A 7-year-old boy with Tourette's disorder, atypical pervasive developmental disorder, borderline mental retardation, and a history of self-injurious behavior was treated for 21 months with clonidine transdermal patches at doses ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 mg weekly. When withdrawn from clonidine over 4 weeks to assess the need for continued therapy, the patient developed multiple self-destructive b...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is defined by impaired social interaction as well as impaired language and communication accompanied by stereotyped/heartbreaking behavioral traits and increased restricted repetitive behaviors [2]. ASD describes a range of conditions (e.g. autism, social and communication deficits, Asperger disorder, childhood disintegrative disorders, pervasive developmental dis...

Self-consciousness plays an important role in a person’s social life. Assuming that selfconsciousness is a key to understanding social impairments in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we examined self-consciousness in individuals with Asperger’s disorder, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS) and their controls using an episodic memory task. The PDDNOS...

A case of a hyperactive child with impaired speech, perceptual-motor capacity and interpersonal skills is presented. Presumptive diagnoses are discussed according to the international classifications most often used. The nature of pervasive developmental disorders is examined based on the concepts of theory of mind and theory of executive dysfunction.

Early intervention for autism spectrum disorders necessitates early detection. This need has led to widespread agreement across disciplines that screening is critical in very young children. Two screening issues are highlighted in this review. Level of screening refers to the type of sample: Level I is defined as an unselected sample, and Level II consists of selected children already identifie...

UNLABELLED Along with well-defined categories in classification systems (e.g., autistic disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)), practitioners are confronted with many children showing mixed forms of developmental psychopathology. These clusters of symptoms are on the borderlines of more defined categories. The late Donald Cohen proposed heuristic criteria to study a grou...