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'Epidemic' or Greater Awareness?
STEP Forum Reveals Current State of Autism Knowledge |
By Sarah Schmelling |
“Things have changed. They’ve changed considerably,” said Dr. Roy Richard Grinker, professor of anthropology, human sciences and international affairs at George Washington University, at a recent STEP forum on autism. “And when we look at [current autism] prevalence rates, we can’t compare them to prevalence rates from 20 years ago. We can’t even compare them to prevalence rates from 10 years ago. The methods were different, the concept was different, even today there are different kinds of studies going on.”
The rates he referred to are the hotly discussed recent statistics on autism: that 1 in 150 children are now diagnosed with the spectrum disorder, a much higher percentage
than were diagnosed 15 or 20 years ago. It’s a number that has led to frequent use of the term “epidemic.”
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