Federal officials are launching new data that show that the estimated number of American children with autism has increased once again.
The centers for disease control and prevention said Tuesday that 1 in 31 children are in the spectrum of autism.
The figures published In the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report of the CDCs, they are based on the information collected in 8 -year -old children in 16 communities in 2022 through the monitoring network, or disabilities of the development of autism and development of the CDC.
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The findings represent an increase on the estimate of 1 in 36 of the CDC, which was launched in 2023. In comparison, in 2000, the rate was 1 in 150.
In the study, it was considered that children had autism if they were ever diagnosed in an evaluation of development, if they were considered eligible for special education due to autism or if they had a diagnosis of autism under the ninth or tenth revision of the international classification of diseases.
Autism rates varied considerably at the sites studied with a minimum of 1 in 103 children diagnosed in Laredo, Texas versus a maximum of 1 in 19 in California, that the CDC researchers attributed to the level of available resources.
«Research has not shown that living in certain communities puts children at greater risk of developing ASD,» says the study. “The differences in the prevalence of children identified with ASD in all communities may be due to the differences in the availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices.
CDC found that autism was more than three times more frequent in boys compared to girls and was more common among minority boys.
In cases where researchers had access to information about cognitive capacity, almost 40% of children with autism who were studied also had intellectual disabilities.
The CDC report also analyzed children born in 2018 and discovered that they were more likely than their predecessors to be evaluated or identified by having autism at age 4, despite a hiccup during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prevalence between 4 -year -old children was estimated at 1 in 34 in the new report and the CDCs link the average age of the diagnosis of just under 4 years.
The updated authority estimate of autism is produced only a few days after the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promised President Donald Trump to identify the cause of what he called the «autism epidemic» in September.
«The autism epidemic is running rampant,» Kennedy said when announcing the new data. «Autism is preventable and it is unforgivable that we have not yet identified the underlying causes. We should have had these answers 20 years ago.»
Autism defenders are disputing Kennedy’s characterization, arguing that the increase in prevalence reflects better consciousness, detection and diagnoses, particularly in unattended communities.
«This increase in prevalence does not indicate an ‘epidemic’ as narratives claim: it reflects the progress of the diagnosis and an urgent need for political decisions rooted in science and immediate needs of the autism community,» said the Autism Society of America in a statement.
