Abstract
In 1943, Leo Kanner described 11 children as having come into the world without the usual disposition to make social contact, a condition he called early infantile autism (Kanner, Nerv Child 2:217–250, 1943). In his description of these 11 children, Kanner noted that despite limited interest in the social world, they were highly engaged with nonsocial aspects of the environment and had difficulties with change. In 1944, Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician, described four children who had difficulty integrating socially into groups despite seemingly adequate cognitive and verbal skills, a condition he called autistischen psychopathen im kindesalter, which translates in English to “autistic personality disorders in childhood” (Asperger, Archive fur psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten 117:76–136, 1944). Asperger was apparently unaware of Kanner’s classic description of autism, thus the focus both authors made on the marked social dysfunction is remarkable and speaks to the centrality of social deficits as the defining feature of these disorders.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agresti, A. (1990). Categorical data analysis. New York: Wiley.
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Asperger, H. (1944). Die “autistichen Psychopathen” im Kindersalter. Archive fur psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, 117, 76–136.
Baird, G., Cass, H., & Slonims, V. (2003). Diagnosis of autism. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 327(7413), 488–493.
Barton, M. L., Dumont-Mathieu, T., & Fein, D. (2012). Screening young children for autism spectrum disorders in primary practice. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(6), 1165–1174.
Breiman, L., Friedman, J., Olshen, R., & Stone, C. (1984). Classification and regression trees. New York: Wadsworth.
Carey, B. (2012, January 20). Autism rule will trim many, a study suggests. New York Times.
Campbell, J. M. (2005). Diagnostic assessment of Asperger’s disorder: A review of five third-party rating scales. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(1), 25–35.
Charman, T., Pickles, A., Chandler, S., Wing, L., Bryson, S., Simonoff, E., et al. (2009). Commentary: Effects of diagnostic thresholds and research vs service and administrative diagnosis on autism prevalence. International Journal of Epidemiology, 38(5), 1234–1238.
Chawarska, K., & Volkmar, F. (2005). Autism in infancy and early childhood. In F. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 223–246). New York: Wiley.
Coonrod, E. E., & Stone, W. L. (2005). Screening for autism in young children. In F. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 707–729). Hoboken: Wiley.
Dobson, A. J. (2001). An introduction to generalized linear models. Chapman & Hall.
Everitt, B. (1974). Cluster analysis. London: Heinemann Education Books.
Everitt, B. S., & Hand, D. J. (1981). Finite mixture distributions. London: Chapman & Hall.
Everitt, B. S., Landau, S., & Leese, M. (2001). Cluster analysis (4th ed.). London: Arnold.
Fisher, R. A. (1936). The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems. Annals of Eugenics, 7, 179–188.
Folstein, S., & Rutter, M. (1977). Infantile autism: A genetic study of 21 twin pairs. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines, 18(4), 297–321.
Frazier, T. W., Youngstrom, E. A., Speer, L., Embacher, R., Law, P., Constantino, J., et al. (2012). Validation of proposed DSM-5 criteria for autism spectrum disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(1), 28–40.
Gibbs, V., Aldridge, F., Chandler, F., et al. (in press). An exploratory study comparing diagnostic outcomes for autism spectrum disorders under DSM-IV-TR with the proposed DSM-5 revision. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
Hartigan, J. A. (1975). Clustering algorithms. New York: Wiley.
Hartigan, J. A., & Wong, M. A. (1979). Algorithm AS 136: A K-Means clustering algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C (Applied Statistics), 28(1), 100–108.
Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., & Friedman, J. (2009). The elements of statistical learning: Data mining, inference, and prediction (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.
Heller, T. (1908). Über dementia infantilis: Verblödungsprozeβ im Kindesalter. Zeitschrift für die Erforschung und Behandlung des Jugendlichen Schwachsinns, 2, 17–28.
Hyman, S., & Johnson, J. K. (2012). Autism and pediatric practice: Toward a medical home. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(6), 1156–1164.
Jabr, F. (2012a, January 30). By the numbers: Autism is not a math problem. Scientific American.
