By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: March 31, 2009
Confirming the fears of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Health Department agreed Tuesday that young Somali children there appeared to have higher than usual rates of autism.
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Though health officials emphasized that their report was based on very limited data, they concluded that young Somali children appeared to be two to seven times as likely as other children to be in classes for autistic pupils.
Dr. Sanne Magnan, the state health commissioner, said the finding was “consistent with the observations by parents,” who have been saying for more than a year that alarming numbers of Somali children born in this country have severe autism. Somalis began immigrating into the area in the 1990s, fleeing civil war in their homeland. The report made no attempt to explain why the children had autism. Its authors did not examine children or their medical records. They accepted the diagnoses — some by doctors, some by school evaluators — that admitted children to special education classes, and they calculated rates for different races.
They counted only 3- to 4-year-olds, only children in Minneapolis public schools, and only children born in Minnesota. They drew no comparisons with Somalis in other cities.
There have been anecdotal reports of higher rates of autism among Somalis in some American cities but not others, and no formal studies. One small study in Sweden reported high rates among Somali children in Stockholm’s schools.
Idil Abdull, the mother of an autistic child who has long tried to draw attention to the Minneapolis situation, said she was “happy that they said, ‘Yes, there is a problem.’ ”
“I knew they couldn’t count everyone,” added Ms. Abdull, a founder of the Somali American Autism Foundation. “I know there are Somalis whose kids are under the bed and not taken anywhere and kids who go to private schools or charter schools that weren’t counted.
“But at least they didn’t say, ‘No, it’s all in your minds.’ If they had done that, I’d picket in front of their building.”
Istahil Ma’alin, who also has an autistic son, said, “They told us that what our eyes feel, they feel it too.”
Dr. Magnan said possible next steps include extending the study to the Minneapolis suburbs or other cities with Somali populations, or doing a study based on medical diagnoses that would try to determine autism rates across the whole state.
But she added that creating statewide registries was difficult and expensive, even for easier-to-diagnose illnesses like cancer.
She noted that this study found “strikingly low” numbers of Asian and Native American children in the same special education classes. But she cautioned that the reason might not be lower autism rates; instead, parents might not be enrolling their children in those classes, or might be sending them to private schools.
The study was done in consultation with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Coleen Boyle, director of disease centers’ division of birth defects and developmental disabilities, said the study was well done but preliminary, adding, “It highlights the importance of ongoing monitoring.”
There are no plans yet to study autism in Somalis elsewhere or to do genetic studies, Dr. Boyle said.
The C.D.C. monitors autism diagnoses among 8-year-old children in 14 sites around the country, and in 2007 it estimated that about 1 child in 150 had an autism-spectrum disorder.
Rates are roughly the same for whites and blacks, Catherine Rice, another C.D.C. official, said recently. They are lower among Hispanics, but that may be because of poor medical care or cultural reticence, she said. Too few Asians were monitored to make estimates.
None of the 14 sites have large Somali populations, Dr. Boyle said.
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