https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/health/autism-prevalence-cdc/index.html

In this article, author Susan Scutti talks about the sudden increase in diagnoses of children on the autistic spectrum since 2002. This article relates to my academic interest because with the increase of diagnosis the demand for ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapist had increased. The new estimate prevalence of autism in children is 1.7% which is one in fifty-nine children. One of the many reasons why the sudden increase in the diagnoses of children with autism is that more and more parents are waiting longer to have children. It is found that older parents are at a higher risk to have a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Also, with new technology, babies are now able to be born premature and have a high chance of survival. On the other hand, babies born prematurely have a higher risk of autism. In addition, the increase is coming from people that are already diagnosed with a disorder being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder also. Furthermore, the greatest increase in diagnoses is that the criteria to met on the autism spectrum has expanded to include more children since the 1980’s and 1990’s.