World Autism Awareness Day: Sharp rise in autistic cases

World Autism Awareness Day is marked all over the world every year on April 2. While there has been increased awareness and some improvement to the lives of those suffering from autism, it hasn’t eliminated the condition altogether. If anything, recent years have seen a sharp increase in autistic cases, where about 1 percent of the world population has autism spectrum disorder and about 1 in 68 children have been identified as autistic, according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. Autism is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

This new estimate is roughly 30% higher than the estimate for 2008 (1 in 88), roughly 60% higher than the estimate for 2006 (1 in 110), and roughly 120% higher than the estimates for 2002 and 2000 (1 in 150). Scientists don’t know what is causing this increase. Some of it may be due to the way children are identified, diagnosed, and served in their local communities, but exactly how much is unknown.

Scientists cannot explain such an increase, however, they find that the boys are still far more affected than girls (5 to 1) and white children are more likely to suffer from this syndrome than Hispanic or African youth US.

Even more amazing, the number of autism cases vary considerably by region. Thus, 1 in 175 children suffers from autism in Alabama while there is one of 45 in New Jersey!

A major study was launched in the US in order to identify the causes of the autistic syndrome and explain the reasons for this increase.

Karen George

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