1 in 86: the prevalence of autism among adults

"Autism rate in children has doubled, say doctors" ... "Autism ' more common than thought '" ... "Autism in children ' 10 times higher ' than first thought" ... "Autism at a record high" ... "autism is 25 times more common than what researchers thought" ...This mess of headlines and claims was generated in response to one autism prevalence study, Baird et al. (2006), published in the Lancet.All 56,946 individuals comprising the targeted population cohort in this study are, as of today, the last day in the decade, 18 years of age or older. They were born between July 1, 1990 and Dec 31, 1991 and they are now all adults.Within this cohort, Baird et al. (2006) reported an autistic spectrum prevalence of ~116/10,000. That ' s 1 in 86, and all these autistics, originally assessed as such when 9 to 14yrs old, are now adults.For those to whom this is a matter of pressing importance, Asperger ' s contributed exactly nothing to that prevalence figure. So none of those 1 in 86 assessed-as-autistic now-adults are, at least according to Baird et al. (2006), Asperger ' s.I ' ve previouslyrattledon about Baird et al. (2006), one of the most important autism epidemiological studies to be published to date, and one of the most misrepresented. The authors found that small differences in case definition produced prevalence figures ranging from ~25/10,000 (1 in 400) to ~116/10,000 (1 in 86), a 4.6-fold discrepancy--within the same cohort at the same time, using the same diagnostic criteria, dia...
Source: The Autism Crisis - Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs