Rise in Children With Autism

The CDC has released updated statistics on the rate of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which has been steadily on the rise.

One in 36 children was diagnosed with autism by age 8 in 2020, or about 2.8% of children, up from 1 in 44 children in 2018 and 1 in 150 children in 2000 when the CDC first established the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network to track ASD prevalence in the country. This is the eleventh surveillance summary and marks the twentieth year of ASD in multiple communities throughout the US.

Autism was 3.8 times as prevalent among boys (4%) as girls (1%), and for the first time among 8-year-old children, the prevalence was slightly lower among white children than other racial and ethnic groups, which is a reversal of racial and ethnic differences observed in the past.

The CDC partially attributes these patterns to improved screening, awareness, and access to services and calls for a need for “enhanced infrastructure to provide equitable diagnostic, treatment, and support services for all children with ASD.”

The 2020 report included communities in 11  states that participate in the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin). Children included in this report were born in 2012 and lived in surveillance areas during 2020.