Some Children Do Outgrow Autism, But It's Not What You Think

In the largest national study of children with autism to date, researchers examined one of the most mysterious aspects of autism spectrum disorder: that it sometimes simply vanishes. An estimated 1 in 68 children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the U.S., but researchers are beginning to take note of a small minority of children with ASD who seem to "grow out" of their diagnoses.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed more than 1,400 children with ASD -- the largest nationally representative sample of children with autism to date -- and found that about 13 percent of them seemed to shed their ASD-associated behaviors as they grew up. The catch: that doesn't mean they've stumbled upon some kind of miracle therapy or cure. Rather, as some previous researchers theorized, most of them were simply misdiagnosed or intentionally diagnosed with ASD for other reasons.  "The present study confirms that ASD diagnoses can and sometimes do change as children mature and overcome delays, and as new information is assimilated by their healthcare providers," said Stephen Blumberg, lead author and an associate director for science at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Partnering with the University of Washington and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the CDC identified five factors that were most common among the children who went on to "outgrow" their diagnosis; these signs make it clear this subgroup was already higher f...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news