Abstract
Differential diagnoses within the pervasive developmental disorders have insufficient reliability, validity, and descriptive homogeneity within groups to be used as distinct categories for research purposes. This study reports the results of cognitive subtyping of 54 developmentally disabled children. Fifty-one were successfully categorized in a small number of groups, characterized by different strengths and weaknesses on verbal, performance, memory, and quantitative tests. About half of the children had the relatively good visuospatial performance expected on the basis of previous literature on autistic children; these children were not behaviorally more autistic than the others. Measures of internal validity are reported, as well as validation by cognitive and behavioral variables. These results tentatively suggest that such psychiatric manifestations as autistic aloofness and maintenance of sameness may be relatively independent of cognitive skill patterns.
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This research was supported by a project grant from NIMH (28605) to Drs. Waterhouse and Fein, and by a Research Scientist Development Award to Dr. Fein. We are very grateful to the staff and students of the League School (Newton, Massachusetts), the Eden Institute (Princeton, New Jersey), the Mercer County Community Guidance Center Day School (Trenton, New Jersey), the Midland School (Somerville, New Jersey), and the Search Day Program (Ocean, New Jersey). We wish to thank Chris Brumbach, Laurie Miller, Helen Garretson, Margaret Humes, Karin Karensky, and Joanne Jenkins for their patience and skill in helping to test the children. Special thanks to Drs. Edith Kaplan and Allan F. Mirsky for their valuable advice in planning the project, to Drs. Robin Morris, Marlene Oscar Berman, Leonard Lash, and Thomas Detre for their important theoretical contributions at various stages in the project, and to Dr. Morris for his assistance in analyzing the data.
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Fein, D., Waterhouse, L., Lucci, D. et al. Cognitive subtypes in developmentally disabled children: A pilot study. J Autism Dev Disord 15, 77–95 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01837900
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01837900