One-hundred nine children 3-16 years of age diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or Asperger's Syndrome were studied. Children resided in six states in the United States. Using moderation analysis via multiple regression, verbal communication and challenging behaviors and how they interact…

Symptoms of psychiatric disorders have been found to co-occur at high rates in those diagnosed with Autistic Disorder (AD). However, to date, no study has yet examined the developmental trajectory of comorbid psychiatric symptoms across the lifespan within the AD population. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct a cross-sectional…

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a topic receiving great attention from researchers and clinicians in the field. However, many of these studies focus on children or adults, with research on infants and toddlers evincing ASD being virtually non-existent. Even more scant is information pertaining to the assessment of symptoms of comorbid…

Pharmacotherapy is a frequently employed treatment option in the area of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A considerable literature base has developed indicating when these medications should or could be administered. However, research on the potential side effects and cost benefit analysis of these treatments is not well understood at this time.…

Communication skills have been shown to have differing effects on levels of anxiety depending on whether or not a child has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or is typically developing. This article examined whether or not communication deficits differentially affect children with ASD compared to those without ASD. Ninety-nine children with…

Little is known about the symptoms of anxiety in very young children with autism spectrum disorders, particularly comparisons between Autistic Disorder (AD) and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). In the current study, toddlers (i.e., 17-37 months of age) with diagnoses of either AD (N = 159) or PDD-NOS (N = 154)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate symptoms of comorbid disorders in infants and toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Research is scant on symptoms of co-occurring mental health conditions in this very young population. Method: Three hundred and twenty four participants were included in this study. Participants were classified…

Motor skills were assessed in 397 toddlers, and it was demonstrated that atypically developing toddlers exhibited significantly greater motor skill abilities than toddlers with autistic disorder. No significant difference on gross or fine motor skill abilities were found between atypically developing toddlers and toddlers with pervasive…

This study examined the effect of age on challenging behaviors among 167 children, ages 3-14 years, with Autistic Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or Asperger's syndrome. Results of a MANOVA indicated that there were no significant differences between young children, children, and young adolescents on any of the…

The purpose of this paper was to further establish the validity of the Autism Spectrum Disorder-Diagnostic for Children (ASD-DC). The methodology consisted of testing the similarity of findings between the ASD-DC and the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), which proved to be statistically significant for subscale content scores on social,…

Previous studies analyzed the reliability as well as sensitivity and specificity of the Autism Spectrum Disorder-Diagnostic for Children (ASD-DC). This study further examines the psychometric properties of the ASD-DC by assessing whether the ASD-DC has convergent validity against a psychometrically sound observational instrument for Autistic…