Autism - Stats

Barbara L. Trommer MD Pediatric Neurology . Associate Director, Maimonides Developmental Center . Medical School: Columbia University . Fellowship: Children's Memorial Hospital Northwestern University Medical School Pediatric Neurology

The reason Dr. Shellac wanted me to speak specifically to pediatrics about Autism Spectrum Disorders in a very basic way, is that surveys have shown that 44% of pediatricians are caring for at least 10 patients with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Where do we get our incidence figures which you now know the figure that will be most widely quoted as one in a 150 kids. The CGC organized in the year 2000, the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. This was a records based surveillance program, so it screened records for the presence of autistic behaviors, and was not, therefore, dependent on either physician or an educator to have assigned the label of Autism, and the figure one in a 150 came from data from two time periods. So I can use my data here. In 2000, the survey revealed an incidence of one in 303 eight years olds, and in 2002, one in 94, and that was averaged, so that we came up an incidence of one in a 150, or 6.6 per 1000 kids, which represents a tenfold incidence over 50 years ago. Although it's important to remember that 50 years ago only autistic disorder was targeted. Now we in this country have not broken this 6.6 per 1000 into diagnostic categories. But in Canada, where the overall incidence is very similar, 6.6 per 1000, in fact that breakdown has been done, and it has been shown that autistic disorder accounts for 2.2 per 1000, as per 1 per 1000, and PDD not otherwise specified, 3.3 per 1000 patients.