Growth of Autistic Children in America

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My thanks go out to all who have helped me complete this study and with whom this project may have not been possible. In particular, my gratitude goes out to friends, facilitator and family for extensive and helpful comments on early drafts. I am also deeply indebted to the authors who have shared my interest and preceded me. Their works provided me with a host of information to learn from and build upon, also served as examples to emulate.

DECLARATION

I, (Your name), would like to declare that all contents included in this thesis/dissertation stand for my individual work without any aid, & this thesis/dissertation has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level previously. It also represents my very own views & not essentially those associated with university.

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ABSTRACT

Introduction: the study takes into the account the reasons behind the prevalence of autism in U.S. special education 1999 to 2009, and how the changes vary among states. Also, emphasis has been given to extensively study the autism prevalence and its variance in U.S. special education cohorts and whether it has been marked by decline in the prevalence of other enrollment categories. Interviews were conducted by doctors to get direct insight into current status and the causes of prevalence in the US about autism, data for analyses came from two other secondary sources - the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Counts of children with disabilities in special education come from the annual Special Education Child Count (SECC) as reported in Annual Reports to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and a website funded by the U.S. Department of Education that pre-publishes the SECC data before the Annual Reports are written.

Summary: First, as predicted, autism prevalence, and changes in prevalence, varied tremendously among states despite a common Federal mandate to create a separate special education reporting category for children with autism. A second key finding related to identification was that many children who have labels of autism in special education are not getting this classification until later elementary or middle school. A third important finding was that the administrative prevalence of autism, as of2003, in the majority of states was below what we would expect based on recent epidemiological estimates of the true prevalence of autism among children ages 3 to 10 in the United States which ranged from 3.4 to 6.8

Conclusion: The findings suggest that the vast majority of children who meet case criteria for an autism spectrum disorder are indeed increasing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION1

History of Autism1

Symptoms of Autism1

Diagnosis of Autism3

Prevalence5

Context of the problem7

Statement of the problem11

Research questions12

Significance of the study12

Research Design and Methodology12

Organization of the study13

Limitations and Suggestion for Future Research15

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE16

Biological basis20

Socio economic status22

School Services for Students with an ASD23

Definition of terms25

CHAPTER III: METHODS27

Sources of Data27

Data Collection and Processing Procedures28

Strengths and Limitations of Special Education Data28

Protection of Human Subjects31

Participants and setting32

Procedures33

Data Analysis33

Ethical Considerations34

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS OF THE ...