1 in 50

I saw it last night.

The articles started to come through on my Twitter feed.

The new "new" Autism numbers are out.

1 in 50 school aged children have Autism. A survey of parents conducted from 2011 to June 2012. A phone survey of 100,000 parents across the country (not just 14 stupid states like the previous survey). It focused on children age 6-17 years of age whereas the previous study started at the young age of 8 years old. For reference my daughter was diagnosed at 28 months of age. There is no data for very young children like her. Apparently little kids according to the CDC are not being diagnosed like 6 year olds.

From National Autism Society

I know I talked about the numbers they released last year on the blog but I can't seem to find the post. I do remember saying that we (general friends and I) thought the 1 in 88 was to high. uh huh. Are today's numbers more accurate? Maybe. The only way you can get accurate numbers and only true way is that every DR who diagnosis a child on the spectrum has to report it to authorities like they do with a gun shot wound or to have people register. Which I doubt would happen ever.

I can put it in a different perspective for you though. Yesterday I visited a private school for Avery. When they started their program for Autism they had only 6 kids. Ten years later they have room for only 75.  It's a lovely program and I can see her doing wonderfully in this program. I have two more to look at before we start to make a decision.

So I won't rant and rave anymore about the numbers.  Do we need answers? Oh hell yeah. Do we need a federal mandate for insurance coverage? HELL YEAH! So please if you can do two things today. Please take a moment to make a small donation to Organization for Autism Research aka Run for Autism. Secondly please take a moment to sign the petition to get the government to develop and implement a comprehensive national plan for Autism.



Please make a donation to: Run for Autism - Team Avery

Please sign the petition: Develop and implement a comprehensive national plan for Autism


Thank you.