New Study Finds Higher Rate of Autism

The U.S. has estimated that one in 100 children has autism, but a new study from Korea shows the rate could be much higher: One in 38 children were found to have autism after an intensive study in the middle-class South Korean city of Goyang. Researchers from the Yale Child Center and George Washington University screened every child between the ages of 7 and 12 in the city’s Ilsan district, where nearly 488,590 people live. By contrast, the U.S. tracks autism by relying on the records of health-care and special-education agencies, leaving out children whose parents never sought a diagnosis. Most of the cases in Goyang turned up in students who did not receive special-education or mental-health services.