500% Increase in Autism in New York-New Jersey Region

Time frame: 2000-2016

What could be the cause? What also happened during that time frame?

SNIP
Documented cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the New York–New Jersey metro region increased by as much as 500 percent between 2000 and 2016, with the highest increase among children without intellectual disabilities, according to a Rutgers University study.

This is the opposite of past findings, which have suggested that autism typically co-occurs with intellectual impairment.

“One of the assumptions about ASD is that it occurs alongside intellectual disabilities,” said Josephine Shenouda, an adjunct professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and lead author of the study published today (January 26) in the journal Pediatrics. “This claim was supported by older studies suggesting that up to 75 percent of children with autism also have intellectual disability.”

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“What our paper shows is that this assumption is not true,” Shenouda said. “In fact, in this study, two-in-three children with autism had no intellectual disability whatsoever.”

Using biannual data from the New Jersey Autism Study, researchers identified 4,661 8-year-olds with ASD in four New Jersey counties (Essex, Hudson, Ocean, and Union) during the study period. Of these, 1,505 (32.3 percent) had an intellectual disability; 2,764 (59.3 percent) did not.

Source:

scitechdaily.com/rutgers-finds-shocking-500-increase-in-autism-in-new-york-new-jersey-region/

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