The number differs based on new questions parents were asked about their children
FRIDAY, Nov. 13, 2015 (HealthDay News) — About one in 45 children have an autism spectrum disorder, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of parents. This apparent increase is likely due to a change of questions parents were asked about their child, the study authors said. The findings were published Nov. 13 in the CDC’s National Health Statistics Reports.
More than 11,000 families were asked to complete the survey in 2014. They were asked about one child in their household between ages 3 and 17. The parents were asked if a health professional ever told them that their child had autism, Asperger’s disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, or autism spectrum disorder.
Slightly more than 2 percent of parents answered yes. That works out to about one in 45 children, the researchers said. Previous surveys have asked similar numbers of parents whether a doctor or health professional said their child had any conditions from a long list including autism spectrum disorder. Some of the other conditions on the list included Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, diabetes, arthritis, and heart conditions. About 1.25 percent of parents said their child had autism spectrum disorder in the earlier surveys. That’s around one in 80 children, the CDC said.
“Probably the most important finding of this paper, which is hardly new, is that how one asks a question matters,” Glen Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., chief psychiatrist and medical director of the Children’s Health Council in Palo Alto, Calif., told HealthDay. “The CDC spends considerable time appropriately emphasizing that the total number of individuals in the three categories covered — intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, and developmental disability — has not changed,” Elliott explained. He added that what did change was the distribution among those groups.
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