On 4/2/2026, A4 received the following information in an email from the Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS).

Hi Bob, hope you are well.

As promised late last year, please find attached an explanation for how SDAC collects and derives the ‘Disability Status’ data item, aka severity. Apologies that this information has taken a while to reach you.

When you apply this explanation to the SDAC 2022 data for autism, you get the following:

• In 2022, there were 290,900 people with autism
• Of the 290,900 people with autism, 212,400 or 73.0% had profound/severe limitations and 9.9% had moderate/mild limitations
• Of the 290,900 people with autism, 75.0% reported autism as the main long-term health condition causing them the most problems and just over one-third (34.5%) reported autism as their only long-term health condition

 < the above statistics are sourced from Autism in Australia, 2022 | Australian Bureau of Statistics >

If you have any further questions, please let us know. You can contact any of us in this email or email the team via disability.statistics@abs.gov.au

Kind regards,

The attached information was also provided about how the ABS measures disability severity. Note: the ABS uses the same severity measurement method for all people with disability; the severity measure that the ABS uses is not specific to autism. 

These data vary enormously from the severity ratings that the NDIS uses ... especially in the context of Foundational Supports and Thriving Kids.