Research Uncovers Raised Rate of Autism: six-year project in middle-class South Korean city

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As the definition of autism, now ASDs, continues to be diluted,

prevalence will continue to increase.

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*/Research Uncovers Raised Rate of Autism/*

By CLAUDIA WALLIS

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/health/research/09autism.html

An ambitious six-year effort to gauge the rate of childhood autism in a

middle-class South Korean city has yielded a figure that stunned experts

and is likely to influence the way the disorder's prevalence is measured

around the world, scientists reported on Monday.

The figure, 2.6 percent of all children aged 7 to 12 in the Ilsan

district of the city of Goyang, is more than twice the rate usually

reported in the developed world. Even that rate, about 1 percent, has

been climbing rapidly in recent years --- from 0.6 percent in the United

States in 2007, for example.

But experts said the findings did not mean that the actual numbers of

children with autism were rising...

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Autism rates may be higher than thought/*

In a South Korea study, the first to take a broad look at the prevalence

of autism spectrum disorders, researchers find one case in every 38

children. The incidence may be similar in the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-autism-korea-20110509,0,524140.story

The incidence of autism may be much higher than previously thought in

the United States and elsewhere in the world, according to a rigorous,

comprehensive study of the condition conducted in South Korea,

researchers reported Monday.

In the first study to take a broad-population look at the prevalence of

autism spectrum disorders --- types of autism ranging from severe

symptoms to the milder Asperger's syndrome --- researchers found a rate

of 2.64% among South Korean children. That's 1 in 38 children, a rate

far higher than the estimate of 1 in 110 children for the U.S. by the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....

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