Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder with High- Functioning among Children Aged 7–12 Years Old

Abstract

Background. Many people with high-functioning autism are not diagnosed and treated until pre-school or early school years. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder in 7-12 year-old students in Arak city in order to identify these individuals and prevent further harm by early intervention. Methods. This Cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 2864 male and female students in the first to sixth grades of primary schools in Arak who had an IQ of 70 and above, using the ASSQ questionnaire between October 2017 and June 2018. This questionnaire is related to screening for autism spectrum, and its validity and reliability were established by Kasechi at the University of Social Welfare Sciences in 2013 in Tehran. Individuals who scored 22 or higher on the questionnaire were identified as having high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Results. In this study, 2864 elementary school students with an average age of 9.16 years (minimum 7 years and maximum 12 years) in the first to sixth grades were evaluated. 1.7% of students had high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. The age variable with P.value = 0.003 (The highest prevalence is related to the age group of 7 years with a prevalence of 3.1% and the lowest prevalence is related to the age group of 8 and 9 years with a prevalence of 0.7%) and the gender variable with p = 0.002 (1.1% of boy students and 2.3% of girl students) made significant difference in the prevalence of this disorder and the prevalence of the disorder was higher in girls than in boys. Conclusion. High-functioning autism spectrum disorder is a latent disorder with a relatively high prevalence that is higher in girls than boys. Also, this prevalence is not age-related and there is a possibility of symptoms of this disorder at any age.