sydney Pettygrove, PhD2 Jennifer G. Andrews, PhD2 Maya Lopez, MD3 Allison Hudson3 Thaer Baroud, MHSA, MA3 Yvette Schwenk3 Tiffany White, PhD4 Cordelia Robinson Rosenberg, PhD5 Li-Ching Lee, PhD6 Rebecca A Harrington, PhD6 Margaret Huston6 Amy Hewitt, PhD-7 Amy Esler, PhD7 Jennifer Hall-Lande, PhD7 Jenny N. Poynter, PhD7 Libby Hallas-Muchow, MS7 John N. Constantino, MD8 Robert T. Fitzgerald, PhD8 Walter Zahorodny, PhD9 Josephine Shenouda, MS9 Julie L. Daniels, PhD10 Zachary Warren, PhD11 Alison Vehorn, MS11 Angelica Salinas, MS12, Maureen S. Durkin, DrPH, PhD12 Patricia M. Dietz, DrPH1
Problem/Condition: Autism spectrum disorder .
Period Covered: 2016.
Interpretation: The prevalence of ASD varied considerably across sites and was higher than previous estimates since 2014. Although no overall difference in ASD prevalence between black and white children aged 8 years was observed, the disparities for black children persisted in early evaluation and diagnosis of ASD. Hispanic children also continue to be identified as having ASD less frequently than white or black children.
Autism Statistics By Race And Ethnicity
Minority groups are diagnosed with autism later and less often.
- The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is highest in non-Hispanic white children .
- Autism statistics are the lowest among Hispanic children .
- Autism prevalence rates in 8-year-olds increased by 10% between 2014 and 2016, and they increased by 175% between 2000 and 2016.
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Lessons From Other Conditions And Analytic Methods
There are other complex conditions, such as cancer, Parkinsons disease, asthma, and schizophrenia, where evaluating prevalence changes and understanding biologic and environmental contributions has been a challenge. They provide some examples of how analytic models may be used to understand condition trends.
Changes in cancer trends can be seen from changes in: 1) diagnosis or detection classification and 3) exposures ., Examining patterns of change among a population might explain disease trends due to changes in factors such as the annual frequencies of exposures, availability of screenings, use of new diagnostic technologies, and changes in disease coding. It is important to have data on the occurrence of a condition before and after the change factor being evaluated. In the case of cancer surveillance, there are some well-established sources of data . It is also helpful if there is a clear change factor that has occurred as is seen in the similar slopes of reductions in lung cancer following reductions in smoking., Peaks in prostate cancer prevalence were correlated with the introduction of the first Prostate-specific antigen screening and when follow-up biopsies became more routine.
Modeling change is an integral part of cancer surveillance. There are several important lessons learned from this modeling that can be useful when examining changes in ASD prevalence. The basic steps of modeling change are: