About One in 100 Kids On Autism Spectrum

When actor John Travolta recently revealed in court, apparently for the first time in public, that his late son Jett had been autistic, he confirmed what many had speculated even before the 16-year-old's untimely death in January.

Travolta may have preferred to keep his son's condition private, but researchers rely on other parents of kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to share that information in hopes of getting a handle on just how common ASD is.

Research published this morning in the journal Pediatrics reveals that in the U.S. in 2007 about 1 in 91 children ages 3 to 17 were somewhere on the autism spectrum. That's more than any previous survey has found, and the numbers put some muscle behind the push to better understand and treat the condition.

Researchers spoke by telephone with parents or guardians of more than 78,000 kids in that age group and asked whether a physician or other health-care professional had ever told them their child had autism or any related condition such as Asperger's disorder. Just over 1,400 answered "yes."

About half of those who said their child had ASD characterized it as a mild case. The numbers also supported the current understanding that ASD is far more common among boys than girls and among white children than black or Hispanic kids.

Parents also were asked whether their once-diagnosed child still carried that diagnosis; nearly 40 percent said they no longer did (leaving just over 900 reporting that their child currently had ASD), which suggests that many may have been misdiagnosed from the start. That finding helps demonstrate the difficulty of pinning ASD down; though the numbers in this study suggest the phenomenon has grown, it remains unclear whether that growth means more kids have ASD now than have before or whether we're just getting better at diagnosing these disorders.

Still, knowing that nearly about one percent of U.S. kids have ASD adds urgency to efforts to find ways to treat and even prevent autism. One such major effort is already in the works: The federal government's stimulus package included $92 million for research into the genetics of autism.

In the meantime, knowing the extent of the situation helps us assess -- and plan to accommodate -- the enormous private- and public-health costs associated with ASD. The new study cites earlier research showing that the life-time medical cost of dealing with ASD is $1.6 million; other research cited says ASD-related costs borne by the health-care system rose 142 percent from 2000 to 2004.

So even if you've never met a child -- or an adult -- with ASD, you've got plenty of reason to care about the condition, if not just out of compassion then certainly for concern over costs.