Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children and Adolescents with Fragile X Syndrome: Within-Syndrome Differences and Age-Related Changes

摘要

The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised was used to examine diagnostic profiles and age-related changes in autism symptoms for a group of verbal children and adolescents with FXS, with and without autism. After controlling for nonverbal IQ, statistically significant between-group differences for lifetime and current autism symptoms were found for the Communication and Restricted Interests/Repetitive Behaviors domains, but not the Reciprocal Social Interaction domain. Effect sizes for differences in Reciprocal Social Interaction also were smaller than effect sizes for the other domains with one exception. Overall, severity of autism symptoms improved with age for all participants, with the least improvement noted for Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behaviors. FMRP did not account for unique variance in autism symptoms over and above nonverbal IQ.