Since the United States Centers for Disease Control released its latest statistics on autism prevalence last week, I have done a series of images, blog posts, and videos analyzing the new data. This post collects all of those things in one place for people who want an extensive analysis of what the new report means.
Are There Really More Autistic People? Thoughts on 1 in 88
Although I have grown somewhat more concerned about the proposed changes in autism diagnosis for DSM-5, I think the variation from state to state and within different ethnic groups in the report proves that the current state of autism diagnosis is intolerably random and bad.
The other disturbing thing to me about both the report and the way it is being discussed is the fact that everyone seems to be ignoring the evidence from Britain that indicates that the rate of autism among children and adults is consistently about 1% of the population. There is a great deal of speculation regarding why the rate has changed so dramatically, and it seems to me that it should at least be informed by this information:
The only study to look for autistic adults in a national population was conducted in Britain and published in 2009. Investigators interviewed 7,461 adults selected as a representative sample of the country and conducted 618 intensive evaluations.
The conclusion: 1% of people living in British households had some form of autism, roughly the same rate that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates for children in America today.
The British study found it didn't matter whether the adults were in their 20s or their 80s. The rate of autism was the same for both groups.
Some speculation of my own:
I do not think the number of autistic people has changed very much, but I do think that more people are visibly disabled by their autism than has been the case in the past. Many people are investigating environmental causes such as various toxins and chemicals. I wish there would be more investigation into changes in the information environment as well.
