Today, there are many states and countries where the autism rate is significantly growing from day to day, but do you know what are the states with the lowest rates of autism in the US?
Now before we begin, we should explain what kind of disorder is autism. As perfectly defined on Autism Speaks, “Autism, or autism spectrum disorder, refers to a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, as well as by unique strengths and differences.” First signs of autism disorder can usually be spotted in children that are at the age of one to three. Children and later adults that are affected by autism are having a lot of difficulties in their life starting from difficulties in communicating and forming relationships with people.
Early recognized autism in a child could help it adjust to the society and fit better. When it comes to recognizing, there are some symptoms you cannot neglect and if you notice some of them you should immediately contact a doctor. For instance, children or adults with autism have problems communicating like we mentioned above, they have sleep dysfunction, social challenges, problems understanding other people’s feelings, obsessions and pica (eating disorder). Pica is a tendency to eat things that are not food like dirt, chalk or clay. Now, this is often normal when we are talking about small children but it isn’t when we are talking about adults.
According to Autism Society organization, back in 2014, about 1% of the world population was affected by autism and in the same year, 3.5 million Americans were living with this mental condition. However, the prevalence of this disorder is increasing by 6-15% every year and it costs the United States $236-262 billion each year.
When we are talking about the prevalence of autism in the United States, if you are interested, you can also see what are the States With the Highest Rates of Autism in America. Or, if you are interested to see on a world level what countries are the least affected by autism, we recommend you to take a look at our list of 12 Developed Countries with Lowest Autism Rates.
While we were creating our list of states with the lowest rates of autism in the US, we used Los Angeles Times as our source to see what are the states with the lowest autism rates in America. Keep in mind that the research was made on children between 6 and 17 years old. After we collected the information from our source, we sorted our list by autism rates starting from the state with the highest to the state with the lowest autism rate. Even though these are the states with least people affected by this disorder, they are still helping in raising awareness and providing those who are already affected with the best and the most professional help. We included organizations and autism therapists for each state. In order to achieve that, we used Psychology Today Therapists as our source.