Prevalence of Symptoms of Autism among 2-5 Year-Old Children in Bihar, India

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder, a lifelong condition has been characterized with impairments in social life and in communication, both verbal and non-verbal. An early diagnosis for ASD with a reliable and valid tool is both desirable and essential for developing assistant tools and therapies. This paper presents an approach for checking prevalence of severity in symptoms through the Childhood Autism Rating Scale-2 Second Edition. The method used in this study is of descriptive research where the data was already collected and the researchers analysed, studied and interpreted according to the established score measures. The findings showed that 60.6% of the participants were in the mild-moderate autism spectrum range, while 34.6% were in the severe range. It was also found that boys were more prone to have autism than girls. The dominant result was that girls who were showcasing symptoms of autism were most likely to be in the mild-moderate range and in the severe range, while only two participants in the non-autistic range were girls. The study concludes that there can be more variables added to the study including receptive language and expressive language, sensory processing measure and domicile of participants.