Journal of autism and childhood schizophrenia最新文献

A test of handedness in a sample of 20 autistic children and 25 normal children revealed marked differences. The frequency of non-right-handedness in normal children was 12%, whereas it was 65% in autistic children. The significance of this difference for the etiology of autism is discussed.

The study was designed to explore factors related to negativism in autistic children, where negativism was defined as the consistent avoidance of a correct response in a multiple choice discrimination task. A design employed in an earlier study of autistic children (Cowan, Hodinott, & Wright, 1965) was modified to allow a more detailed examination of patterning of the child's responses. A positive relationship was found between use of spoken language and successful performance of the task. However, no child was negativistic. Of the 27 children tested, 18 had a near perfect performance and 9 scored at chance level. A subsequent exact replication of the Cowan et al. method still failed to produce any negativism. A further study using a more difficult discrimination task produced a higher rate of errors but still no negativism. Possible reasons for the failure to replicate are discussed.

The only finding of a metabolic defect in psychotic children which has been replicated in a blind study is the discovery of an elevated efflux of serotonin from the platelets of children with early infantile autism (Boullin, Coleman, & O'Brien, 1970; Boullin, Coleman, O'Brien, & Rimland, 1971). The reported failure of Yuwiler, Ritvo, Geller, Glousman, Schneiderman, and Matsuno (1975) to replicate the Boullin et al. findings is attributable to differences in the method of selecting subjects. The Boullin et al. studies found that only children with classical infantile autism, as diagnosed by the Rimland E-2 check list, manifested the metabolic error. Since only 10% of psychotic children score in the autistic range on the check list, and since all children in the Yuwiler et al. study displayed the syndrome of "perceptual inconstancy," a syndrome inconsistent with "insistence on the preservation of sameness," an integral part of the syndrome of early infantile autism as scored on the E-2 check list, the failure of Yuwiler et al. to find elevated efflux in their sample was to be expected.

On the basis of a search of the literature and extensive inquiries to clinicians, this paper catalogues those cases that contain any information concerning possible neuropathologic changes in cases of childhood autism or psychosis. In all, 33 cases were identified. Twenty-nine cases are from the literature; six of these are sibling pairs. Four cases were folnd by inquiry and have not been reported heretofore. Because of limitations in both the clinical and neuropathologic data in most of the case reports, the paper serves primarily as a source of reference to the 33 cases identified. The information that is available is presented along with some tentative suggestions for further research.

A review of the pertinent literature indicates that autistic children are likely to show normal but delayed development of speech sounds. In contrast, atypical phonological development is suggested by experiments demonstrating that autistic subjects are deficient in their ability to extract the components of structured auditory input. A systematic investigation of the speech sound systems of verbal autistic and mentally retarded children reveals a delay in phoneme acquisition, as well as a relative uniformity of error types in both groups. The autistic subjects, however, differ significantly from the mentally retarded in the phonemic substitutions which they make. Autistic subjects are also characterized by a high correlation between frequency of phonological errors and level of overall language development. The findings are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the autistic group shows a more global delay in language development.

Using a standardized articulation test, comparisons were made between the articulation of autistic children and (1) a group of predominantly subnormal language matched controls; (2) developmental receptive dysphasic controls. The autistic children's articulation was significantly superior to that of both control groups. The findings are discussed in relation to differences in the pattern of language impairment in the three groups.