Research report: diagnosing autism in children with Down syndrome

A long term study at the highly regarded Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore confirms "that the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the gold-standard for the classification of mental health conditions, can be used to accurately identify autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children with Down syndrome.

The researchers were able to accurately distinguish three diagnostic groups:

• Down syndrome (DS): children with DS, but no significant behavioral problems that would warrant the diagnosis of a coexisting mental health condition
• DS + ASD: children with DS and autism spectrum disorders
• DS + Disruptive behavior disorder (DBD): children with DS and DBD, characterized by temper tantrums, physical aggression, excessive argumentativeness, stealing and other forms of defiance or resistance to authority

“The most telling result of our study is that we were not only able to clearly identify patients with Down syndrome and ASD, but also distinguish two other behavioral categories – those without major behavioral problems and those with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), a widely recognized group among individuals with Down syndrome,” says Dr. George Capone, study author and Director of the Down Syndrome Clinic at Kennedy Krieger.

Capone initiated the study in 1992 when few biomedical researchers were interested in studying the connection between the two disorders. Remarkably, the parents of patients in Kennedy Krieger’s Down Syndrome Clinic joined Capone in his effort by funding the study with their individual gifts. Capone recalls, “Parents would travel from around the country and the world to be seen here because few other institutions were committed to understanding this dual-diagnosis. Once we gave these families validation that their child was indeed different and required different support strategies than a typical child with Down syndrome, they wanted to help other families access this knowledge.”

Read the full news release from Kennedy Krieger here.

The abstract of the report to be published in the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research is available online here, along with options for purchasing the full text of the article.

Citation:
Autism spectrum disorder in Down syndrome: cluster analysis of Aberrant Behaviour Checklist data supports diagnosis
N. Y. Ji, G. T. Capone and W. E. Kaufmann, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
Article first published online: 30 AUG 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01465.x