Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in a total population sample.

By Young Shin Kim, Bennett L. Leventhal, Yun-Joo Koh, Eric Fombonne, E. Laska, Eun-Chung Lim, K. Cheon, Soo-Jeong Kim, Young-Key Kim, Hyunkyung Lee and 2 more. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2011

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OBJECTIVE Experts disagree about the causes and significance of the recent increases in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Limited data on population base rates contribute to this uncertainty. Using a population-based sample, the authors sought to estimate the prevalence and describe the clinical characteristics of ASDs in school-age children. METHOD The target population was all 7- to 12-year-old children (N=55,266) in a South Korean community; the study used a high-probability group from special education schools and a disability registry and a low-probability, general-population sample from regular schools. To identify cases, the authors used the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire for systematic, multi-informant screening. Parents of children who screened positive were offered comprehensive assessments using standardized diagnostic procedures. RESULTS The prevalence of ASDs was estimated to be 2.64% (95% CI=1.91-3.37), with 1.89% (95% CI=1.43-2.36) in the general-population sample and 0.75% (95% CI=0.58-0.93) in the high-probability group. ASD characteristics differed between the two groups: the male-to-female ratios were 2.5:1 and 5.1:1 in the general population sample and high-probability group, respectively, and the ratios of autistic disorders to other ASD subtypes were 1:2.6 and 2.6:1, respectively; 12% in the general-population sample had superior IQs, compared with 7% in the high-probability group; and 16% in the general-population sample had intellectual disability, compared with 59% in the high-probability group. CONCLUSIONS Two-thirds of ASD cases in the overall sample were in the mainstream school population, undiagnosed and untreated. These findings suggest that rigorous screening and comprehensive population coverage are necessary to produce more accurate ASD prevalence estimates and underscore the need for better detection, assessment, and services.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/20dcf739fc5aa20c39f2849d3e60cc23303f657a

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Citations in the corpus

The epidemiology and global burden of autism spectrum disorders (2014, background): “Reported prevalence estimates range widely from 0.02% in Norway (Sponheim & Skjeldal, 1998) to 0.9% in South Korea (Kim et al. 2011) for autistic disorder, and from 0.06% in Venezuela (Montiel-Nava & Pena, 2008) to 1.7% in South Korea (Kim et al. 2011) for other ASDs.”
Why Robots? A Survey on the Roles and Benefits of Social Robots in the Therapy of Children with Autism (2013, background): “In South Korea, the estimate was about 1 in every 38 children [16].”
Reduced Incidence of Prevotella and Other Fermenters in Intestinal Microflora of Autistic Children (2013, background): “There is a world-wide increase in the diagnosis of ASD, which has reached an epidemic level [2].”
Autism risk factors: genes, environment, and gene-environment interactions (2012, background): “Indeed, while the prevalence was estimated at 6 per 1000 in a population of school children in 2005,(52) recent studies have gone so far as to estimate the prevalence to be one child in 38.(59) The last prevalence estimates in the United States, released by the Centers for Disease Control recently,(”
The Experiences of Late-diagnosed Women with Autism Spectrum Conditions: An Investigation of the Female Autism Phenotype (2016, background): “…shown by the observation that in non-referred samples there are between two and three males for each female with ASC (e.g., Constantino et al. 2010; Kim et al. 2011; Zwaigenbaum et al. 2012); whereas in clinical samples ascertained from ASC services, the male-to-female ratio is usually four-to-one…”
The Changing Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2016, methodology): “This estimate was based on a two-stage screening-confirmation approach (99).”
Friendship motivations, challenges and the role of masking for girls with autism in contrasting school settings (2018, background): “The male–female ratio for the prevalence of autism is reported to be 4–5:1 (Kim et al. 2011).”
Autistic girls and school exclusion: Perspectives of students and their parents (2017, background): “However, these ratios fluctuate across the autism spectrum, ranging from 2:1 in those with intellectual disabilities (Holtmann, Bölte, & Poustka, 2007) to 5.1:1 in those without (Kim et al., 2011).”