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Query: UMLS:C0004352 (autism)
 32,579 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Autism is a severe form of childhood psychopathology first described by Leo Kanner in 1943. While over the years there has been substantial controversy about many features of the syndrome, there is today some consensus as to the behavioral characteristics associated with the diagnosis. These include onset of the disorder in the early preschool years, severe and pervasive deficits in social behavior and attachments, deficits in speech and language, insistence for the preservation of sameness, unusual responsiveness to the sensory environment, self-stimulation, self-injurious behavior, isolated skill areas, and inappropriate affect. Another associated feature of many cases of autism is mental retardation. The present article describes these behavioral features as well as the application of the diagnosis and differentiation of autism from other disorders including primary mental retardation, childhood schizophrenia, developmental aphasia, and pervasive developmental disorder.
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PMID:Diagnostic features of autism. 305 87

Simultaneous sign and spoken language training was conducted with young, language-disordered children under standardized training and follow-up conditions with a stringent learning criterion to determine if language learned was stable over time. Twenty-one children between 36 and 86 months with no or nonfunctional language participated in the study. Diagnoses included autism, mental retardation, combined autism and mental retardation, and developmental aphasia. Children completed a mean of 74 signed speech training sessions. Sessions were twice daily, 5 days a week. Follow-up evaluations were made approximately 6 months after training. Of the 21 children, 17 learned at least one word and 7 children learned multiple-word phrases during the training. Most language learned in training was found to be retained at follow-up approximately 6 months later. Gestural imitation, play style, language age, developmental age, and fine motor skills had strong correlations with language learning and retention.
J Autism Dev Disord 1988 Jun
PMID:Language learning and retention in young language-disordered children. 341 Aug 15