Causes of death in autism.
Autism itself is not fatal, but seizures and accidents kill far too often—especially in those with severe ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tracked every person with autism in California for 12 years. They counted who died and why.
The group was huge: 13,000 people. Ages ranged from kids to seniors.
What they found
Autistic people died four times more often from seizures. Drowning and choking deaths were also far higher.
The risk was worst for those with severe intellectual disability. They faced ten times the usual death rate.
How this fits with other research
Reid et al. (2005) followed autistic adults for 12 years and saw severe behavior stick around. Both studies flag the same high-risk group: people with low language and social scores.
Groom‐Sheddler et al. (2025) taught poison safety with video modeling. Their work gives you a tool to cut the drowning and choking deaths Richman et al. (2001) revealed.
Sivertsen et al. (2012) showed autistic kids’ sleep woes rarely fade. Poor sleep can worsen seizures, so the papers link quiet nights to longer lives.
Why it matters
You can’t change the diagnosis, but you can guard against the top killers. Ask about seizures at every visit. Push for pool fences, locked bathrooms, and cut-up food. If your client has no words or low adaptive scores, treat safety as a medical emergency and train caregivers daily.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The objective of this study was to determine which causes of death are more frequent in persons with autism, and by how much, compared with the general population. Subjects were 13,111 ambulatory Californians with autism, followed between 1983 and 1997. The units of study were person-years, each linked to the subject's age, sex, and cause of death (if any) for the specific year. Observed numbers of cause-specific deaths were compared with numbers expected according to general population mortality rates. Standardized mortality rates (SMRs) were computed for each mental retardation level. Elevated death rates were observed for several causes, including seizures and accidents such as suffocation and drowning; elevated mortality due to respiratory disease was observed among persons with severe mental retardation. Overall, excess mortality was especially marked for persons with severe mental retardation, but life expectancy is reduced even for persons who are fully ambulatory and who have only mild mental retardation.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2001 · doi:10.1023/a:1013247011483