Data released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the prevalence of diagnosed developmental disabilities in children age 3 to 17 increased from 7.4% to around 8.6% during 2019-2021.
Research has shown that the prevalence of developmental disability diagnoses has been increasing in recent years. With nearly one in every 10 children now diagnosed, experts call on parents, health care providers and educators to provide support for children.
“We’re interested in understanding the prevalence of these conditions in the population so that we can make sure we have adequate services available for families and children who need them,” said Benjamin Zablotsky, a statistician for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the new report, according to CBS News.
While overall diagnoses were similar across age groups, Asian children were less likely to be diagnosed and diagnoses for Black children increased. Maureen Durkin, chair of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Population Health Sciences, said that developmental disability conditions such as autism may have been under identified in the past for some demographic groups.
She said in a 2019 commentary that increased diagnoses are “likely a consequence of improvements in child survival, especially improvements that extend to children at high risk of disability due to risk factors such as preterm birth, brain trauma, and congenital conditions such as Down syndrome.
In this sense, a rise in the prevalence of developmental disabilities may be seen as a global indicator of progress in children’s health and pediatric care.”
CDC data also included statistics about some developmental disability subgroups, including intellectual disability and autism. For example, boys were more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (4.66%) compared to girls (1.50%) as well as intellectual disability (2.31%) compared to girls (1.37%). These stats mirror the overall higher percentage of boys (10.76) who were diagnosed with developmental disabilities compared to girls (5.31%).
“The prevalence of intellectual disability increased with age, while the prevalence of other developmental delay decreased with age,” said the centers’ report. Zablotsky said that, in many cases, developmental delay diagnoses are temporary. Some evolve into different diagnoses, while some children age out of their diagnoses altogether.
According to the CDC report, the increase in the prevalence developmental disability “was largely the result of the significant increase in prevalence of any other developmental delay,” a diagnosis that decreased with age and that was more prevalent in boys.
In the U.S., July is Disability Pride month. Organizations such as The Arc work to advocate for people with conditions such as developmental disability, and to celebrate them.
“Disability pride means, you know, moving away from seeing disability as something that’s broken or a burden,” said a woman named Nicole who was featured in a video on The Arc’s Twitter.
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