CDC: Autism prevalence rises to 1 in 31 kids

The number of children with autism has reached an unprecedented high, according to numbers released this week by the federal government, showing that one in 31 children age 8 had the disorder in 2022, or 3.22 percent of those children.

It’s the highest prevalence rate ever. In 2020, the CDC’s biennial prevalence report showed one in 36 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or 2.76 percent of the cohort population. The numbers represent a 16.7-percent increase in two years. But that’s a same-old, same-old story: Autism affected just one in 10,000 children in the 1970s; 1 in 1,000 by 1995; 1 in 150 by 2000; 1 in 88 by 2006; and 1 in 59 in 2018.

Significant differences in autism rates persisted and actually grew over the last prevalence report, the CDC reported. Among children aged 8 years in 2022, ASD prevalence was 32.2 per 1,000 children across 16 sites, ranging from 9.7 in Laredo, Texas, to 53.1 in California. 

ASD was 3.4 times as prevalent among boys (49.2) than girls (14.3), the CDC reported. Overall, ASD prevalence was lower among non-Hispanic white children (27.7) than among Asian or Pacific Islander (38.2), American Indian or Alaska Native (37.5), non-Hispanic black or African American (36.6), Hispanic or Latino (Hispanic) (33.0), and multiracial children (31.9). 

No association was observed between ASD prevalence and neighborhood median household income (MHI) at 11 sites; higher ASD prevalence was associated with lower neighborhood MHI at five sites, the study reported.

Observable disabilities were high among the autism population, the CDC reported.

“Among 5,292 (61.4 percent of 8,613) children aged 8 years with ASD with information on cognitive ability, 39.6 percent were classified as having an intellectual disability,” the report stated. “Intellectual disability was present among 52.8 percent of black, 50.0 percent of American Indian or Alaska Native, 43.9 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander, 38.8 percent of Hispanic, 32.7 percent of white, and 31.2 percent of multiracial children with ASD.”

The median age of earliest known ASD diagnosis was 47 months and ranged from 36 months in California to 69.5 months in Texas (Laredo), the CDC stated.

Actual diagnoses were also well documented, the CDC reported.

“Record abstraction was completed for 15 of the 16 sites for 8,613 children aged 8 years who met the ASD case definition,” the report stated. “Of these 8,613 children, 68.4 percent had a documented diagnostic statement of ASD, 67.3 percent had a documented autism special education eligibility, and 68.9 percent  had a documented ASD ICD-9 or ICD-10 code. All three elements of the ASD case definition were present for 34.6 percent of children aged 8 years with ASD.”

Overall, the agency reported, 66.5 percent of children aged 8 years with ASD had a documented autism test. 

“Use of autism tests varied widely across sites: 24.7 percent (New Jersey) to 93.5 percent (Puerto Rico) of children aged 8 years with ASD had a documented autism test in their records,” the report stated. “The most common tests documented for children aged 8 years were the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Autism Spectrum Rating Scales, Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, and Social Responsiveness Scale.”

In reviewing the results, the CDC reports that ASD prevalence was higher among Asian or Pacific Islander, black, and Hispanic children aged 8 years than white children aged 8 years, continuing a pattern the agency first observed in 2020. 

“Asian or Pacific Islander, black, and Hispanic children aged 8 years with ASD were also more likely than white or multiracial children with ASD to have a co-occurring intellectual disability,” the report states. “Identification by age 48 months was higher among children born in 2018 compared with children born in 2014, suggesting increased early identification consistent with historical patterns.”

Reaction

One of the earliest to react to the findings was Mary Holland, the CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), founded by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Holland said the nation’s medical establishment had failed the nation’s children.

“The 1 in 31 number is a testament to the failure of the medical system,” Holland told CHD reporter Brenda Baletti. “The level of autism among 8-year-olds has been steadily increasing for decades without unbiased, real research into the likely causes. Tens of thousands of parents have come forward in recent decades to say they believe vaccines triggered their children’s autism. Yet mainstream science, media and government regulators have rejected the idea of even examining this observation seriously.”

Holland said Kennedy’s initiative to find the causes of autism by September were praiseworthy.

“The only good news here is that we finally have a president and HHS secretary truly committed to looking at all the potential causes and stopping this downward trajectory that is putting our nation at risk,” she said.

Kennedy also responded to the news, saying the autism epidemic had now reached a scale unprecedented in human history. 

“The autism epidemic is running rampant,” Kennedy said. “One in 31 American children born in 2014 are disabled by autism. That’s up significantly from two years earlier and nearly five times higher than when the CDC first started running autism surveys in children born in 1992. Prevalence for boys is an astounding 1 in 20 and in California it’s 1 in 12.5.”

Kennedy said the Trump administration was pursuing answers to the epidemic as a top priority.

“President Trump has tasked me with identifying the root causes of the childhood chronic disease epidemic — including autism,” he said. “We are assembling teams of world-class scientists to focus research on the origins of the epidemic, and we expect to begin to have answers by September.”

According to Kennedy and the HHS, the increase in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence cannot be solely attributed to the expansion of diagnoses to include higher functioning children, as the many in the medical world insisted, even after this week’s report. 

“On the contrary, the percentage of ASD cases with higher IQs (> 85) has decreased steadily over the last six ADDM reports to 36.1 percent in the 2022 survey,” the agency stated. “Nearly two thirds of children with ASD in the latest survey had either severe or borderline intellectual disability (ID).”

In other words, the proportion of of children with severe and observable ASD is increasing. Given that such children would not have been missed or excluded definitionally in earlier periods, that suggests a real increase in autism rates, the agency stated.

The report exposes a series of critical public health crises, including a persistent rise in ASD prevalence, an alarming escalation in case severity, and increasingly stark disparities across racial and ethnic groups, HHS stated.

“The risks and costs of this crisis are a thousand times more threatening to our country than Covid-19,” Kennedy said. “Autism is preventable and it is unforgivable that we have not yet identified the underlying causes. We should have had these answers 20 years ago.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.