The United States estimates that 1 in every 110 children has autism. However, a new study that was recently conducted in South Korea shows drastically different statistics. The authors of the study estimate that 1 in 38 children (2.64% compared to America’s estimated 1%) has autism.
The researchers sampled 55,000 school children in a large metropolitan community of Seoul which is said to be not just representative of South Korea, but industrialized nations in general. They distributed surveys to the parents and teachers of these students and received 23,234 responses. From there, 1214 students screened positive for some form of autism. 286 went on to receive a full clinical evaluation and in the end, 201 were diagnosed with a form of autism.
While these statistics may seem shocking, parents should be aware that this doesn’t necessarily mean that these children are just suddenly developing autism. It may just mean that it goes unrecognized many times but using studies like this helps to make it known that autism is more common than we may think.
