Girls are more likely to have various other conditions, such as anxiety or an eating disorder, if they are diagnosed with autism as a teenager, compared with girls diagnosed as children. The findings may suggest that clinicians miss diagnosing some autistic girls unless they also have co-occurring conditions.
Roughly 30 percent of people with autism plus another condition, such as anxiety, are prescribed three or more psychotropic medicines. And that mix frequently changes from year to year.
In this edition of By the Numbers, we discuss medication shifts in people with autism, outpatient facilities providing autism care and pandemic-induced behavioral changes in autistic children.
More autistic women and girls report daily pain than do men and boys with the condition.
See autism research results distilled into simple visualizations, along with eye-opening statistics and datasets.
About 1.8 percent of schoolchildren in England are autistic, and the prevalence is highest among Black children, at about 2.1 percent.
Autistic children who have difficulty managing their emotions are also likely to take medication and need assistance from emergency responders.
Aripiprazole, an antipsychotic medication marketed as Abilify, eases aggressive behavior in autistic children, but questions remain about its side effects.
People who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times as likely to be autistic as cisgender people are.
Children younger than age 5 and Black and Hispanic children on the spectrum experience the most financial hardships.