Does Autism Spectrum Disorders Affect Almost 1 Percent of Kids?”
Not until the middle of the twentieth century was there a name for a disorder that now appears to affect an estimated one of every five hundred children, a disorder that causes disruption in families and unfulfilled lives for many children. In 1943 Dr. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital studied a group of 11 children and introduced the label early infantile autism into the English language. At the same time a German scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that became known as Asperger syndrome. Thus these two disorders were described and are today listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (fourth edition, text revision)1 as two of the five pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), more often referred to today as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). All these disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of be
Beth Bullen, a 44-year-old registered nurse in Caledonia, N.Y., is no stranger to autism spectrum disorders, or ASD. Her 10-year-old son has a severe form of autism, while her 13-year-old son has Asperger’s syndrome. Share CDC study shows the disease is more common than previously believed. “How they wrote, how they organized, their handwriting, their delay in crawling and walking — that’s when bells and whistles started going off,” she said. “My oldest son didn’t walk until he was 2, and didn’t crawl until he was 15 months old. My younger son was majorly speech delayed.” So when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on Friday stating that almost 1 percent of American children had ASD, she said she was not shocked by the numbers. Related Did Autism Rates Just Double? Abracadabra! Find Answers on Autism in Magic Businesses Open Doors for Autism Families “I don’t think any of us parents are surprised, because I don’t think what’s common knowledge is that
