Autism prevalence in the U.S. has increased from 1 in 36 children to 1 in 31

Autism prevalence in the U.S. has increased from 1 in 36 children to 1 in 31, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network survey published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The new ADDM report was conducted in 2022 across 16 sites in the U.S. and surveyed children aged 8 years born in 2014. This latest autism prevalence is 4.8 times higher than in the first ADDM survey 22 years ago, when prevalence was 1 in 150 children. The increase in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence cannot be solely attributed to the expansion of diagnoses to include higher functioning children. On the contrary, the percentage of ASD cases with higher IQs (> 85) has decreased steadily over the last six ADDM reports to 36.1% in the 2022 survey. Nearly two thirds of children with ASD in the latest survey had either severe or borderline intellectual disability (ID). Minority children were more severely affected. Black, Asian, and Hispanic children in the 2022 survey had higher overall ASD prevalence (3.66%, 3.82%, and 3.30%, respectively) than White children (2.77%), and were also more likely to have a more severe form of autism. Among Black, Asian, and Hispanic children, 78.9%, 66.5%, and 63.9%, respectively, had either severe or borderline ID, compared to 55.6% of Whites. This report exposes a series of critical public health crises, including a persistent rise in ASD prevalence, an alarming escalation in case severity, and increasingly stark disparities across racial and ethnic groups. This also highlights the urgent need for real-time data. A deeply troubling finding in the survey is that among children aged 4 years born in 2018, the overall ASD prevalence rate is 2.93% (1 in 34). Prevalence rates typically rise as children age from 4 to 8 and more cases are diagnosed. Compared to the 8-year-olds in the new report, the 4-year-olds showed wider differences by race and ethnicity. Overall prevalence among Black, Asian, and Hispanic children in this group was 3.5%, 3.11%, and 3.82%, respectively, compared to 2.04% among White children.