California Autism Prevalence Trends from 1931 to 2014 and Comparison to National ASD Data from IDEA and ADDM
Cynthia Nevison, Mark Blaxill and Walter Zahorodny | Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Published 05 July 2018
CDDS autism prevalence has risen dramatically over the last 35 years, increasing from ~ 0.05% in birth year 1970 to nearly 1.2% in birth year 2012. The available data extending back to 1931 show a prevalence of only 0.001% in that birth cohort. Prevalence slowly increased from ~ 1940 to 1980, at which time the first of several change points occurred, in ~ 1980, ~1990, and ~ 2007, each associated with a new uptick in the rate of growth. The CDDS dataset suggests that prevalence has increased by a factor of 25 from birth year 1970–2012 and by as much as a factor of 1000 from birth year 1931–2012.
CDDS continues to exclude most milder cases of autism, despite two different changes to its diagnostic criteria in the last decade. As a result, IDEA autism prevalence in California is substantially higher than CDDS prevalence. ADDM ASD prevalence in turn is substantially higher than IDEA prevalence in 11 out of 15 overlapping states, likely due to a combination of factors, including inclusion of all forms of ASD, access to health and education-based records, and disproportionate sampling of urban over rural areas in some states. While about half of ADDM states have non-significant 8 year-old tracking trend slopes, this is attributable in part to discontinuous or inconsistent data records and differences in completeness, suggesting the need for more consistent sampling strategies when evaluating time trends in overall ASD prevalence. The ADDM network states with the most consistent access to information from multiple (health and education) sources show the most strongly increasing ASD trends. Metropolitan New Jersey, for example, has been the leading indicator of autism prevalence in the ADDM network across the decade, with the most recent prevalence estimate showing ASD prevalence as high as 2.5% among 8 year-olds of the 2004 birth cohort (Zahorodny et al. 2014; CDC 2016).