Do the Math:1 autistic child for every 175 children in the U.S.
Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have presented the figures for the first-ever national estimate of the prevalence of autism in the United States. According to the CDC, one in every 175 “school-age children — a total of more than 300,000 youngsters” has autism.
The agency’s estimates are based on interviews conducted in 2003 and 2004 with the parents of nearly 98,000 children aged 4 to 17. In two national surveys — the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the National Survey of Children’s Health (NCHS) — parents were asked: “Has a doctor or health-care provider ever told you that [your child] has autism?”
“Estimates of diagnosed autism from these surveys were 5.7 per 1,000 school-age children from the NHIS, and 5.5 per 1,000 school-age children from the NSCH,” said Laura Schieve, an epidemiologist with the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD).
Those ratios correspond to about one in every 181 children and one in every 175 children, respectively, the researchers said. (Autism Affects 1 in 175 U.S. Children, Forbes.com
These findings appear in this week’s issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The CDC’s research also suggests that boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls.
On an average day, Charlie has anywhere from 5 to a dozen 1:1 people helping and teaching him. Multiply 300,000 times 12 and you get the number for how many people are needed to give our children the teaching and care they need.
1,500,000.
3,600,000.
15 opinions for Do the Math:1 autistic child for every 175 children in the U.S.
Ballastexistenz
May 4, 2006 at 5:15 pm
One time I was in a supermarket, with my staff, and someone asked my staff what she was doing there. She said she was working, and pointed to me.
The cashier chuckled and said, “Really funny how it takes all these people to make them so-called ‘independent’, isn’t it?”
A friend later told me I should have asked, “How many people does it take coming through this store every day to ensure your paycheck?”
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 4, 2006 at 5:19 pm
She chuckled?—-so she assumed you didn’t understand what she said?
Camille
May 4, 2006 at 11:10 pm
No way do all those kids, the 1 in 181, need lots of staff or support people. It’s probably 1 in 1000 that needs lots of support. My child never had that many people to help xyr and xe is more typical of the “average’ ASD kid who has PDD,nos.
That is to say the majority of ASD kids have PDD,nos the last time I checked the stats and those kids are most likely not non-verbal or in need of really extensive occupational therapy to learn to eat or go to the bathroom.
A culture should be judged on how well it take care of it’s needy people. This one could do much better. There’s always a sort of “well, if you’d just get off your backside and earn some money we’d let you live…” eugenical drift to discussion of disability.
That survey showed that Hispanic kids are likely being undiagnosed at a lower rate or at older ages.
The general idea of that survey was that it looked like most kids are not getting diagnosed until 6 or older… so how many staff people are working with them if they aren’t diagnosed? If they don’t get dxd until 6 how many staff to they need? Just a speech therapist to iron out some wrinkles in pronunciation, maybe and I suppose some kind of “social skills class” and occupational therapy, maybe. Few parents are going to start 30 hours a week of Lovaas at 7 years old, or am I wrong? Temple Grandin said that that kind of ABA was only for toddlers. I don’t know how it works out for most kids dxd in 2nd grade or older.
Ballastexistenz
May 5, 2006 at 4:40 am
It was a he, and yes he chuckled, and talked like I wasn’t there. That’s pretty standard.
But that kind of comment, and also the assumptions inherent in the nature of the calculations, make me dislike this kind of number games immensely.
How many people’s work does it take most people to get through their day? What if we declared some chunk of those people’s assistance “extra” in comparison to an arbitrary norm, and then concocted numbers based on this and posted them on websites?
How many autistic children are unlike Charlie, as Camille pointed out? Not only that, but how many autistic children are like Charlie, but do not receive (or necessarily even need) the number of people helping them that Charlie gets in a day, because they do not get the same kind of assistance Charlie gets?
And what’s the reason to post these numbers?
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 5, 2006 at 5:34 am
All of those 300,000 children may not need “lots of staff or support people” but that leaves open the question if they might benefit from it.
Numbers drive policy decisions about education and services; as we all know, numbers of ASD children are behind such issues as whether or what is an “autism epidemic.”
Camille, what is your source for the majority of ASD children having PDD-NOS?
