U.S. progress in early detection of children with autism, considered critical to helping them reach their full potential, has been largely erased by assessment failures in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Thursday. Reuters.

Such failures to connect children to the services they need “can have long-term consequences,” Dr. Karen Ramley, director of the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a statement.

Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction and repetitive behaviors that can affect a child’s social interactions, communication, and participation in daily activities.

A couple of reports on this topic were published in the CDC’s weekly report on mortality and morbidity. They were based on an analysis of clinical and educational data from 11 racially and demographically mixed communities in the United States.

In an early intervention report, researchers compared autism detection rates in 4-year-olds in 2020 to 8-year-olds 4 years ago.

In the first three months of 2020, 4-year-olds received significantly more autism assessments and services. When the pandemic broke out in March 2020, “there was a very dramatic decline in these autism identification services,” study author Kelly Shaw of the CDC said in an interview.

“It looks like those improvements in early detection were … kind of wiped out by the pandemic,” she said.

Shaw said he hopes the report will educate communities about the loss and help identify and provide services to these children.