How many people know somebody with an ASD?

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Can you make a good guess or opinion on the fraction of people in different countries who know someone with an ASD.
Reminds me of how atheism seems like an "alternative" non-mainstream thing, but I even read the UK had a survey where a lot of people had knew somebody who was an atheist.

Eh, I'm in the UK and I know many atheists - more than I know religious people, even excluding family. I don't attend any explicitly atheist events or groups, either.

I have a nephew with ASD, 6 kids who went to my schools over the course of my education. 2 kids at the summer camp I worked at for the summer. Plus I volunteer in a school base for kids with ASD so maybe 15 kids (12 at any time, plus the ones who were transitioning) plus a few who are in the mainstream. And one definite and one maybe from my LGBT society (they came together, though - so not random).

I don't know about official statistics but it's probably relatively high in the UK.

Well if you go with the 1/100 asd/nt statistic and estimate the average number of friends/acquaintances per person at around 200 (that's a very rough estimate going from the general number of friends people seem to have on Facebook). Then each person should, on average, know 2 people with asd.
But if you have asd, have a child/relative with asd or work with people with asd you will likely meet more people with asd because of that so the average doesn't mean a lot.

I don't have many friends and aqaintances, and the ones I do have aren't really close enough friends to have shared with me that they are on the spectrum. But just going by my own hunches based on what I know of the spectrum, I can speculate that two people I know are almost certainly. Then there are two aquaintances I run into and I feel that they are. A closer friend of mine makes jokes about how everyone tells him he is. I think he is too.

But it's all nothing for certain, at least not to my knowledge. Just people I think are but have not told me, or are but may not know it themselves.

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I don't think I know any. The number of people I know is very small (about 20 people that I know now, 60 maybe if I count people I ever known and still remember) so it would be a huge coincidence if I knew any. Some of my friends show traits but they don't seem autistic and even if they did they wouldn't know it because people my age were not diagnosed in childhood and adult diagnosis is not common.

However in the private Christian school my mom works at (normal, not special ed school, about 150 students) is a boy with diagnosed Asperger.

So I quess the average of 1/100 gets confirmed here if you count me and that boy.

my dad, my nephew, and i all likely aspies. a woman i sing in a choir with and a woman i serve on a committee with both have autistic sons. a long time friend has an autistic nephew

I do.

I have autism (Aspergers). I have a hunch my mother might have mild Aspergers. My father has a huge case of ADHD. My grandmother had a lot of traits that seem like Aspergers- including being very smart and talented in art, crafts, fixing, building things, but also had bad anxiety and was "sick" a lot. IBS maybe? My grandfather was strange and kind of out there in his own world, but I don't know if he was on the spectrum. He had many friends and never seemed anxious or to have trouble with interacting with people. He only couldn't handle it when people became difficult or having outbursts, argumentative or violent. My sister has two autistic sons, one of them is quite severe and can hardly talk. Her daughter is hyperactive. My first grade best friend has an autistic brother. I have a hunch that several of my teen age and beyond friends have mild Aspergers. I call it mild because they seem way more NT-ish than me but have some traits like mine, just less severe and uncontrollable than mine. There is one quiet guy at our church, someone told me he is autistic (he never says anything). A lady at church has a grandchild or some other type relative who is autistic but I don't know who that person is or if they ever go to the church.

Erm, in the UK 25% of people have no religion and 7% refuse to answer when asked about religion. It's basically guaranteed that everyone in the UK will know an atheist.

i've gone through tons of acquaintances and none of them had ASD, or seemed like they had one. so I've never met anyone else on the spectrum.
i'n a town of 85,000 it seems like i'm all alone with my condition. well, i'm thinking my cousin is an aspie. that wouldn't be a surprise.

I had a classmate in second grade who was diagnosed with autism. Had the most violent of meltdowns and did not speak most of the time. When he was heard, he was singing out his sentences, if that makes sense.

In seventh grade, I had another classmate with ASD. She was very nice and had a best friend who she was always seen with. He bought her chocolates and flowers on Valentine's day and it was quite a sweet sight.

In high school, I encountered someone I thought who may have ASD. I was told by a friend that this person had a diagnosis, but I'm not certain. He would come to school early to finish homework he didn't do the night before. I would come to school early to do the same thing. He noticed this was part of my routine, and then made it part of his routine to buy me breakfast the school offered. Every morning. He seemed hurt when I declined, so I just took him up on the offer.

In college, I thought another classmate may have ASD, although he had some bewildering characteristics. He was extremely good looking but girls would recoil when we had class conversations on politics. He was very blunt and in all seriousness believed that women should be held to a higher standard when testing for their driver's license. He seemed to be in a lot of monogamous relationships, and broadly advertised details of his sex life on Facebook. Some professors thought he was a bit off. I'm unsure as to what he had, really.

A girl who lives very near me claims she has it, but we're all doubtful, as she claims to have a bit too many things, often as an excuse for bad behavior. She doesn't seem to want feedback on why certain things she does are rude.

A guy I used to work with when cashiering very briefly told me upfront he had Asperger's. He was nice and very fastidious. Used to be a cameraperson for television news, but told me it was too overwhelming.

Hundreds
I am overcome with awe-tistics

most people I know knows someone, either in their family or someone else in another family.


I would have thought that most people know at least one person or at least know of at least one person