Autism-Statistics, Incidence, Prevalance

The Graphing IDEA is a web based graphing tool, which graphs US Special Education disability data, rates, statistics, and administrative prevalence.

Data References

At this time, all of the graphs, charts, and maps use only the following data sources:

• Child Count data are collected annually by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in accordance with Section 618 of Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA defines 13 eligibility categories including autism that data is recorded for. OSEP releases data from 1998 to the most recent data (2006) on their website, however they have provided us data back to 1992. Each state collects it's own data and submits the state data to the OSEP. OSEP uses the data to prepare reports for the US Congress. Autism was added as a separate eligibility category in 1991 (optional) and 1992 (required). Before 1991 autism was recorded in the Other Health Impairment Category (OHI) per OSEP policy. The child count data is used as the numerator in prevalence calculations. In the case of the maps we request the child count data but from the specific states, because the states provide us with more detailed data (ie school district or county).
  Data Reference: https://www.ideadata.org/PartBChildCount.asp
• Birth Data data was downloaded from the CDC website for years 1968 to 2004. We use this data for the denominator in prevalence calculations.
  Data Reference: http://www.cdc.gov
• Public School Enrollment data was download from National Center For Education Statistics website. We use this data for the denominator in prevalence calculations.
  Data Reference: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/bat/

Considerations for Analysis and Interpretation

• States have different eligibility criteria for each disability category. As a result, the proportion of students with a particular disability differs from State to State.
• The child count is a point-in-time count of students served. It is not a cumulative count of all students served throughout the school year. It is likely that States serve more students over the course of a school year than are served on a December 1 (or the last Friday in October).
• Variations in State data from year to year may be the result of policy changes such as revisions to the States' eligibility criteria for particular disabilities.
• The data notes provided in each Annual Report to Congress help to explain year-to-year and State-to-State differences in the number of students served.
• Prior to the introduction of the traumatic brain injury (TBI) and autism categories in 1990, IDEA served students with TBI and autism, but for reporting purposes they were reported in a different disability category.

Features

The Graphing IDEA has support all of the childhood disabilities recorded under IDEA.

• Calculate, graph, and compare the following graph types of all IDEA recorded disabilities including autism in all 50 states and outlying areas.
  • Total Number of cases,
  • Total Number of cases cumulative Growth,
  • Total Number of casese Annual Growth,
  • Total Number of cases Percent of All Disabilities,
  • Number of cases by Birth Year,
  • Number of cases by Age,
  • Administrative Prevalence by Birth Year,
  • Administrative Prevalence by Birth Year and Holding Age Constant (gold standard for identifying changing prevalences)
  • Administrative Prevalence by Age
  • Administrative Prevalence Change (formally crude incidence)
  • Historical Administrative Prevalence by by Birth year
  • Historical Administrative Prevalence by Age
• Allow technical analysis of the number of cases, crude incidence, prevalence and growth of disabilities in over 6 million children.
• Allow the generation of over 10,000,000 possible graph combinations.
• Allow identification of any trends in any disability.
• Allow the general public to engage in collaborative and meaningful dialog about disabilities and disability comparisons.
• Allow downloading of all source data.