Can you show that the increase in autism in California is not attributable to increased surveillance, increased reporting, or changing diagnostic criteria?
This is a difficult question to answer with certainty. Considerable ongoing attention to autism trends nationwide is obvious from the appearance of frequent articles in the medical literature. The 1999 California Department of Social Services report referenced in slide #6 showing a 210% increase in autism and a 273% increase in autism spectrum disorders over a 10-year period was critiqued by the University of California, Davis M.I.N.D. Institute in 2002 (1). The latter study concluded that this increase cannot be explained by changing diagnostic criteria, past misclassification of autistic children as mentally retarded, or autistic children moving into California from other states. In other words, the researchers concluded that these increases represent real increases in the disease. The Davis study concluded that “some, if not all of the observed increase represents a true increase.” A study subsequently reported in JAMA (2) shows that the incidence of autism is higher than previously
Related Questions
- Can you show that the increase in autism in California is not attributable to increased surveillance, increased reporting, or changing diagnostic criteria?
- How would you propose improving surveillance of autism, learning disabilities, and ADHD to figure out if the rates really are changing over time?
- Is Autism on the Rise?
