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One in 175 children has autism
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AS many as one in 175 primary school children may suffer from autism, 11 times higher than previous estimates.
The findings mean that the cost of education and care of sufferers could be ￡5 billion a year, but researchers said their figures were "an underestimate, if anything". Dr Fiona Scott, a research co-ordinator at the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, said: "We only included children who had a definite clinical diagnosis, so any child that had been statemented as autistic or with autistic spectrum disorders but not diagnosed clinically was not counted."
Previous studies have estimated that five in every 10,000 children aged between five and 11 were autistic, but the new study, of children in Cambridgeshire, puts the rate at 58 in 10,000. Extrapolated across Britain, this suggests that 30,000 primary school children and tens of thousands in other age groups may have clinical autism, an incurable condition which will mean that they will need support for the rest of their lives.
The National Autistic Society describes autism as a "lifelong development disability that affects the way a person communicates and relates to people around them". This includes "difficulty making sense of the world", "repetitive behaviour" and "resistance to change in routine". The most affected "classically" autistic children also have severe learning difficulties and low IQ.
In recent years, however, doctors have come to realise that people on the "autistic spectrum" can have a wide range of ability. People with the related Asperger's Syndrome, for example, are often highly intelligent. The NAS believes that if mildly affected people are included, "autistic spectrum disorders" could affect as many as one in 110 people in the UK.
Some doctors and many parents fear that the incidence of autism has increased since the MMR vaccine was introduced, but the dearth of data from previous years will make it virtually impossible to find out if more children are being affected by autism today than in the past.(SD-Agencies)
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