Vanderbilt Kennedy Center

Although increasing evidence shows that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be accurately identified during their second year of life, the average age of diagnosis in both Tennessee and across the country remains well above 4 years of age.

A recent study by Vanderbilt researchers of 11 counties in Middle Tennessee revealed that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were nearly 2.5 times more likely than children without ASD to be reported to the Child Abuse Hotline by the age of 8.

A new study examining stress and arousal across pubertal development in youth with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now enrolling participants, thanks to a $2.3 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) has received a one-year $604,000 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to use Vanderbilt University Medical Center electronic medical record information and biological samples to develop a deeper understanding of critical issues in Down syndrome and to provide an infrastructure for future analyses.

“What I learned there — that’s what we’re doing here.”

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorder (TRIAD) is bringing some of Nashville’s most prominent community organizations together to promote acceptance and inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The prevalence of U.S. children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now 1 in 59, according to new estimates released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a significant increase from the 1 in 68 estimate in 2016.