Help autistic children - call
Updated on 08 July 2007
Campaigners have called on the Government to do more to help autistic children after a study suggested the condition is more common than previously thought.
The Autism Awareness Campaign UK wants to see better education facilities and improved employment opportunities for people suffering from the condition.
Ivan Corea, head of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK, said many autistic people struggle without proper public services and are at the mercy of a "postcode lottery".
"We are urging Gordon Brown to provide a world-class education for all children with autism and Asperger's Syndrome, to provide new specialist autism schools, even Special Needs Academies and autism units equipped with sensory rooms in mainstream primary and secondary schools," Mr Corea said.
"We also want the Government to provide young people with access to further education and higher education, to provide labour market opportunities for people with autism who are able to work."
The call comes after an unpublished study carried out by researchers at Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre found that one in 58 children may have some form of the condition.
The figures, reported in the Observer, mean that as many as 210,000 children under 16 across the country could have autism or a related autistic spectrum disorder. This is well above the existing estimate of one in 100, which has been widely accepted by experts.
Prior to the 1990s, experts estimated the rate of autism in Britain to be around four or five cases per 10,000 people. Since then there have been indications that the true prevalence is much higher. But whether this is due to a genuine increase in numbers of cases, or merely the result of labelling more children as autistic, is not known.
Seven researchers, most of them from the university's Autism Research Centre, studied children at local primary schools.
According to the Observer, two of the academics privately believe that the figure may be linked to the use of the controversial MMR vaccine which has been blamed by some experts for children developing the condition. However five members of the research team reject that view, including team leader Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.
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