The information below is not meant to diagnose or treat. It should not take the place of consultation with a qualified healthcare professional.
Research suggests that autism develops from a combination of genetic and nongenetic, or environmental, influences. These influences appear to increase the risk that a child will develop autism.
Similarly, not everyone exposed to an environmental risk factor for autism will develop the disorder. In fact, most will not. Research tells us that autism tends to run in families. Changes in certain genes increase the risk that a child will develop autism. If a parent carries one or more of these gene changes, they may get passed to a child even if the parent does not have autism. Again, the majority of these gene changes do not cause autism by themselves. What is the prevalence of autism in the U.
The prevalence is 1 in 42 for boys and 1 in for girls. These rates yield a gender ratio of about five boys for every girl. How does the CDC arrive at this number? CDC researchers collect health and school records for 8-year-old children who live in select U. These researchers are part of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network , which the CDC set up in to estimate autism prevalence. Every two years, trained clinicians scan the records for signs of autism features, such as social problems or repetitive behaviors.
They focus on 8-year-olds because most children are enrolled in school and have had routine health assessments by that age 2. They then decide whether each child meets the criteria for autism, even if the child does not have a diagnosis, and extrapolate the results to all children in the state. The most recent prevalence estimates are based on data from 11 network sites in 11 states. The CDC plans to focus on 10 of these sites for future assessment.
At six of the sites, clinicians plan to survey the records of children at both 4 and 8 years of age. How has autism prevalence changed over time? The latest estimate of autism prevalence—1 in 68—is up 30 percent from the 1 in 88 rate reported in , and more than double the 1 in rate in In fact, the trend has been steeply upward since the early s, not only in the U.
The strength of the approach is that it takes a snapshot of all children who live in a certain area, not just those who have a diagnosis, according to Eric Fombonne , professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.
But, he notes, relying on school and medical records is not as accurate as assessing a child in person. The approach also misses children who have no school or medical records, including some who are home-schooled or live in isolated regions.
And children within the monitored areas may not be representative of all children in a state. Health Agenda Mental Health. Is autism on the rise? Are autism diagnoses increasing? Acting on symptoms of autism Nicole Rogerson now encourages parents to act as soon as they can if they suspect their child has autism. Learn more. It should not be copied, disclosed or distributed without the authority of HCF.
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Close In progress. Maybe some other environmental cause will account for more of the puzzle but not so far. Finally, autism is now known to be primarily a genetic condition 6. I collect three generation genograms family trees on all of my families as part of a good medical history. Over many years, I began to see patterns in the genograms. Traits are inherited.
How relatives think gets transmitted! Then I began to notice certain occupations: accountants, engineers, and IT specialists, electricians, mechanics, welders, and tool and die workers, which are all detail oriented occupations.
Then I began to notice that the genograms were showing these traits and occupations on both sides of the family. It was on my mind so much I even wrote a poem about it:. So, I began to think that mating patterns might be a missing piece of the puzzle. I was puzzled, however, because there was no research evidence to support this observation of mine.
Then, very recently, research put this puzzle piece in place. A very large-scale, well done, research study on men in the Swedish military revealed that the smarter and more detailed oriented the men were, the more likely they were to have a child with autism 7!
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