UPI – As many as one in four teens with autism may be undiagnosed, new research suggested.
“Autism is much more prevalent than people assume,” said lead researcher Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark.
The new study is significant, he said, because it’s the first population-based public health look at the prevalence of autism in teens.
For the study, his team reviewed school and health records of close to 4,900 16-year-olds living in four northern New Jersey counties in 2014. The initial review found 1,365 cases that merited a closer look.
Of those, a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was confirmed in 560, according to the study.
From the chosen cases, 384 had been diagnosed at age eight, and 176 met the diagnostic criteria for autism at 16.
Put another way, one in 55 kids in the four New Jersey counties had autism, but one-quarter were undiagnosed until this study took place.
Of those with autism, three in five also had another neuropsychiatric disorder, most often attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the study found.
While this study focused only on one part of New Jersey, Zahorodny said the findings would likely be similar in other regions.
“I’m certain if we were to look carefully in California, Midwest, every part of the United States (US), we would find high rates of autism, not only among children, but adolescents as well,” he said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that the number of kids with autism varies considerably from state to state.
Chief of developmental and behavioural paediatrics Dr Andrew Adesman at the Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, reviewed the findings. He said the numbers may be even higher now.
“New Jersey has always been recognised as being good about identifying and providing services for children and adolescents with ASD,” he said. “And if you look at the prevalence of ASD in New Jersey versus other parts of the country for whatever reason – and we don’t fully understand the reasons – it’s as much as twice as high.”
Adesman noted that the prevalence of autism has increased considerably since 2014, the year researchers used in their study.
“So the numbers that are cited here may be an underestimate of the number of individuals with ASD and adolescents presently,” he said.
