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Prevalence of DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder Among School-Based Children Aged 3–12 Years in Shanghai, China

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Abstract

We estimated the prevalence of ASD in a population-based sample comprising children aged 3–12 years (N = 74,252) in Shanghai. This included a high-risk group sampled from special education schools and a low-risk group randomly sampled from general schools. First, we asked parents and then teachers to complete the Social Communication Questionnaire for participating children. Children who screened positive based on both parental and teachers’ reports were comprehensively assessed. ASD was identified based on DSM-5 criteria. We identified 711 children as being at-risk for ASD, of which 203 were identified as ASD cases. The prevalence of ASD was 8.3 per 10,000, which is likely an underestimate, given that 81.6% of the children diagnosed with ASD had IQs below 40. This is the first report on the prevalence of ASD according to DSM-5 in China.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all parents and teachers of the children for their assistance and cooperation in this study. We thank Liwen Bianji, Edanz Group China (http://www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of this manuscript. This work was supported by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning: Shanghai Municipal Enhancing Public Health 3-Year Prevention and Control of ASD Program, 2011–2013 [Grant No. 11PH1951202], National Human Genetic Resources Sharing Service Platform [2005DKA21300], National Science and Technology Commission [2016YFC1305203], Project of Shanghai Children’s Health Service Capacity Construction[GDEK201708].

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JX, JZ and LS designed the study; JZ, HH, and YY performed the study; JZ and LS drafted the manuscript and performed statistical analyses; LS, JZ, HH and JX contributed to interpretation of the results and critically reviewed the manuscript; LS had primary responsibility for final content. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shijian Liu or Hong Huang.

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Jin, Z., Yang, Y., Liu, S. et al. Prevalence of DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder Among School-Based Children Aged 3–12 Years in Shanghai, China. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 2434–2443 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3507-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3507-z

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