Autism is a severely incapacitating condition that typically appears during the first 3 years of life and is characterized by severe communication and other developmental and educational problems. Children with autism generally demonstrate poor motor skills. Consequently, rehabilitation programs should emphasize fundamental motor skills and patterns of movement, individual games and sports, and...

This study explores if children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) show advances, declines, or plateaus in adaptive behavior over time and the relationship of nonverbal cognitive abilities and autistic behavior on these trajectories. Parents of 55 children with FXS completed the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales ( Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984 ; Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005 ) between 3 and ...

AIM To assess both serum concentration of metallotionein (MT) and anti-metallothionein (anti-MT) immunoglobulin G (IgG) in autistic children with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and controls, and to test the hypothesis that there is an association between the presence of MT, anti-MT IgG, and inflammatory GI disease seen in many children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). SUBJECTS AND METHO...

BACKGROUND Autism is a disorder of early childhood characterized by social impairment, communication abnormalities and stereotyped behaviors. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis deserves special attention, since it is the basis for emotions and social interactions that are affected in autism. AIM To assess basal and stimulated plasma cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone ...

OBJECTIVE Fragile X syndrome, caused by mutations in a single gene of the X chromosome (FMR1), is associated with neurobehavioral characteristics including social deficits with peers, social withdrawal, gaze aversion, inattention, hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, and autistic behavior. However, there is considerable variability in the behavioral and psychiatric problems among children with t...

Autism has been characterized as a behavioral disorder since it was first described by Leo Kanner in 1943. The number of autistic children has increased over the last decade. The incidence of autism was 1 in 10000 before the 1970s and has steadily increased to 1 in 150 in 2008 with a male:female predominance of 4:1. The cause of this epidemic has remained unknown, but several hypotheses have be...

BACKGROUND Social impairments are central to the syndrome of autism. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has been implicated in the regulation of social behavior in animals but has not yet been examined in autistic subjects. METHODS To determine whether autistic children have abnormalities in OT, midday plasma samples from 29 autistic and 30 age-matched normal children, all prepubertal, were analy...