SACRAMENTO, Jul 12, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The number of students diagnosed
with autism in California schools has tripled in less than 10 years, from 14,000
to 46,000, healthcare professionals said.
Experts told the San Francisco Chronicle the growth is because of better
diagnosis. Many of the students now classified as autistic would have been
called learning disabled or mentally retarded until recently.
"If you show me 100 kids with autism, 60 percent would not have been diagnosed
that way 10 years ago," said Bryna Siegel, director of the Autism Clinic at the
University of California-San Francisco.
The Autism Advisory Committee of the state Education Department said in a report
issued last fall that California schools have not agreed on a cost-effective way
of delivering appropriate services for autistic children. That leaves school
districts scrambling to meet the requirement that all disabled students must get
services, and digging into regular education budgets to pay for special
education.
The state legislature's Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism said the soaring
numbers are a "public health crisis."
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2008 by United Press International