A recent study by Rutgers shows a five-fold surge in autism in the New York-New Jersey area from 2000 to 2016.
Researchers stress though that autism is soaring in many places, not just here. So where is the latest research going? Josephine Shenouda, who wrote the recent study, is an epidemiologist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
“There isn’t a lot of information about how many children start out non-verbal and then by age 8 become verbal or minimally verbal. So that’s what this study will address,” she said.
Shenouda said the results of the new study will be presented in May at the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research.
She said current treatments for autism are going under the microscope.
“The therapy that’s used frequently with autism is ABA, which is behavioral therapy,” she said. “Is it the best therapy? I think the jury’s out on that. There’s more research that needs to be done to really find if this is suitable for all children with autism.”
She said more is also being done to try and chart how well current therapies are working.
“Right now intellectual ability is the best predictor of functional outcomes, but I think more and more researchers in the autism field are looking to identify scales that can actually measure progress over time,” said Shenouda.