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A comparative study of development and symptoms among disintegrative psychosis and infantile autism with an without speech loss

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Abstract

To investigate clinical pictures and the validity of disintegrative psychosis (DP) as defined in ICD-9, 18 cases of DP were compared with 51 and 145 cases of infantile autism (IA) with and without speech loss, respectively, on clinical variables. The DP cases showed clearer regression after more satisfactory development than the IA cases with speech loss. Around age 7, about 4 years after regression, those with DP were significantly more severely retarded than those with IA, yet both were similar in autistic symptomatology. EEG abnormalities and mothers 30 or older at delivery were significantly more common in the histories of those with DP than of those with IA. DP may be linked with IA having speech loss with regression in mental development as a common denominator.

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This study was supported in part by grants from the Yasuda Life Welfare Foundation and the Ministry of Education, Sciences, and Culture, Japan. Part of the preliminary results of this study were presented at the 12th International Congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions in Kyoto, July 20, 1990. The authors thank Kaoru Katsuno in the Nerima Welfare Center for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped and Etsuko Yabe in the Child Guidance Center Affiliated with the National Welfare Foundation for Disabled Children for their assistance in data collection.

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Kurita, H., Kita, M. & Miyake, Y. A comparative study of development and symptoms among disintegrative psychosis and infantile autism with an without speech loss. J Autism Dev Disord 22, 175–188 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01058149

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