Derrick Wesley is a doctoral candidate in the field of Education at the St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas. His critical dissertation research has returned stunning facts about the neurodiversity community. We appreciate Mr. Wesley’s hard work and commitment to improving the lives and employment outcomes of our neurodiversity community, and we thank him for the knowledge he shared below. As you read these facts, please do not stop there. We ask that you share them with others because an informed society is a key component to improving the lives of neurodivergent individuals and appreciating the value their differences bring to the world.
- New research shows an increase in prevalence with 1 in 36 children or over 2.7% of 8-year-old children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in 2020. That’s up from a prevalence of 1 in 44 children in 2018 and 1 in 150 children in 2000.
- Over the next decade, an estimated 707,000 to 1,116,000 teens (70,700 to 111,600 each year) will enter adulthood and age out of school-based autism services.
- More than half of young adults with autism remain unemployed and unenrolled in higher education in the two years after high school. This is a lower rate than that of young adults in other disability categories, including learning disabilities, intellectual disability or speech-language impairment.
- Of the nearly 18,000 people with autism who used state-funded vocational rehabilitation programs in 2014, only 60 percent left the program with a job. Of these, 80 percent worked part-time at a median weekly rate of $160, putting them well below the poverty level.
- The cost of caring for Americans with autism had reached $268 billion in 2015 and would rise to $461 billion by 2025 in the absence of more-effective interventions and support across their lifespan.
- For youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), only 34.7% attended college and 55.1% held paid employment during the first 6 years after high school.
- More than 50% of youth who had left high school in the past 2 years had no participation in employment or education.
ASD Health Care Facts
- Preventive and primary medicine is more cost effective than emergency medicine, and prevention and treatment of chronic conditions leads to better health-related quality of life. However, half of children with ASD visit the emergency department for treatment of conditions that could be prevented or cared for in a primary care setting.
- Children and adults with autism are also more likely to have inpatient hospitalizations than their same age peers. Inpatient stays are often longer and more expensive, and children with autism are more likely to have an inpatient stay related to mental health or neurological conditions than their peers.
- Unmet health care needs are more common in people with autism than in people without autism. While people with autism may access primary care, specialty care may be harder to access due to increased cost, limited provider availability, or inability to get needed referrals. Need for specialty visits and therapy are often greater than children with other special health care needs.
- Policies and political views also shape health. Federal and state laws, judicial decisions, and executive orders impact population health by mandating insurance coverage, defining requirements for public program participation, distributing resources, and setting care priorities. Policies and political agendas are an important consideration in the discussion of population health. One example of state policy that impacts children with autism is coverage of applied behavior analysis through Medicaid, which most states now allow.
ASD Income Disparities Facts
Does household income look the same for children with autism versus children without autism?
- More children with autism lived in lower income households, compared to children with other special healthcare needs and children with no special healthcare needs.
- More children with autism from lower-income households had poorer health and higher autism severity (by caregiver report) than their peers from higher-income households.
- More children with autism lived in poor households, compared to children without autism. One in four (25%) children with autism lived in poor households.
- More than half of children with autism (53%) lived in lower-income households, versus 41% of children without autism. Fewer children with autism lived higher-income households than their peers without autism (21% versus 31%).
Does household income look the same for BIPOC children with autism versus white children with autism?
- A greater proportion of children with autism from lower-income households were non-white, lived in a household headed by a single mother, and had at least one sibling with a special health care need.
- Two-thirds of children with autism from lower income households were BIPOC, compared to about half of children with autism from all households.
- A larger percentage of children with autism from lower-income households were Hispanic and a smaller percentage were white relative to the total population of children with autism.
- A larger proportion of lower-income children with autism were BIPOC in the lower-income group relative to the total population of children with autism.
- In particular, 41% of the population of lower-income children was Hispanic, whereas 30% of all children with autism were Hispanic.
- White children comprised 47% of the group of children with autism, but just 36% of the subpopulation of children with autism from lower-income households.
If you are interested in learning more about Mr. Derrick Wesley’s work, please connect and follow him on LinkedIn @ Derrick Wesley.
