Reported numbers of patients with rare diseases based on ten-year longitudinal national disability registries in Taiwan.

Lin et al. (2013) counted every child listed in Taiwan’s national disability registries for ten years. They looked for rare diseases, not just autism. The team wanted to see if the numbers were going up or down.

They pulled records from 2002 to 2011. Preschool and elementary kids showed the biggest jumps. The study did not test a treatment; it simply tracked who was already labeled.

Rare-disease cases rose steadily across the decade. The highest counts sat in the youngest age groups. The paper does not give exact percentages, but the upward line is clear.

Williams et al. (2002) saw the same climb in California autism files. They explain part of the rise as kids switched labels from mental retardation to autism. Jin-Ding’s Taiwan curve looks similar, but covers more diagnoses than autism alone.

Coo et al. (2008) found one-third of British Columbia’s autism surge came from simple re-coding in school computers. Taiwan’s registry uses doctors, not teachers, so the same coding drift is less likely. The two studies agree prevalence is up; they differ on why.

Wang et al. (2020) warn that most Chinese-speaking regions still screen autism with basic checklists. Better detection tools could pull even more kids into the Taiwan registry in future years.

If you write behavior plans in Taiwan, expect more incoming clients with rare or dual diagnoses. Use the registry age peaks to lobby for preschool ABA slots. Any region with better screening will copy this climb, so budget your caseload forecasts up, not flat.