14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new report whose findings were recently shared with the general public, 1 in 50 kids in the United States is now suffering with an autism spectrum disorder.
Specialists explain that these children either display clear symptoms of autism per se, or need help as a result of their suffering with the so-called Asperger's syndrome (i.e. they have difficulties when made to interact with others and their behavioral patterns are fairly repetitive).
A third category reportedly suffers with other unspecified developmental disorders, USA Today says.
The assumption that 1 in 50 school kids in the United States currently has one such disorder is based on a survey which basically consisted in the researcher's interviewing roughly 100,000 parents living in various parts of the country.
The same source informs us that these interviews mainly revolved around asking these parents whether or not their kids had at one point been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and whether or not they still displayed the symptoms associated with that particular condition.
By the looks of it, this survey also showed that, as previously documented, boys are four times more likely than girls to be affected by an autism spectrum disorder.
Interestingly enough, it was only last year when one other study claimed that "just" 1 in 88 kids in the US developed one of said disorders at some point in their lives.
By the looks of it, this previous study only focused on 8-year-old children whose condition was documented in official reports.
On the other hand, the research whose findings are now making headlines looked at children between the ages 6-17, and based its conclusions on what these kids' parents had to say.
"I don't see any evidence that there's a true increase in the prevalence of autism," argued Roy Richard Grinker, a professor of anthropology currently working with the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Thus, it can be argued that this presumed increase in autism rates is merely a result of the researchers' gaining a better understanding of how to monitor and count its occurrences.