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Health officials say the new number doesn't mean autism is occurring more often. But it does suggest that doctors are diagnosing autism more frequently, especially in children with milder problems. The earlier government estimate of 1 in 88 comes from a study that many consider more rigorous. It looks at medical and school records instead of relying on parents. For decades, autism meant kids with severe language, intellectual and social impairments and unusual, repetitious behaviors. But the definition has gradually expanded and now includes milder, related conditions. The new estimate released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would mean at least 1 million children have autism.
The number is important government officials look at how common each illness or disorder is when weighing how to spend limited public health funds. It's also controversial. The new statistic comes from a national phone survey of more than 95,000 parents in 2011 and 2012. Less than a quarter of the parents contacted agreed to answer questions, and it's likely that those with autistic kids were more interested than other parents in participating in a survey on children's health, CDC officials said.
Still, CDC officials believe the survey provides a valid snapshot of how many families are affected by autism, said Stephen Blumberg, the CDC report's lead author. The study that came up with the 1-in-88 estimate had its own limitations. It focused on 14 states, only on children 8 years old, and the data came from 2008. Updated figures based on medical and school records are expected next year. "We've been underestimating" how common autism is, said Michael Rosanoff of Autism Speaks, an advocacy group. He believes the figure is at least 1 in 50. There are no blood or biologic tests for autism, so diagnosis is not an exact science. It's identified by making judgments about a child's behavior.
Doctors have been looking for autism at younger and younger ages, and experts have tended to believe most diagnoses are made in children by age 8. However, the new study found significant proportions of children were diagnosed at older ages. Dr. Roula Choueiri, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said she's seen that happening at her clinic. Those kids "tend to be the mild ones, who may have had some speech delays, some social difficulties," she wrote in an email. But they have more problems as school becomes more demanding and social situations grow more complex, she added.
Health officials: 1 in 50 school kids have autism
Those Autists have all the luck!
For starters, online connectivity has made it possible for families in remote areas to stay in touch with therapists to get the intervention their kids need. Weve been able to reduce disparities in diagnosis and in access to treatment by having families set up cameras in their homes and set up Skype sessions, said Alison Singer, Co-founder and President of the Autism Science Foundation. While it is not an ideal situation, she says it is a huge improvement to peoples lives. The alternative was that these families just had no access and their parents would rely on what they could read in books, she said. And this is certainly superior to that. I mean we still encourage live therapists, but this is certainly a step up from parents just relying on themselves to provide therapies.
A research Assistant looks over brain scans of a six-year-old at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington as part of an effort to understand what goes wrong inside the brains of children with autism.
But the most direct way that technology has impacted autism intervention is through the use of assistive communication devices, particularly with non-verbal autistic individuals who are able to use very specific types of communication devices with a touchscreen where they touch a picture and then the device will speak the word for them. Robots, too, are reaching across communication barriers that live therapists could not breach. Singer says autistic children who have difficulty socializing with people are interested and attracted to the robots that weve created to work with the live therapists in therapeutic environments. Typically, a concealed human speaks for the robot and directs it. What the studies from Notre Dame showed was that when you use the same therapists interacting live with the child versus that same therapist being the voice and action behind the robot the children responded better to the robot in many instances, she said.
While this is a great tool to work with, Singer warns that technology is not a substitute for human interaction, but a tool to help autistic children gain these skills while still having fun. Another promising new tool is Social Clues, an iPad puzzle-adventure game for autistic children co-created by speech pathologist Karen Okrent and game director Jeremy Bernstein in conjunction with the University of Southern Californians Advanced Games program. Bernstein says the idea for the game was born when Karen and fellow therapist peers could not find a tool that would do the things she wanted. Social Clues was created to fill the void. Bernstein says it is one of few interactive therapy tools built to reinforce and supplement the education autistic kids get in school or with their therapists. The game follows two introverted children, Pete and Kate, whose toys have gone missing and must now venture out into the community and learn to socialize in order to solve the mystery, he said. The games primary focus is teaching person-to-person communication, using elements from several evidence-based therapies.
A child mimics Kaspar the robots two handed sign for hiding during a research project in Hatfield, England.
The game nudges children looking for the toys to communicate and solve problems and provides what Bernstein calls a road map for conversation, a template for children with autism to effectively navigate person-to-person communication. It also keeps track of player choices and progress to help therapists customize intervention. After initial testing with autistic children and clinicians and therapists, the duo teamed up in recent months with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and others to test the game with children of varying cognitive abilities.
Singer says these types of tests are crucial. We always recommend that if an organization wants to make a specific claim about the therapeutic benefits of an intervention, that the interventions need to withstand the rigorous clinical trial, she said. Another relatively new technology gene sequencing is being used to try and root out the cause of autism. Singer says we know now that autism is a genetic disorder. We can identify the genetic disruption in about 40 percent of the cases of kids with autism. Finding the genetic disorder behind autism is slow and painstaking work, she said. But once the genes have been identified, then tests can commence to mimic the disruptions and test intervention types at a faster pace.
New Technologies Bolster Autism Therapies « Techtonics
Those Autists have all the luck!
Those are examples of autistic savants. Very rare, less than one hundred in the world. Some autistics on the high end of the spectrum may lead some semblance of a life. The rest do not have all the luck, they and their families are out of luck.
We could say someone with terminal throat cancer has all the luck because their gaunt body fits into skinny jeans and they get to drink all the milkshakes they want. Of course no one would say that, but why do people say that about autism?
Those Autists have all the luck!
Those are examples of autistic savants. Very rare, less than one hundred in the world. Some autistics on the high end of the spectrum may lead some semblance of a life. The rest do not have all the luck, they and their families are out of luck.
We could say someone with terminal throat cancer has all the luck because their gaunt body fits into skinny jeans and they get to drink all the milkshakes they want. Of course no one would say that, but why do people say that about autism?
