![]() ![]() ![]() Not every one of these professionals has experience with Autism, so you should seek recommendations of knowledgeable professionals in your area from: Girirajan said environmental factors, like exposure to air pollution, probably aren't significant contributors, but they could aggravate underlying genetic risks.Ī 2021 study suggested that viral infections in childhood could also be a risk factor for autism in boys, while other studies have hinted at associations between autism and vitamin D deficiencies, gut inflammation and exposure to toxic chemicals.Medical professionals who may have experience with Autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders include pediatricians (especially developmental pediatricians), neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. "We do see trends over time in parents waiting to have children, so certainly some of the increase could be explained by parental age," said Jennifer Durocher, a clinical associate professor of psychology at the University of Miami. LM Otero / AP fileĪ child can inherit risk factors from one or both parents, and older parents carry higher risks of having children with autism. Megan Krail works with a boy with autism at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2016. Girirajan estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 genes contribute to autism, although just 100 are consistently associated with the disorder. Much of the risk of developing autism - around 83%, according to one analysis - comes from inherited genetic factors. And what happens is you need to use more standardized testing to have a uniform way of identifying children who have similar features," he said.īeyond the improvements in diagnostics, genetic factors could be driving up autism cases on their own, experts said. "You might see a child and you won’t be able to tell if it's ADHD or autism or just mild intellectual disability. That might further contribute to the rising rates. are being screened for autism.īut more kids' getting screened and broader criteria for diagnosing autism also create more opportunities for misdiagnoses, Girirajan said. She estimated that half of kids in the U.S. ![]() However, it's not happening consistently, and even when it happens, the follow-through - where the parents are referred to appropriate services - that's also lacking," she said. "A lot of major pediatricians in most major areas will have universal screening as part of their developmental surveillance for children during their child-well visits. Shenouda and her team recommended that all toddlers be screened for autism during routine checkups at their pediatricians, echoing guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics. "A reduction in disparities has led to increases in autism, but that doesn't mean that the disparities have disappeared," said an author of the new study, Josephine Shenouda, an epidemiologist at Rutgers. However, the gap has narrowed among children with intellectual disabilities. The new analysis showed that among children without intellectual disabilities, Black children were 30% less likely than white children to be diagnosed with autism. Historically, Black and Hispanic children have been diagnosed with autism at lower rates than white children. The new study also found that although racial disparities in autism diagnoses have narrowed, they persist. Such cases may be less obvious to parents, teachers or doctors than cases among kids with intellectual disabilities, who tend to have a harder time performing daily tasks on their own and are more likely to struggle in the classroom. That's most likely because doctors have gotten better at identifying cases of autism without intellectual disability - in other words, children with average or above-average IQs who display characteristics of autism, like impaired social skills, repetitive behaviors and difficulty communicating. Marlaina Dreher walks with her 5-year-old son, Brandon, at the Marcus Autism Center in 2013 in Atlanta. The Rutgers study found that in New York and New Jersey, the share of 8-year-olds diagnosed with autism who don't have intellectual disabilities rose more sharply than the share of those who do - a fivefold increase from 2000 to 2016, compared to a twofold increase. "On the other hand, what we really don't know is: What are the real, clear environmental factors that you should be avoiding?" "We know for sure, for so many years now, that vaccines don’t cause autism," said Santhosh Girirajan, an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies the genetic underpinnings of neurodevelopmental disorders and wasn't involved in the new study.
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