What percent of the population is afflicted by autism?!
Question: What percent of the population is afflicted by autism?
Answers:
Basically, it comes down to 1% of Americans are currently being diagnosed with autism. England has higher rates. The Northern USA has higher rates than the Southern USA. Some countries have much lower rates. It appears that most countries are now afflicted.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm.ht…
A lot of people with autism do have pain and distress. My children are recovered from autism. It's a medical problem.
About 6 in 1000 people have any autism spectrum disorder. Around 1-2 in 1000 have autistic disorder specifically. That's .006% for ASD, .001% - .002% for autism. Some prevalence estimates, however, suggest that nearly 1% of the population may have autism. There are a lot of very different statistics out there, so the bottom line is that nobody knows for sure yet.
Careful with your word choice...terms like "afflicted" imply that autism is a painful, distressing disease, and many people with ASDs don't like these negative portrayals of autism.
On the autism spectrum
If you are asking about the chances of getting autism:
1 out of 80 to 120 males.
1 out of 600 females.
Psychology 101