Autism Spectrum Disorder encompasses a variety of disabilities in areas such as communication, motor skills and intellectual capacity. (Photo : Google)
According to data from the first national epidemiological investigation of autism in China, four in every 1,000 children, from ages 6 to 12, have autism, reported the Want China Times.
The statistics, which were disclosed at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Shanghai, did not include children who mostly stay at home or those who go to special schools, according to Wang Yi, vice president of the Children's Hospital at Fudan University in Shanghai. The reason for this is that such children have already been diagnosed with autism.
Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD encompasses a variety of disabilities in areas such as communication, motor skills and intellectual capacity. It also includes unusual responses to sensory inputs from light and sound. Significant aspects of life, such as behavior, interests and social interaction, are affected by ASD.
"Such data obtained at the national level for the first time shows that ASD is much more serious than we imagined. The figure is close to the incidence rate of epilepsy among children in China," Wang said.
According to the report, China is not the only country with a high incidence of autism. Last year, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that one in every 68 children in the U.S. had autism. A total of 127,000 children were involved in the nationwide study, which started in May 2013.
Geraldine Dawson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University in North Carolina, cautions parents that babies who develop autism later on in life may have had symptoms of the disorder when they were still about six months old.