Jabr, F. (2012b, January 30). Redefining autism: Will new DSM-5 criteria for ASD exclude some people? Scientific American.
Jones, B. L., Nagin, D., & Roeder, K. (2001). A SAS procedure based on mixture models for estimating developmental trajectories. Sociological Methods & Research, 29, 374–393.
Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.
Klin, A., Saulnier, C., Tsatsanis, K., & Volkmar, F. R. (2005). Clinical evaluation in autism spectrum disorders: Psychological assessment within a transdisciplinary framework. In F. R. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 772–798). Hoboken: Wiley.
Lloyd, S. P. (1957). Least square quantization in PCM. Bell Telephone Laboratories Paper. Published in journal much later: Lloyd, S. P. (1982). Least squares quantization in PCM. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 28(2), 129–137.
Lord, C., & Bishop, S. L. (2009). The autism spectrum: Definitions, assessment and diagnoses. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 70(3), 132–135.
Lord, C., & Corsello, C. (2005). Diagnostic instruments in autism spectrum disorders. In F. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Lord, C., & Jones, R. M. (2012). Annual research review: Re-thinking the classification of autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53(3), 490–509.
Lord, C., Pickles, A., McLennan, J., Rutter, M., Bregman, J., Folstein, S., et al. (1997). Diagnosing autism: Analyses of data from the autism diagnostic interview. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 27(5), 501–517.
Lord, C., Risi, S., Lambrecht, L., Cook, E. H. Jr., Leventhal, B. L., DiLavore, P. C., et al. (2000). The autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic: A standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with the spectrum of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30(3), 205–223.
MacQueen, J. B. (1967). Some methods for classification and analysis of multivariate observations. Proceedings of 5th Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability. University of California Press, 1, 281–297.
Matson, J., Belva, B., Horovitz, M., Kozlowski, A., & Bamburg, J. (2012). Comparing symptoms of autism spectrum disorders in a developmentally disabled adult population using the current DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria and the proposed DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 24(4), 403–414.
Matson, J., Kozlowski, A., Hattier, M., Horovitz, M., & Sipes, M. (in press). DSM-IV versus DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for toddlers with autism. Developmental Neurorehabilitation.
McLachlan, G. J., & Basford, K. E. (1988). Mixture models: Inference and applications to clustering. New York: Marcel Dekker.
McPartland, J. C., Reichow, B., & Volkmar, F. R. (2012). Sensitivity and specificity of proposed DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(4), 368–383.
McQuitty, L. L. (1957). Elementary linkage analysis for isolating orthogonal and oblique types and typal relevancies. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 17, 207–222.
Meredith, W., & Tisak, J. (1990). Latent curve analysis. Psychometrika, 55(1), 107–122.
Milligan, G. W., & Cooper, M. C. (1985). An examination of procedures for determining the number of clusters in a data set. Psychometrika, 50(2), 159–179.
Murtagh, F. (1984). Complexities of hierarchic clustering algorithms: The state of the art. Computational Statistics Quarterly, 1, 101–113.
Muthen, B. O. (1989). Latent variable modeling in heterogeneous populations. Psychometrika, 54(4), 557–585.
Nagin, D. S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2001). Analyzing developmental trajectories of distinct but related behaviors: A group-based method. Psychological Methods, 6(1), 18–34.
Rao, C. R. (1973). Linear statistical inference and its applications. New York: Wiley.
Reilly, C., Campbell, A., & Keran, P. (2009). Screening for Asperger syndrome in school-age children: Issues and instruments. Educational Psychology in Practice, 25(1), 37–52.
Rutter, M. (2005). Genetic influences and autism. In F. R. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 425–452). Hoboken: Wiley.
Rutter, M. (2011). Research review: Child psychiatric diagnosis and classification: Concepts, findings, challenges and potential. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines, 52(6), 647–660.
Rutter, M., & Schopler, E. (1992). Classification of pervasive developmental disorders: Some concepts and practical considerations. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 22(4), 459–482.
