Course of Behavioral Change in Autism: A Retrospective Study of High-IQ Adolescents and Adults

Change in Autism Symptoms and Maladaptive Behaviors in Adolescents and Adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…At first glance, this last finding might seem contrary to the finding by Piven et al (1996) that repetitive behaviors were less likely to improve when compared to social and communicative measures. However, Piven et al were examining the likelihood of change between early childhood and adulthood.…”

“…Overall, 96.5% met the diagnostic threshold for Autistic Disorder in all three domains based on ratings of childhood symptoms, whereas only 54.8% met all three diagnostic cutoffs based on current ratings, when the sample averaged 21.7 years of age. Several other studies have used a similar design comparing prior versus current ADI-R scores and found a similar overall trend of improvement, although there was variability among studies in the specific pattern of change (Fecteau, Mottron, Berthiaume, & Burack, 2003;McGovern & Sigman, 2005;Piven, Harper, Palmer, & Arndt, 1996). Evidence of this general trend towards modest improvement over the lifespan can also be found in clinical follow-up studies .…”

“…Given the finding of a general pattern of improvement in autism symptoms (Piven et al, 1996;Seltzer et al, 2003), and one study finding a similar pattern of improvement in maladaptive behaviors (Tonge & Einfeld, 2003), we predicted that the prevalence of autism symptoms and maladaptive behaviors would be lower among older individuals. Given the consistent findings of poorer developmental and behavioral outcomes on a variety of measures among those with comorbid mental retardation (Lord & Bailey, 2002;McGovern & Sigman, 2005), we predicted that those with mental retardation (MR) would have more autism symptoms and maladaptive behaviors than those without MR at Time 1.…”

Children with autism demonstrate circumscribed attention during passive viewing of complex social and nonsocial picture arrays

“…Because our subject sample included only a limited range of ages and functional levels, we do not know whether our findings would apply to infants or adults with autism or to persons with autism and comorbid mental retardation. Previous studies have shown that repetitive behaviors tend to remain stable in persons with autism [Piven et al, 1996] and that circumscribed interests are present in both lowand high-functioning persons with autism [Bartak and Rutter, 1976]. Thus, although we anticipate that our findings would apply more generally across the autism spectrum, systematic replication with other ages and with less cognitively able subjects is needed.…”

“…First, intense restricted interests may interfere with learning and the development of adaptive behavior [Koegel and Covert, 1972;Koegel et al, 1974;Lovaas et al, 1971;Varni et al, 1979]. Second, circumscribed interest symptoms do not improve with age as much as other core symptoms of autism [Fecteau et al, 2003;Piven et al, 1996;South et al, 2005]. Finally, parents report that circumscribed, rigid, and repetitive patterns of behavior are the most difficult aspect of autism to deal with on an everyday basis [Mercier et al, 2000;South et al, 2005].…”