Many parents who would never have even heard the term “autism” a decade ago are now experiencing it firsthand. Autism is a confounding, unpredictable neurodevelopmental disorder that covers a broad spectrum of problems including repetitive behaviors, obsessive compulsions, verbal difficulties, and impaired social skills. Severe cases render children nonverbal, unreachable emotionally, and occasional self-abusive. Milder cases are manifested as Asperger’s syndrome, with children being intelligent, fast learners, but with troubled social interactions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that autism affects anywhere from 1 in 500 children to 1 in 166 children in the United States. Those figures are at least 10 times the numbers determined by studies conducted during the 1980s. Because of the steadily increasing numbers of autism diagnoses, parents are becoming more and more concerned and educating themselves about what to look for in their children. As a result of the increase in autism diagnoses, there have been important changes in the medical profession, how parents handle medical issues with their children, and how legislation can help.

Autism typically appears in children before they reach 3 years of age. Some doctors have said that the “terrible two’s” ages have now been replaced by a disorder that really is terrible. Although parents are as anxious as they would be with an epidemic, autism is not contagious. But the randomly vulnerable nature of autism can easily make parents become hopeless, because autism strikes young children without any medical explanation. Because autism is on the rise, parents today are much more likely to either have a child with autism, or know someone who has a child with autism.

For years there has been an ongoing debate among parents and politicians about whether the preservative thimerosal might be one of the causes of autism. Thimerosal is a mercury-based ingredient used in some vaccines throughout the U.S. until the year 2003, when it was removed from most vaccines. It is still used in some pediatric flu shots, but the debate continues to rage. Some parents claim that their children were happy, normally functioning babies and toddlers until they had their vaccines – and then, within days or even within hours, they became withdrawn and unreachable.

Although many parents decided to limit the vaccines their children are exposed to, multiple research studies have failed to find any connection between vaccines and autism. As a result, the FDA, CDC, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development held a news conference earlier this year to reassure parents and reaffirm the fact that vaccines for children do save lives, and there has never been any proven link between vaccines and autism.

The CDC has also launched a public-awareness campaign called “Learn the Signs; Act Early,” to emphasize to parents and caregivers that it is just as important to track the neurological development of a child as it is to track physical and developmental milestones such as sitting up and walking. Pediatricians and parents should monitor a baby’s development in activities such as smiling, reacting to emotions, responding to questions, and using 2- to 4-word phrases. The CDC hopes that the campaign will encourage parents to talk more openly with healthcare providers if they begin to notice what they perceive to be a developmental delay in their child.

According to Nancy Wiseman, the founder of First Signs, Inc., an organization that is focused on early intervention in developmental disorders, the new emphasis being placed on education about autism can potentially help many preschoolers who would otherwise have been delayed in being diagnoses. Learning disabilities, language delays, nonverbal learning disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, vision and hearing problems, metabolic disorders, or mental retardation,” Wiseman says. “Any of these that we can catch in the net now can help that child.”