Major study in Galway schools to establish how many children have autism [advertiser.ie]
- Published: 16 December 2010
A major national survey is taking place in local primary schools to establish the number of children who have autism.
Some 3,000 children aged six to 11 years have so far been screened as part of the Irish autism prevalence study entitled “Autism Counts”.
Work on the project began here in October and will be completed by February. It is being conducted by Dublin City University’s School of Nursing and is funded by Irish Autism Action.
Galway is one of three regions in the country involved in the project, the others are Waterford and Cork.
Parents of children in the target age groups attending primary and special education schools are being asked to fill in questionnaires as part of the project. Children who score above a certain cut-off point will be invited for further screening.
“As this is a prevalence study high response rates are extremely important,” explains Andrew Boilson, a research associate with Dublin City University’s School of Nursing who is carrying out the fieldwork in Galway. “We invited all national and special education schools to take part and are asking parents to contact us if they have any questions.”
Galway was chosen because the organisers wanted to select regions which were representative in terms of socio-economic status, he says. These areas also needed to have well developed social medical services.
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