Highlighting the negligence of parents and caretakers in handling disabled children, a new study found autistic children at a higher risk of running away or wandering from safe places.
The findings come at a time when one in 88 children in the country is affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD that starts normally at the age three is a developmental disorder resulting in significant social, communication and behavioral changes.
The findings are based on the initiative taken by a team of researchers from Kennedy Krieger Institute's Interactive Autism Network (IAN).
For the study, Dr. Paul Law, senior author and director of the IAN Project and colleagues included 1,218 families having a child with autism and more than 1,000 siblings without autism.
The families filled an online questionnaire containing questions regarding wandering and missing of their autistic child.
Results showed nearly half of the autistic children (49 percent) in the study having wandered off at least once after age four from home (74 percent), school, classroom (29 percent) or a store (40 percent) and the incidents came down as the kids grew old (between four and seven- 46 percent, between eight and 11- 27 percent) compared to their siblings.
The most critical age involved in all these incidents were 5.4, having multiple attempts of running away a day (29 percent) or at least once per week (35 percent). Among the missing children a significant number were found injured in accidents (65 percent) and some nearly drowned (24 percent).
"I knew this was a problem, but I didn't know just how significant a problem it was until I really began to look into it," Law told The New York Times. "This is probably one of the leading causes of death and morbidity for kids with autism."
Another shocking finding was that most of the children eloped were those having lower intellectual and communication scores and having more severe symptoms of autism.
"It's rooted in the very nature of autism itself," Law, told Reuters Health.
"Kids don't have the social skills to check in with their parents, and to have that communication and social bond that most children have when they're approaching a road or at a park."
Findings of the study have been published in Pediatrics.
