The survey, called the National Survey of Children’s Health, asks parents to respond to questions about the health of the children in their household.
The survey tends to report a higher prevalence of autism than estimates that rely on expert review of health records. The prevalence of autism based on the latter method is 1.69 percent for 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The 2016 survey found that 2.5 percent of children in the U.S. had autism at the time of the survey. The survey also offered a breakdown by race: 2.79 percent in black children and 2.57 percent in white children. The estimate for black children is based on responses from just 80 families, however.
The number of black families in the 2017 survey is even smaller.
For this survey, the researchers looked at the data for children who had ever had an autism diagnosis, not just those who had it at the time of the response. The survey reported a prevalence of 2.86 percent in white children and 2.63 in black children. In this case, the figure for black children is based on survey data from only 38 families with an autistic child.
