Children Who Lost Their Diagnosis More Likely to Be Girls or Had Higher Baseline Adaptive Functioning
A recent Boston Children’s Hospital investigation found that more than one-third of toddlers (37%) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) outgrew the condition by the time they reached 6 years old. The study included 213 children who were diagnosed with ASD between the ages of 1 and 3 years old. On average, the children were diagnosed around 2½ years old, and 83% of those in the study were boys. Each research participant received interventions based on their diagnosis. The most common intervention used in the cohort was applied behavior analysis. A total of 79 children in the study outgrew their ASD diagnosis. These children were more likely to be girls or have higher baseline adaptive functioning than those who didn’t outgrow the disorder. However, the study also found that some children who lost their diagnosis continued to have language or communication difficulties, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or lower IQ scores. The authors suggest that their findings emphasize the importance of continuing developmental follow-up for all children with a young diagnosis of ASD. They also indicate their results should cause a very frank reconsideration of the need for additional research to understand if current autism treatments are working or if significant new efforts to develop new treatment approaches are needed.
