Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Epidemiology

How common is autism?

Autism spectrum disorders vary greatly in severity. By including children in regular education who received no special help, an epidemiological study has found these disorders to be up to three times more prevalent than thought.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Purchase on Springer Link

Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Kim and colleagues' study2.

References

  1. Fombonne, E. Pediatr. Res. 65, 591–598 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kim, Y. S. et al. Am. J. Psychiatry doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.10101532 (2011).

  3. Le Couteur, A. et al. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 37, 785–801 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Moldin, S. O. & Rubenstein, J. L. R. (eds) Understanding Autism (Taylor & Francis, 2006).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Ehlers, S., Gillberg, C. & Wing, L. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 29, 129–141 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. http://www.who.int/icidh

  7. http://www.DSM5.org

  8. Kanne, S. M. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. doi:10.1007/s10803-010-1126-4 (2010).

  9. http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com

  10. Baron-Cohen, S. et al. Br. J. Psychiatry 194, 500–509 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Risi, S. et al. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 45, 1094–1103 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine Lord.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author receives royalties from diagnostic instruments that were used in the article reviewed, although not for this use (because these were research translations that are used free of charge). The author donates the royalties from all projects in which she is involved, and also clinics, to a not-for-profit agency, Have Dreams.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lord, C. How common is autism?. Nature 474, 166–167 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/474166a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/474166a

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing