Brief report: autism in individuals with Down syndrome

J Autism Dev Disord. 2005 Oct;35(5):665-73. doi: 10.1007/s10803-005-0010-0.

Abstract

As an off-shoot of a study examining the reliability and validity of an adapted version of the Pre-Linguistic Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (A-PL-ADOS), 13 individuals with Down syndrome with IQs ranging between 24 and 48 were administered the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and the A-PL-ADOS, which are well-validated interview and observational diagnostic measures. Three out of 13 met lifetime criteria on the ADI-R, but none of these three showed behavior that met the criterion for autism on the A-PL-ADOS (although two nearly did so). However, two individuals did meet the A-PL-ADOS criterion and showed behavior that fell only just short of meeting lifetime criteria on the ADI-R. Altogether, 5 individuals with Down syndrome may be considered to show an autism spectrum disorder. Of the remaining 8, some showed a few autistic features, and some showed none. The findings raise both methodological and conceptual issues.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Autistic Disorder / diagnosis
  • Autistic Disorder / epidemiology*
  • Child
  • Down Syndrome / epidemiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Intellectual Disability / diagnosis
  • Intellectual Disability / epidemiology
  • Male
  • Severity of Illness Index
  • Surveys and Questionnaires