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Five-year-old Nicholas Serinese loves to sing along to the music. It's yet another milestone for the autistic youngster who attends pre-k at the YAI Gramercy School in Manhattan.

But with word that one in 91 children is affected by autism, there's is concern that there are not enough services to meet the needs of children like Nicholas.

"YAI is looking to create a school-age program,” said Philip Levy, chief executive officer and president of YAI's National Institute for People with Disabilities. “As autistic children graduate from pre-school program, they need a place to go and there aren't enough."

And the lack of services has Nicholas Serinese's mom very concerned.

"It's scary. It makes you wonder what is going on, what is causing this,” said Sabena Serinese.

But doctors still do not know the cause of autism spectrum disorder, which is a range of neurodevelopment disorders often marked by social impairments, communication difficulties, and particular patterns of behavior. Jennifer Diaz's 13-year-old daughter Blake has autism, and she says she is stunned at how many more children are being diagnosed.

"It's alarming to say the least,” Diaz said. “The first thing that goes through your mind is ‘what's going on and where is this coming from?’”

"We do believe there is a genetic predisposition and more genetic predisposition and more genetic causes are being found,” said Dr. David Kaufman, a pediatric neurologist for YAI. “Perhaps something in the environment could trigger it, but we really don't believe it's the vaccines at this point. It's been pretty well shown that's it's not."

Doctors also say that if more medical centers and schools are not created to the meet the increasing needs of autistic children, then their families will suffer in the long run.

To learn more about YAI's programs for autistic children, go to YAI.org/autism or call
1-866-2-YAI LINK.