New York times Article:
click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/health/research/09autism.html
The New York Times has an article about an ambitious six-year effort by Korean researchers to gauge the rate of childhood autism in a middle-class city which has yielded a figure that stunned experts and is likely to influence the way the disorder’s prevalence is measured around the world. What's the number? The study shows that 2.6 percent of all children in the Ilsan district of the city of Goyan (aged 7 to 12). This is more than twice the rate usually reported in the developed world. note that even that rate, about 1 percent, has been climbing rapidly in recent years — from 0.6 percent in the United States in 2007, for example.
“This is a very impressive study,” said Lisa Croen, director of the autism research program at Kaiser-Permanente Northern California, who was not connected with the new report. “They did a careful job and in a part of the world where autism has not been well documented in the past.” So, the study, while comprehensive, doesn't necessarily show an increased rate, but a rate higher than we expected. We have simple looked more closely and found more cases.
The study was published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. It was produced by researchers from the Yale Child Study Center, George Washington University and other leading institutions. Together they sought to screen every child aged 7 to 12 in Ilsan, a community of 488,590, which is about the size of Staten Island.
This new number is in contrast to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States and most other research groups measure autism prevalence by examining and verifying records of existing cases kept by health care and special education agencies. That approach may leave out many children whose parents and schools have never sought a diagnosis.
In recent years scientists have come to see autism as a spectrum of disorders that can include profound social disconnection and mental retardation, but also milder forms, like Asperger’s syndrome, that are pervasive and potentially disabling but that often go undiagnosed.
“From the get-go we had the feeling that we would find a higher prevalence than other studies because we were looking at an understudied population: children in regular schools,” said the lead researcher, Dr. Young-Shin Kim, a child psychiatrist and epidemiologist at the Yale Child Study Center. So, in effect, this study focused on finding children who may have a form of autism that is much less likely to cause school problems, and therefore be less detectable.
The New York Times reports that, "Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, chief of developmental disabilities at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities of the C.D.C., acknowledged that her agency’s records-based approach probably missed some autistic children — especially among the poor, among racial minorities and “potentially among girls” — and said the agency was interested in taking part in a population-based approach like the Korean study. “We believe this will be a way to get as complete an estimate of A.S.D. prevalence as possible,” she said in an e-mail, using the abbreviation for autism spectrum disorder."
The Times article itself goes into good detail about the study and is an easier read than the actual article itself. IT's nice to see decent science reporting that doesn't sensationalize a problem or a statistical change. Click above and read the entire article, there is also a link on the Times available to bring you to the original published research as well.
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For information about services for autism spectrum disorder, including Asperger's Disorder, that I provide in my office, please feel free to check my web page or contact me directly.
Dr.jim Roche
www.relatedminds.com
www.adhdhelp.ca
Dr. Roche is a Registered Psychologist and Registered Marriage and Family Therapist with offices in burnaby and Vancouver, BC. His practice focuses on children, adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD/ADD) and similar behavioural issues. He can be reached at 778.998-7975
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