Trends Over Time in the Prevalence of Autism by Adaptive and Intellectual Functioning Levels.
Sarah M Furnier, Ronald Gangnon, Maureen S Durkin
PMID 41457676WHAT IT FOUND
Autism prevalence rose sharply in children with mild or no adaptive challenges, but stayed stable or fell in those with moderate to profound challenges.
Clinicians should expect a growing caseload of autistic children who need support with daily living skills rather than intensive 24-hour care.
Key findings
01The prevalence of autism in children with no significant adaptive challenges increased by 464% between 2000 and 2016, while prevalence in those with moderate to profound adaptive challenges slightly decreased.
02The relative increase in autism prevalence was larger for children without co-occurring intellectual disability than for those with it, regardless of the definition used.
03Adaptive functioning scores provide more granular information about everyday support needs than IQ scores alone, helping to distinguish between children who require minimal support and those needing intensive care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Adaptive test information was missing for a significant portion of the sample (34.5%), requiring multiple imputation which assumes data are missing at random. The study relied on composite adaptive scores, which may underestimate the proportion of children meeting criteria for intellectual disability if they have strengths in some domains but significant deficits in others, such as socialization. Surveillance protocols and case definitions changed over the study period (e.g., DSM-IV to DSM-5), which may affect the comparability of prevalence estimates across years. The sample was restricted to ADDM sites with sufficient IQ data, so it may not be fully representative of the general US population of eight-year-olds.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that the overall rise in autism prevalence reflects a true increase in the number of people born with autism. The data show the increase was concentrated in children with milder adaptive and cognitive profiles, which likely reflects better detection and broader diagnostic criteria rather than a change in the incidence of severe autism.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →