A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday claims that one in 68 kids in the United States have autism.
The new CDC report bases its information off of the educational and health records of eight-year-old children from 11 different states from 2010. At the time the data was collected, these children, some 5,300, represented 9% of all the eight-year-old kids in the country. This is an increase from the one in 88 estimate from 2008, reports CNN.
The amount of eight-year-old kids with autism ranged greatly based on what state was surveyed. New Jersey was on the high end of the scale with one in 45 eight-year-old children having autism and Alabama was on the low with one in 175 children having autism, CNN notes.
For those who don’t know what autism is, Autism Speaks has an answer.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors.
