With publication of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV), standardized criteria for Asperger Disorder, a putative subtype of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, are now available. This paper examines the four cases Asperger originally presented in his seminal paper (1991/1994), using DSM-IV criteria to determine whether a diagnosis of Autistic o...

Maternal mental disorders are known risk factors for child mistreatment. However, little is known about the involvement of maternal developmental disorder traits. The aim of this study was to examine maternal traits related to Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and their possible association with child mistreatment. Maternal PDD and ADHD ...

 54% of referrals were initiated by medical services, 30% by parents directly, 8% from schools, and 6% by a parent’s psychiatrist.  The most frequent problem behaviors reported were: children being difficult to manage/control (43%), temper tantrums (23%), overactive/hyperactive (19%), aggressive or destructive (19), and depression/unhappy mood (16%).  Depression or unhappy mood were more lik...

This study investigated if developmental dyscalculia (DD) in children with different profiles of mathematical deficits has the same or different cognitive origins. The defective approximate number system hypothesis and the access deficit hypothesis were tested using two different groups of children with DD (11-13 years old): a group with arithmetic fact dyscalculia (AFD) and a group with genera...

Autism encompasses a broad range of brain disorders that, by conservative estimates, affects 1 in 500 children. Autism-Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) include Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), Rett Syndrome (which affects only girls) and Autism. Autism Spectrum Disorders impair three main areas of human development: speech, communication and soci...

Thirty-one 8- and 9-year-old children selected for dyscalculia, reading difficulties or both, were compared to controls on a range of basic number processing tasks. Children with dyscalculia only had impaired performance on the tasks despite high-average performance on tests of IQ, vocabulary and working memory tasks. Children with reading disability were mildly impaired only on tasks that invo...

Autistic disorder is a pervasive developmental disorder manifested in the first 3 years of life by dysfunction in social interaction and communication. Many efforts have been made to explore the biologic basis of this disorder, but the etiology remains unknown. Recent publications describing upper gastrointestinal abnormalities and ileocolitis have focused attention on gastrointestinal function...