Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESAn Epidemiological and Diagnostic Study of Asperger Syndrome According to Four Sets of Diagnostic Criteria
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Asperger syndrome (AS) is a fairly new diagnosis. This disorder, termed “autistic psychopathy” at the very beginning, was originally identified by Hans Asperger (1944). In 1981 Lorna Wing prompted a huge interest in AS by publishing a review and series of 34 case reports
Participants
In Finland compulsory education offers equal educational possibilities for every child ages 7 to 16 years, and prolonged compulsory education for every child with mental retardation ages 6 to 17 years. To optimize the target population we chose school-age children. At primary school there is one main teacher for each class group who teaches the same pupils for several hours each day from 1 to several years. It is common for the same teacher to teach the same group of children for the first 2
RESULTS
AS prevalence according to the DSM-IV was 2.5/1,000 (95% CI 1.4-4.4); to the ICD-10, 2.9/1,000 (95% CI 1.7-5.0); to Gillberg and Gillberg, 1989, Gillberg, 1991, 2.7/1,000 (95% CI 1.6-4.7); and to Szatmari et al. (1989), 1.6/1,000 (95% CI 0.8-3.3). A total of 19 of 4,422 children were diagnosed as having AS (“clinical picture of AS”) according to any of the four diagnostic criteria used in this study, which yields a prevalence rate of 4.3/1,000, with a 95% CI of 2.8-6.7 (Table 3).
Items C, D, E,
DISCUSSION
This study provides the prevalence rates of AS according to four sets of diagnostic criteria and clarifies confusion about AS. Having school-age children as a target population and using both parents and teachers as informants yielded a prevalence rate of 2.5 according to the DSM-IV and 2.9 according to the ICD-10. Two of the children who met the ICD-10 criteria in our study had succeeded well enough and had not needed any outside help or guidance by the time of the study or no longer needed
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2014, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :Indeed, reliable data on the actual AS prevalence among adults are not available. In childhood, the prevalence is estimated to be between 0.02% and 12.27% (Baird et al., 2000; Fombonne and Tidmarsh, 2003; Mattila et al., 2007). Similarly to other ASD forms, AS is considered a “life-long” disorder (Shattuck et al., 2007); as a result, its prevalence in adulthood could be comparable to that seen in childhood (Tantam and Girgis, 2009).
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This study received financial support from Finland's Slot Machine Association awarded to the Finnish Association for Autism and Asperger's Syndrome and from the Eija and Veikko Lesonen Foundation, Oulu, Finland, awarded to the Child Psychiatric Research Foundation, Finland. Dr. Mattila received research grants from the Rinnekoti Research Foundation, Espoo, Finland, the Alma and K.A. Snellman Foundation, Oulu, Finland, the Child Psychiatric Research Foundation, Finland and the Child Psychiatric Research Foundation, Oulu Area, Finland. The Graduate School of Circumpolar Wellbeing, Health and Adaptation is acknowledged for their support.
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Disclosure: Dr. Moilanen is a member of the Lilly Strattera advisory board in Finland. The other authors have no financial relationships to disclose.