Schopler, E., Reichler, R. J., DeVellis, R., & Daly, K. (1980). Towards objective classification of childhood autism: Childhood autism rating scale (CARS). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 10(1), 91–103.
Sibson, R. (1973). SLINK: An optimally efficient algorithm for the single-link cluster method. The Computer Journal (British Computer Society), 16(1), 30–34.
Sokal, R., & Michener, C. (1958). A statistical method for evaluating systematic relationships. University of Kansas Science Bulletin, 38, 1409–1438.
Sorensen, T. (1948). A method of establishing groups of equal amplitude in plant sociology based on similarity of species and its application to analyses of the vegetation on Danish commons. Biologiske Skrifter, 5, 1–34.
State, M. W. (2010). The genetics of child psychiatric disorders: Focus on autism and tourette syndrome. Neuron, 68(2), 254–269.
Székely, G. J., & Rizzo, M. L. (2005). Hierarchical clustering via joint between-within distances: Extending Ward’s minimum variance method. Journal of Classification, 22, 151–183.
Tibshirani, R., Walther, G., & Hastie, T. (2001). Estimating the number of clusters in a dataset via the gap statistic. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 32(2), 411–423.
Vapnik, V. (1996). The nature of statistical learning theory. New York: Springer.
Volkmar, F. R., & Klin, A. (2005). Issues in the classification of autism and related conditions. In F. R. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 5–41). Hoboken: Wiley.
Volkmar, F. R., Sparrow, S. S., Goudreau, D., Cicchetti, D. V., et al. (1987). Social deficits in autism: An operational approach using the vineland adaptive behavior scales. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 26(2), 156–161.
Volkmar, F. R., Klin, A., Siegel, B., Szatmari, P., et al. (1994). Field trial for autistic disorder in DSM-IV. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 151(9), 1361–1367.
Volkmar, F., Chawarska, K., Klin, A., Volkmar, F., Chawarska, K., & Klin, A. (2005). Autism in infancy and early childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 315–336.
Volkmar, F., Chawarska, K., Carter, A., & Lord, C. (2007). Diagnosis of autism and related disorders in infants and very young children: Setting a research agenda for DSM-V. Age and gender considerations in psychiatric diagnosis: A research agenda for DSM-V (pp. 259–270). Arlington: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Wahba, G., Lin, Y., & Zhang, H. (2000). GACV for support vector machines. In A. Smola, P. Bartlett, B. Scholkopf, & D. Schuurmans (Eds.), Advances in large margin classifiers (pp. 297–311). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ward, J. H. Jr. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58(301), 236–244.
Westphal, A., Schelinski, S., Volkmar, F., & Pelphrey, K. (in press). Revisiting regression in autism: Heller’s dementia infantilis. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
Willett, J. B., & Sayer, A. G. (1994). Using covariance structure analysis to detect correlates and predictors of individual change over time. Psychological Bulletin, 116(2), 363–381.
Wing, L. (1981). Asperger’s syndrome: A clinical account. Psychological Medicine, 11(1), 115–129.
World Health Organization. (1992). International classification of diseases: Diagnostic criteria for research (10th ed.). Geneva Switzerland: Author.
Wyk, B. C., Ramsay, G. J., Hudac, C. M., Jones, W., Lin, D., Klin, A., et al. (2010). Cortical integration of audio-visual speech and non-speech stimuli. Brain and Cognition, 74(2), 97–106.
Zwaigenbaum, L., Bryson, S., Lord, C., Rogers, S., Carter, A., Carver, L., et al. (2009). Clinical assessment and management of toddlers with suspected autism spectrum disorder: Insights from studies of high-risk infants. Pediatrics, 123(5), 1383–1391.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendices
Appendix A
ICD-10 Criteria for Childhood Autism (F84.0)
(A) Abnormal or impaired development is evident before the age of 3 years in at least one out of the following areas:
-
1.
Receptive or expressive language as used in social communication
-
2.
The development of selective social attachments or of reciprocal social interaction
-
3.
