January 20, 2025
- A study published in The Lancet Psychiatry demonstrates the significant global prevalence and nonfatal health strain of ASD, emphasizing its widespread impact. Researchers estimated that 61.8 million individuals worldwide were on the autism spectrum in 2021, with a global prevalence of 788.3 per 100,000 people. Males were more frequently affected, with rates of 1,064.7 per 100,000 compared to 508.1 for females. Autism accounted for 11.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), a measure of health burden, with age-standardized rates ranging from 126.5 to 204.1 per 100,000 people across regions. For individuals under 20, ASD ranked among the top 10 causes of nonfatal health burden.
- New Danish research has found that glucocorticoid steroids, commonly prescribed to pregnant women to prevent premature births and treat conditions like asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, may increase their children’s risk of developing autism by up to 50%. The research, which analyzed data from over 1 million infants born between 1996 and 2016, revealed that prenatal exposure to these drugs is linked to higher rates of autism, intellectual disabilities, ADHD, and anxiety disorders. Of the children studied, more than 300,000 had been exposed to glucocorticoids in the womb, and researchers tracked their development over 15 years using medical records. The findings raise concerns about the widespread use of these medications during pregnancy, as they are often prescribed to aid fetal organ development in high-risk pregnancies.
- A recent study has highlighted the need for primary care providers to adopt tailored approaches when treating individuals with autism who have co-occurring psychiatric and behavioral conditions. Researchers from the Lurie Center for Autism developed evidence-based guidelines for managing sleep disturbances, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and irritability. Key recommendations include using α2-adrenergic agonists instead of stimulants for ADHD in some cases, prioritizing medications like buspirone and mirtazapine for anxiety, and favoring alternatives to SSRIs for depression. This study emphasizes the unique treatment needs of individuals with autism, aiming to improve access to timely, effective care and reduce reliance on overwhelmed autism-specialty clinics.
- Recent research provides the first comprehensive comparison of creativity in individuals with autism and those without, accounting for general cognitive ability and ADHD. The findings revealed that individuals with autism performed comparably to their peers without autism in divergent thinking (DT) tasks but reported greater real-world creative behaviors and accomplishments. However, these measures of creativity were fully explained by co-occurring ADHD, rather than autism itself. ADHD emerged as a stronger predictor of creativity, with traits such as impulsivity and mind-wandering potentially contributing. The study highlights the importance of cross-condition research, as previous inconsistencies in creativity studies involving individuals with autism may result from unmeasured ADHD. The findings caution against generalizing strengths-based approaches to all individuals with autism, advocating instead for tailored interventions targeting subgroups with co-occurring ADHD. These insights emphasize the need for empirical evidence to better identify and support the strengths of neurodivergent individuals in clinical and educational contexts.
