Stability of the Initial Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder by DSM-5 in Children: A Short-Term Follow-Up Study

Assessing the stability of the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children is important. Only few such studies have been reported from India. We aimed to assess the stability after 18-30 months, of an initial diagnosis of ASD based on DSM-5, in children ≤ 5 years of age using Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition (ADOS-2).

A total of 125 children with ASD diagnosed by DSM-5 at ≤ 5 years of age were followed up at 18-30 months using ADOS-2, which is considered as the 'gold-standard' observational assessment for diagnosing ASD and hence suitable for confirming the stability of the diagnosis.

Similar to previous studies from developed countries, the stability of ASD diagnosis was 80%. There was no significant correlation between gender, socioeconomic status and the stability of the final diagnosis. All the children continued to have some developmental difficulties mainly in the domain of language, attention or social communication.

Our results suggest that DSM-5 can be used for the initial diagnosis ASD to initiate early intervention for children with this condition in resource-limited set-ups. Adequately powered prospective studies with long-term follow-up are needed to confirm our findings.