What is autism? It’s changing.

This week, the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Network, or ADDM, was used to look at the changes across time in co-occuring conditions in people with autism, like ADHD, depression, anxiety, language delay and other developmental delay.  They found the frequency of 8 year olds with autism with these co occurring conditions is increasing.  So is the percent of people with autism with intellectual disability.  The data continues to show that in many people, what was autism 20 years ago, is not the same autism seen today.  While depression and anxiety have already been established as co occurring issues, things like hoarding are just starting to be examined.   These results suggest that co-occurring conditions may be one of the features of autism that can separate people into different groups, to improve intervention and treatment opportunities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30227350

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30178724