Children with autistic behavior in a self-contained unit in the public schools

The diagnosis of "autism" has been used to encompass a heterogeneous group of children who may differ in etiology, clinical manifestations, prognosis, and needed treatment. This paper presents the results of a comprehensive evaluation, using strict diagnostic criteria, of 33 children comprising the entire population of a self-contained unit for "autistic" children in the public school system of Hillsborough County, Florida. Only five of the children fit the criteria for early infantile autism. Six were diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, two as atypical developmental disorders. Twelve of the 33 showed evidence of neurological or recognized genetic abnormality, five had specific developmental language disorders, and three were severely retarded, cause unknown. Of the 12 children with evidence of neurological disease, five had chromosome abnormalities evident on cytogenetic study, two had high serum Cux++, one had histidinemia, one had maternal rubella, and three had dyskinesis of unknown origin. The heterogeneous nature of this group underlines the need for comprehensive evaluation of the autistic syndrome.