The number of children diagnosed with ASD has and is still growing at an alarming exponential rate.
In the 1950s it was estimated that 1 in 25,000 children was diagnosed with Autism.
In 1970s and 1980s, about one in 2,500 children was diagnosed with ASD.
In 2000, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the prevalence of ASD had reached 1 in 150 children.
In 2004 this figure had reached 1 in 125 children
In 2006 The figure was one in 110 children
In 2008 this figure reached 1 in 88, based on the CDC’s ADDM network of 14 monitoring areas across the US. These ranged from 1 in 208 in under-populated states to one in 47 in populated eastern states.
In March 2013, the US National Health Statistics Report indicated that 1 in 50 children across the US were diagnosed with ASD. In populated US cities this is already 1 in 27 children.
If one extrapolates the trend from these figures as shown in the following graph, we could easily be looking at a 5% incidence in Autism by 2020. That is one child in every 20 children across the US having a diagnosis of ASD by 2020.
