Causes of Autism Spectrum Disorder | Why is It on the Rise?

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Autism (or also familiar called as ‘autistic disorder’) is one of popular complex developmental disabilities. The wide range of symptoms that appear in individuals with autism is the reason why healthcare providers put it at a group of serious developmental problems or often called as ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’ or ASD. In other words, when we are talking about ASD, autism is the most we think! So, what are actually the causes of ASD? And why it appears to be rising?

You might also like to know more about treatment options and symptoms of aspergers (another type of autism spectrum disorder), before continuing! 

In addition, pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) is another boarder term to describe autism. And sometimes it is also used by some healthcare providers to describe /call autism!

Causes of autism spectrum disorder

There is no clearly answer for this issue. The cause of ASD is difficult to be identified so far. But many experts believe that genetic problem and some environmental factors may have contribution to cause ASD.

1. The environmental factors! There are a lot of health problems that occur because of the combination between environmental & genetic factors. This is one of reasons why some experts also believe & think that there may be some environmental factors to put someone or a child at higher risk of getting autism. These environmental factors may include pollutants, viral infections, or else!
2. In fact, autism is more likely to run in families. This suggests, for a woman who has a child with ASD, the chance of having another child with the same condition in her next pregnancy is high. Autism may be something that we descent /inherit! More studies /researches are required to find the clearly answer, particularly about which a kind of gene may be responsible for an inherited autism in a family.

Furthermore, there is opinion that certain vaccines (such as MMR ‘measles-mumps-rubella‘- vaccine) may also trigger autism in children. But some studies have shown that there is no connection between autism and vaccines in children.

Note: however, it is very important for all children to get appropriate vaccines to protect them from certain health problems. If you in doubt to use a certain vaccine for your kids, discuss more with a doctor for more detailed information!

Why does the number of autism spectrum disorder cases tend to increase year by year?

In 2000 - 2002, CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimated that about 1 in 150 American children had autism. In 2004, the estimation increased to be 1 in 125 American children. Then in 2006 also increased drastically to be 1 in 110 American children -- and in 2008 to be about 1 in 88 children had autism! These data mean that there is about 78 percent escalation of autism cases if compared to ten years ago!

The answer of this huge escalation in autism is still not clear. But a number of factors may play role to the increase!

This huge increase may be a true rise in prevalence, or due to the better ability of doctors /healthcare providers to make a diagnosis of autism and the better availability of services associated with autism /ASD so thus more autism cases can be identified! Furthermore, some data show that areas /regions where the high number of autism cases found have more doctors with better at diagnosing.