Functional or symbolic play
(B) A total of at least six symptoms from (1), (2), and (3) must be present, with at least two from (1) and at least one from each of (2) and (3):
-
1.
Qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction are manifest in at least two of the following areas:
-
a.
Failure adequately to use eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gesture to regulate social interaction
-
b.
Failure to develop (in a manner appropriate to mental age, and despite ample opportunities) peer relationships that involve a mutual sharing of interests, activities and emotions
-
c.
A lack of socio-emotional reciprocity as shown by an impaired or deviant response to other people’s emotions; or lack of modulation of behavior according to social context, or a weak integration of social, emotional, and communicative behaviors
-
d.
Lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out to other people objects of interest to the individual)
-
a.
-
2.
Qualitative abnormalities in communication are manifest in at least one of the following areas:
-
a.
A delay in, or total lack of, development of spoken language that is not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through the use of gesture or mime as alternative modes of communication (often preceded by a lack of communicative babbling)
-
b.
Relative failure to initiate or sustain conversational interchange (at whatever level of language skills are present) in which there is reciprocal to-and-from responsiveness to the communications of the other person
-
c.
Stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic use of words or phrases
-
d.
Lack of varied spontaneous make-believe or (when young) social imitative play
-
a.
-
3.
Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities are manifest in at least one of the following areas:
-
a.
An encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that are abnormal in content or focus; or one or more interests that are abnormal in their intensity and circumscribed nature although not abnormal in their content or focus
-
b.
Apparently compulsive adherence to specific, nonfunctional, routines or rituals;
-
c.
Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms that involve either hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole body movements
-
d.
Preoccupations with part-objects or nonfunctional elements of play materials (such as their odor, the feel of their surface, or the noise or vibration that they generate)
-
a.
(C) The clinical picture is not attributable to the other varieties of pervasive developmental disorder; specific developmental disorder of receptive language (F82.0) with secondary socio-emotional problems; reactive attachment disorder (F94.1) or disinhibited attachment disorder (F94.2); mental retardation (F70–F72) with some associated emotional or behavioral disorder; schizophrenia (F20.-) of unusually early onset; and Rett’s syndrome (F82.4).
Source: International Classification of Diseases: Diagnostic Criteria for Research, tenth edition, by the World Health Organization, 1992, Geneva Switzerland: Author. Reprinted with permission
Appendix B
ICD-10 Criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome (F84.5)
(A) There is no clinically significant general delay in spoken or receptive language or cognitive development. Diagnosis requires that single words should have developed by 2 years of age or earlier and that communicative phrases be used by 3 years of age or earlier. Self-help skills, adaptive behavior, and curiosity about the environment during the first 3 years should be at a level consistent with normal intellectual development. However, motor milestones may be somewhat delayed and motor clumsiness is usual (although not a necessary diagnostic feature). Isolated special skills, often related to abnormal preoccupations, are common, but are not required for diagnosis.
(B) There are qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction (criteria as for autism).
(C) The individual exhibits an unusually intense, circumscribed interest or restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (criteria as for autism; however, it would be less usual for these to include either motor mannerisms or preoccupations with part-objects or nonfunctional elements of play materials).
(D) The disorder is not attributable to the other varieties of pervasive developmental disorder; simple schizophrenia (F20.6); schizotypal disorder (F21); obsessive-compulsive disorder (F42.-); anankastic personality disorder (F60.5); reactive and disinhibited attachment disorders of childhood (F94.1 and F94.2, respectively).
Source: International Classification of Diseases: Diagnostic Criteria for Research, tenth edition, by the World Health Organization, 1992, Geneva Switzerland: Author. Reprinted with permission
Appendix C
ICD-10 Criteria for Atypical Autism (F84.1)
(A) Abnormal or impaired development at or after the age of 3 years (criteria as for autism except for age of manifestation).
(B) There are qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction or in communication, or restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (criteria as for autism except that it is not necessary to meet the criteria for number of areas of abnormality).
(C) The disorder does not meet the diagnostic criteria for autism (F84.0).
