Table 2.
Participant Medical Histories
| Survey completed by (n = 886) | |
| Primary caregiver of an individual with autism | 87% |
| Adults with autism and their mother/father/childhood guardian | 3% |
| Adult with high-functioning autism >18 years old who doesn't have a guardianship | 5% |
| Grandparent of an individual with autism | 4% |
| Location (by region) | |
| Midwest | 20% |
| Northeast | 22% |
| South | 31% |
| West | 27% |
| Age of participants (years) | |
| Child (<13) | 54% |
| Teenager (13–18) | 21% |
| Young adult (19–30) | 17% |
| Adult (>30) | 8% |
| Gender of participants | |
| Male | 77% |
| Female | 23% |
| Current medical diagnosis | |
| Autism spectrum disorder (this is less severe than a diagnosis of autism) | 21% |
| Asperger's syndrome | 16% |
| Autism | 42% |
| High-functioning autism | 12% |
| No current diagnosis, but he/she was on the autism spectrum previously | 2% |
| Pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) | 7% |
| Developmental history | |
| Normal development, followed by a plateau in development that lasted for several months or longer | 22% |
| Normal development, followed by a major regression and a plateau lasting several months or longer | 13% |
| Normal development, followed by major regression | 21% |
| Abnormal development from early infancy, with no major regression or plateau in development | 34% |
| Other | 10% |
| Regression information | |
| Age of regression (in months) | |
| Average | 19 |
| First quartile | 12 |
| Third quartile | 24 |
| Skills primarily affected by regression | |
| Language | 84% |
| Social interactions | 82% |
| Behavior | 81% |
| Motor skills | 46% |
| Perceived cause of regression (more than one response was allowed) | |
| High fever | 11% |
| Illness | 8% |
| Seizure | 6% |
| Vaccination | 51% |
| Unknown | 45% |
| Other | 15% |
| Number of regressions (if they had a regression) | |
| 1 | 48% |
| 2 | 18% |
| 3 | 11% |
| 4–5 | 6% |
| ≥6 | 6% |
| Perceived triggers for the regressions (if they said they had more than one regression) | |
| High fever | 5% |
| Illness | 8% |
| Seizure | 6% |
| Vaccination | 35% |
| Unknown | 35% |
| Other | 8% |
| Genetic conditions | |
| No genetic testing done | 60.0% |
| Genetic testing normal | 29.4% |
| Angelman's syndrome | 0.2% |
| Down's syndrome | 0.5% |
| Fragile X | 1.5% |
| PTEN | 0.1% |
| Prader-Willi syndrome | 0.0% |
| Rett's syndrome | 0.0% |
| Smith-Lemli-Opits syndrome | 0.0% |
| Tuberous sclerosis | 0.0% |
| Other microarray abnormality | 1.8% |
| Other genetic disorder | 6.5% |
| Metabolic disorders | |
| No metabolic abnormalities | 47.1% |
| No metabolic testing done | 44.8% |
| Mitochondrial disease (due to genetic abnormality) | 1.3% |
| Mitochondrial dysfunction (not due to known genetic cause) | 2.7% |
| Cerebral folate deficiency | 1.7% |
| Carnitine abnormalities | 1.4% |
| Urea cycle defect | 0.2% |
| Purine metabolic defect | 0.4% |
| Sulfation defect | 0.8% |
| MTHFR abnormality | 5.2% |
| Other | 4.4% |
| Rounds of antibiotic usage within first 3 years (10 days = 1 round) | |
| Average | 7.2 |
| Median | 3.0 |
| 0 Rounds | 14% |
| 1 Round | 18% |
| 2 Rounds | 12% |
| 3 Rounds | 16% |
| 4 Rounds | 6% |
| 5 Rounds | 6% |
| 6–7 Rounds | 9% |
| 8–10 Rounds | 8% |
| 11–15 Rounds | 3% |
| 16–20 Rounds | 3% |
| 21+ Rounds | 7% |
| Severity of autism-related symptoms at age 3 | |
| No autistic symptoms | 4% |
| Nearly normal, with only very mild symptoms | 18% |
| Mild autism | 24% |
| Moderate autism | 37% |
| Severe autism | 17% |
| Severity of autism-related symptoms currently | |
| No autistic symptoms | 1% |
| Nearly normal, with only very mild symptoms | 16% |
| Mild autism | 30% |
| Moderate autism | 39% |
| Severe autism | 14% |
PTEN, phosphatase and tensin homolg; MTHFR, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase.