Autistic children and young adults are more than twice as likely to die before their 25th birthday, a first of its kind study has found.

Autistic children and young adults are more than twice as likely to die before their 25th birthday, compared to their non-autistic peers, new research shows.

The study, published this week in the international academic journal Autism, tracked 857,944 children born in Aotearoa - including 11,919 autistic children - between 1996 and 2010 using individual-level data from the government’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI).

It found autistic females were four times more likely to die, compared to non-autistic females

This article is actually from last week but I only just came across it.

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    International research had identified medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease, accidents - especially choking and poisoning - and medication complications as leading causes of death among autistic people.

    “The rates of medication are higher amongst autistic children and adolescents than the general population, and given what we’ve seen from international data saying that medication complications are one of the main causes of death in this group, we’d expect it’s similar in the New Zealand group as well,” Thabrew said.

    “Particularly for those who might be more severely autistic, or intellectually impaired, often behaviours are managed using medication, partly because of lack of other services.”