Dr Lisa Cameron – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dr Lisa Cameron on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many children have received a diagnostic assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the last five years.

Alistair Burt

The Department of Health does not collect data on the number of children who have received a diagnostic assessment of Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

The Department for Education collects data on children’s primary special educational need (SEN).

The table below shows those children in schools in the last five years who had a statement or who were on school action plus, whose primary need was autistic spectrum disorder. These figures do not include pre-school children with autism, young people in further education, or children with autism who had a different primary need.

In 2015, the primary need was collected also for those children on SEN support. Including this additional group, 90,775 children were recorded as having a primary need of autistic spectrum disorder in 2015, but given the change in collection methodology, this cannot be compared with the earlier years.