Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share some symptoms with children with other neurodevelopmental disorders (ie, intellectual disability or communication disorders or language disorders). These similarities can make difficult to obtain an accurate diagnosis, which is essential to give targeted treatments to the patients. We aim to verify in our study if children with autistic traits who undergo to Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule had specific clinical diagnosis. Patients and Methods: We selected 73 children tested with ADOS-G or ADOS-2, for the presence of autistic symptoms. The whole sample did not reach the cut-off of ADOS and did not receive the ASD diagnosis, according to DSM-5. Results: Results of this study showed that in order of frequency and early diagnosis, communication disorders (CD), mild intellectual disability (mID) and the attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) represent the most common final clinical diagnosis in children with autistic traits. Conclusion:Our results showed as the CD was the common diagnosis of these children and that often associated with younger age. Moreover, analyses of ADOS domains and the difference of individual items between groups did not show the capacity to differentiate between different neurodevelopmental disorders in terms of differential diagnosis, and this confirms the need for integrating multiple sources of information during the diagnostic process.
BackgroundSleep disorders are one of the most common problems in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, they often tend to be underdiagnosed and incorrectly treated in clinical practice. This study aims to identify sleep disorders in preschool children with ASD and to explore their relationship with the core symptoms of autism, the child’s developmental and cognitive level as well as the psychiatric comorbidities.MethodsWe recruited 163 preschool children with a diagnosis of ASD. The Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) assessed sleep conditions. Multiple standardized tests were used to evaluate intellectual abilities, the presence of repetitive behaviors (through the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised), as well as the emotional-behavioral problems and the psychiatric comorbidities (through the Child Behavior Checklist -CBCL 11/2-5).ResultsThe results showed that poor disorders had consistently higher scores in all areas assessed by the CSHQ and on the CBCL across all domains. The correlational analysis showed that severe sleep disorders were associated with higher scores in internalizing, externalizing, and total problems at the CBCL syndromic scales, and in all DSM-oriented CBCL subscales. Moreover, we found that the association between sleep disorders and restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) is explained by the anxiety-related symptoms.ConclusionBased on these findings, the study recommends that screening for sleep problems followed by early intervention should constitute a routine part of clinical practice for children with ASD.
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