In my university teaching, college students have often learned best with 1:1 teaching, when I sit down to help them revise a paper or work on a tough passage of Latin. The best universities and colleges (if we may use US News & World Report’s statistics) have faculty to students ratios of 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, and that does not inclue the many staff at those colleges and universities that help a student. These include Resident Advisors, graduate students, library staff, many Deans, counselors, and custodial staff, to name a few.
In teaching Asperger’s college students, one on one teaching is essential.
Joseph
May 5, 2006 at 7:09 am
Camille is right. You can’t extrapolate from the needs of some autistic children to those of all autistic children. The spectrum is huge. I could point out that there are 2.5 million youngsters with ADHD now. Is this a big deal? It might be for schools, except these kids are drugged so they can be controlled. It’s a big pay-off for drug companies.
The prevalence of mental retardation is at least 2 or 3 times that of autism, and has always been pretty much what it is. Do these kids require any less help?
And frankly, the prevalence of autism is about the same everywhere. I wonder how they manage in third-world countries, for example.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 5, 2006 at 9:48 am
Joseph, what is your source for the prevelance of autism being about the same “everywhere,” especially in countries in other continents such as Africa, or in Latin America? (”Third world country” is often understood to be an expression that reflects on a certain colonializing persepctive towards other countries.)
Please note that I referred to college students as a whole, both “NT” (if I may use that word) and those on the ASD spectrum. All students benefit from one on one teaching.
Ballastexistenz
May 5, 2006 at 9:51 am
Yes, numbers drive policy decisions. The question is which policy decisions? Policy decisions for giving more support to people? Or policy decisions for trying to eliminate a group of people?
Simply saying the numbers, without saying why, can lead people to go “Oh my goodness, we really need more autism prevention.” In fact, that’s the most frequent use of numbers like that that I see.
Bonnie Ventura
May 5, 2006 at 9:56 am
Kristina, until very recently, most autistic kids were not diagnosed and did not receive any additional help or services whatsoever, but we managed to muddle through.
Back then, Aspie college students received very little one-on-one teaching, but many of us got our degrees anyway.
Please consider the implications of a post like this. Right now, there is a great deal of media hype to the effect that autism is a crushing financial burden to school districts and to society in general. This is not going to motivate government officials to allocate billions more in funding to teach autistic children. Instead, it is causing society to treat autism as a plague to be eradicated. Rather than improving our kids’ education, the US government is funding the development of a prenatal test for eugenic abortion, which is expected to be made available by 2015 as discussed here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7013251
Posting alarmist statistics on the cost of educating autistic children will only strengthen public support for eugenics.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 5, 2006 at 10:41 am
We need to speak freely about these concerns because we all need the education, me most of all as both an autism parent and as a professor with autistic students in her classrooms.
We need to talk about eugenics and why “public support” for such could be “[strengthened].”
We need to make it clear that, as Camille writes, “A culture should be judged on how well it take care of it’s [sic] needy people,” and if that means an education and services that can best provide for this needs, that is what is needed.
We need to talk about these things in voices that have yet to be sufficiently heard.
The numbers will continue to be out there in the public domain and we need–as, friends, you all do here–what they entail.
Ian Parker
May 6, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Bonnie wrote: “Kristina, until very recently, most autistic kids were not diagnosed and did not receive any additional help or services whatsoever, but we managed to muddle through.”
Does the historical absence of support make today’s lack of support justifiable? Based on this logic we can justify the lack of assistance for just about anything.
As for Camille’s 1 in 1000 needing lots of support, just about every child I’ve encountered with ASD seems to need more than they have access to, some significantly more. Camille said: “A culture should be judged on how well it take care of it’s needy people. This one could do much better.” Perhaps these families feel the same way.
Autism Vox » Teaching Autistic College Students 1:1
May 7, 2006 at 8:11 am
[...] What kind of supports do autistic students need in college? To get into colllege? In a comment on Do the Math:1 autistic child for every 175 children in the U.S., Bonnie Ventura noted that: Back then, Aspie college students received very little one-on-one teaching, but many of us got our degrees anyway. [...]
Autism Vox » Genetic Testing for Autism Already?
May 15, 2006 at 2:47 pm
[...] In a comment on a previous Autism Vox post, Bonnie Ventura of Aspergian Pride referred to prenatal genetic testing for autism as “eugenic abortion.” [...]
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Oopa Jopa
Oct 11, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Let it be, let it be… What a strange place here.
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