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Can autism, language and coordination disorders be differentiated based on ability profiles?

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Abstract

Children with autistic disorder (AD), mixed receptive-expressive language disorder (RELD), or developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have impairments in common. We assess which abilities differentiate the disorders. Children aged 3–13 years diagnosed with AD (n = 30), RELD (n = 30), or DCD (n = 22) were tested on measures of language, intelligence, social cognition, motor coordination, and executive functioning. Results indicate that the AD and DCD groups have poorer fine and gross motor coordination and better response inhibition than the RELD group. The AD and DCD groups differ in fine and gross motor coordination, emotion understanding, and theory of mind scores (AD always lower), but discriminant function analysis yielded a non-significant function and more classification errors for these groups. In terms of ability scores, the AD and DCD groups appear to differ more in severity than in kind.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Research Centre for Applied Psychology, Curtin University of Technology. We wish to thank the principals and staff of participating schools and clinics for their cooperation, and especially to thank the participating children and parents who made this study possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Curtin University of Technology, Bentley, WA, Australia

    Sarah N. Wisdom, Jan P. Piek & David Hay

  2. School of Psychology, Griffith University, PMB50, Gold Coast Mail Centre, Southport, Queensland, 9726, Australia

    Murray J. Dyck

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Joachim Hallmayer

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  1. Sarah N. Wisdom
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  2. Murray J. Dyck
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  3. Jan P. Piek
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Correspondence to Murray J. Dyck.

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Wisdom, S.N., Dyck, M.J., Piek, J.P. et al. Can autism, language and coordination disorders be differentiated based on ability profiles?. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 16, 178–186 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-006-0586-8

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