Autism Rate Climbs Again

In a large autism monitoring network, an estimated one out of every 88 8-year-olds had an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2008, the most recent year with data available, CDC researchers reported.

That's a relative increase of 23% from a previous analysis of data from the same network for 2006, when the estimated prevalence was one out of 111 children, and a 73% relative increase from 2002, according to a surveillance summary in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

But getting a firm grasp on the prevalence of ASD is tricky because of a lack of objective diagnostic markers and changes in clinical definitions over time, so it's unknown how much of the increase is real and how much is related to changing diagnostic criteria and better identification of cases.

"Given substantial increases in ASD prevalence estimates over a relatively short period, overall and within various subgroups of the population, continued monitoring is needed to quantify and understand these patterns," Jon Baio, EdS, of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Development Disabilities, wrote in the report.

The researchers collected data from the 14 sites of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, which conducts active surveillance system of children who are 8 years old, the age at which ASD prevalence peaks.

Prevalence is estimated not on the basis of professional or family reporting of a diagnosis but on analysis of the children's evaluation records from multiple sources, including general pediatric health clinics, specialized programs for children with developmental disabilities, and special education programs in public schools.

Autism rates may be higher than thought The incidence of autism may be much higher than previously thought in the United States and elsewhere in the world, according to a rigorous, comprehensive study of the condition conducted in South Korea, researchers reported Monday.

In the first study to take a broad-population look at the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders - types of autism ranging from severe symptoms to the milder Asperger's syndrome - researchers found a rate of 2.64% among South Korean children. That's 1 in 38 children, a rate far higher than the estimate of 1 in 110 children for the U.S. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study, being published Monday in the American Journal of Psychiatry, suggests that, under rigorous examination, many more children may be affected than previously suspected.

The study "is different in the sense that they are screening the entire population of children" including those who have never been flagged with a potential problem, said Geraldine Dawson, chief scientific officer of the research and advocacy group Autism Speaks and an autism researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "It raises a question, I think, of whether we are underestimating the prevalence in the U.S. as well as elsewhere."