Autism may be atypical in either age of onset (F84.10) or symptomatology (F84.11); the two types are differentiated with a fifth character for research purposes. Syndromes that are atypical in both respects should be coded 84.12.
Atypicality in age of onset (F84.10)
(A) The disorder does not meet criterion A for autism (F84.0); that is, abnormal or impaired development is evident only at or after the age of 3 years.
(B) The disorder meets criteria B and C for autism (F84.0).
Atypicality in symptomatology (F84.11)
(A) The disorder meets criterion A for autism (F84.0); that is abnormal or impaired development is evident before the age of 3 years.
(B) There are qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interactions or in communication, or restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities (criteria as for autism except that it is not necessary to meet the criteria in terms of number of areas of abnormality).
(C) The disorder meets criterion C for autism (F84.0).
(D) The disorder does not fully meet criterion B for autism (F84.0).
Atypicality in both age of onset and symptomatology (F84.12)
(A) The disorder does not meet criterion A for autism (F84.0); that is abnormal or impaired development is evident only at or after the age of 3 years.
(B) There are qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interactions or in communication, or restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities (criteria as for autism except that it is not necessary to meet the criteria in terms of number of areas of abnormality).
(C) The disorder meets criterion C for autism (F84.0).
(D) The disorder does not fully meet criterion B for autism (F84.0).
Source: International Classification of Diseases: Diagnostic Criteria for Research, tenth edition, by the World Health Organization, 1992, Geneva Switzerland: Author. Reprinted with permission
Appendix D
ICD-10 Criteria for Rett’s syndrome (F84.2)
(A) There is an apparently normal prenatal and perinatal period and apparently normal psychomotor development through the first 5 months and normal head circumference at birth.
(B) There is deceleration of head growth between 5 months and 4 years and loss of acquired purposeful hand skills between 5 and 30 months of age that is associated with concurrent communication dysfunction and impaired social interactions and appearance of poorly coordinated/unstable gait and/or trunk movements.
(C) There is severe impairment of expressive and receptive language, together with severe psychomotor retardation.
(D) There are stereotyped midline hand movements (such as hand wringing or “hand-washing”) with an onset at or after the time that purposeful hand movements are lost.
Source: International Classification of Diseases: Diagnostic Criteria for Research, tenth edition, by the World Health Organization, 1992, Geneva Switzerland: Author. Reprinted with permission
Appendix E
ICD-10 Criteria for Other Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (F84.3)
(A) Development that is apparently normal up to the age of at least 2 years. The presence of normal age-appropriate skills in communication, social relationships, play, and adaptive behavior at age 2 years or later is required for diagnosis.
(B) There is a definite loss of previously acquired skills at about the time of onset of the disorder. The diagnosis requires a clinically significant loss of skills (not just a failure to use them in certain situations) in at least two out of the following areas:
-
1.
Expressive or receptive language
-
2.
Play
-
3.
Social skills or adaptive behavior
-
4.
Bowel or bladder control
-
5.
Motor skills
(C) Qualitatively abnormal social functioning is manifest in at least two of the following areas:
-
1.
Qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction (of the type defined for autism)
-
2.
Qualitative abnormalities in communication (of the type defined for autism)
-
3.
Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities including motor stereotypies and mannerisms
-
4.
A general loss of interest in objects and in the environment
(D) The disorder is not attributable to the other varieties of pervasive developmental disorder; acquired aphasia with epilepsy; selective mutism (F94.0); Rett’s syndrome (F84.2), or schizophrenia (F20.-).
Source: International Classification of Diseases: Diagnostic Criteria for Research, tenth edition, by the World Health Organization, 1992, Geneva Switzerland: Author. Reprinted with permission
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reichow, B., Campbell, D., Volkmar, F. (2014). Autism Spectrum Disorders: Several Disorders on a Continuum or One?. In: Tarbox, J., Dixon, D., Sturmey, P., Matson, J. (eds) Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Autism and Child Psychopathology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0401-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0401-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0400-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0401-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)