Word: health
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...suggest that 1% of children now exhibit some symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a collection of neurological conditions whose symptoms may range from mild social impairment to more serious communication, language and cognitive deficits. The estimate also represents a stunning 57% increase in prevalence since 2002, when health officials first began a nationwide effort to quantify the risk of autism in childhood. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs...
...detailed report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, researchers combed through health and education records in 11 U.S. cities. In some sites, the rate of autism was as high as 12 cases per 1,000 children, but averaged across the country the final autism case rate was calculated at 9 per 1,000 children. That's compared to a national rate of 1 per 2,000 children prior to the 1980s, and 6 per 1,000 children as recently as the 1990s...
Experts note that the CDC database - the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM) - is the closest thing to an ideal measure of autism's prevalence. The data are culled from assessments made by health or developmental professionals, including pediatricians, psychologists and language and speech pathologists. In previous evaluations, autism estimates were based on less reliable parental reporting of symptoms or diagnoses...
...improved awareness and diagnosis of the disorders. Increased access to special education classes and other therapies may also be inflating the numbers, as educators and parents enroll more children in hopes of optimizing their learning environment. Indeed, CDC researchers found that among sites where they had access to both health and education records, the prevalence of ASD was higher on average than in sites where only health information was available...
...might be responsible, some experts caution that such changes happen over time, far too slowly to explain the recent rise in autism. "When you see an increase like this, you have to think it's an environmental issue," says Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health and chair of the NIH's interagency autism coordinating committee...