Some new federal data shows that there has been an increase in the number of children who have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. These new figures were released on March 30, 2012. There have been some questions about how the original data that was used in this research was collected.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have released new figures that appear to say that autism is on the rise. Their data shows that, in 2008, 1 out of 88 kids in the United States had autism, or an autism spectrum disorder. In 2006, the number was 1 out of every 110 children. In 2002, the number autism rate was even lower, and was around 1 in 150 children. These figures appear to indicate that the diagnosis of autism is on the rise.
The researchers at the CDC looked at a non representative national sample of children who were all eight years old. They used health records, educational records, or both, to identify kids that had an autism spectrum disorder. The children came from parts of 14 states. Data from a total of 38,000 kids was consulted.
It might appear as though we suddenly have a huge increase in the rate of autism. The data from the CDC doesn’t attempt to explain the causes of the increase. Fred Volkmar is a psychologist at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut. He said:
“Such a big increase in autism spectrum disorders in such a short time seems a little odd, and there is a lot of noise in these data”.
Some of the noise he is talking about comes from the way that individual schools do their record-keeping. Public schools in different states, and even in different school districts within the same state, are not all going to look at autism the same way.
For example, sometimes there will be students who have a variety of learning problems. The student needs additional help, and may need certain accommodations in order for the school to be able to meet the needs of that student. He or she could have some undefined learning problems, or sensory issues, or a mixture of special needs.
The school might not be allowed to use special needs funding to provide for this student. However, if the student is labeled as having an autism spectrum disorder, this could make him or her eligible for special education services. Does that child really have autism?
Another interesting issue with the data is that the rate of autism spectrum disorder in one state can be quite different from the rate of ASD in another state. In Utah, there were 21.2 cases of autism for every 1,000 children. In Alabama, the rate was 4.8 cases for every 1,000 children.
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