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Autism Spectrum Disorders Prevalence

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Autism Prevalence Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) refers to a group of developmental brain disorders that affect a child’s cognitive, behavioral, and social abilities (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There are several forms of ASD that have different impairments and levels of severity. Recent research has been looking at the increased prevalence of ASD and possible causes of this increase. In attempts to determine reasons for the increased prevalence of ASD, Schieve et al. examined the relationship between the risk factors of pregnancy and the increase in ASD. A mathematical model was created to identify and measure if such a relationship existed. In the model, the research looked at each risk factor of pregnancy, individually and in combination, and if there was any evidence that these risk factors impacted an ASD (Schieve et al., 2011). If there was an impact found, they looked at how much of an impact it made. The pregnancy data is from the U.S population-based surveillance datasets. Although the different pregnancy risk factors were associated with ASDs, Schieve et al. determined that the increase in ASD due to pregnancy risk factors is minimal (2011). Another study looked into a different explanation for the increased prevalence of ASD in the population. As compared to the Schieve et al. (2011) study, Kogan et al. (2009) conducted research by using randomly dialed telephone surveys. The research participants consisted children between the ages of 3-17

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