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Autism severity and its relationship to disability

Autism severity is currently defined and measured based exclusively on the severity levels of the two core symptom domains: social-communication and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviors and interests. Autistic individuals, however, are often diagnosed with other medical, developmental, and...

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Autores principales: Waizbard-Bartov, Einat, Fein, Deborah, Lord, Catherine, Amaral, David G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10500663/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36786314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2898
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author Waizbard-Bartov, Einat
Fein, Deborah
Lord, Catherine
Amaral, David G.
author_facet Waizbard-Bartov, Einat
Fein, Deborah
Lord, Catherine
Amaral, David G.
author_sort Waizbard-Bartov, Einat
collection PubMed
description Autism severity is currently defined and measured based exclusively on the severity levels of the two core symptom domains: social-communication and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviors and interests. Autistic individuals, however, are often diagnosed with other medical, developmental, and psychological co-occurring conditions. These additional challenges such as intellectual disability, limited expressive and/or receptive language, and anxiety disorders, can have a tremendous impact on the day-to-day lives of autistic individuals, for both their adaptive functioning as well as their sense of wellbeing. Furthermore, the initial presentation of core symptoms and their likelihood of changing over time are influenced by the presence of such co-occurring conditions. In order to truly understand how a person’s autism impacts their life, both core symptoms as well as other challenges should be considered. This approach was recently taken byThe Lancet Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism, which proposed the term “profound autism” for a subgroup of individuals presenting with high core symptom severity, co-occurring intellectual disability, and little or no language, who require extensive long-term care. Considering other individual factors such as daily living skills, specific support needs and environmental resources would also enhance the evaluation of disability in autistic individuals. As currently employed in the assessment of intellectual disability, a multidimensional approach to autism could provide a more comprehensive system for classification of impairment. At present, however, there is no formal way to designate the combined effect of these different aspects of autism on a person’s life. A comprehensive outlook that acknowledges impairments, capabilities, co-occurring conditions, and environmental factors would be useful for identifying subgroups of individuals as well as for determining individual needs and strengths in clinical assessments.
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spelling pubmed-105006632023-09-14 Autism severity and its relationship to disability Waizbard-Bartov, Einat Fein, Deborah Lord, Catherine Amaral, David G. Autism Res Article Autism severity is currently defined and measured based exclusively on the severity levels of the two core symptom domains: social-communication and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviors and interests. Autistic individuals, however, are often diagnosed with other medical, developmental, and psychological co-occurring conditions. These additional challenges such as intellectual disability, limited expressive and/or receptive language, and anxiety disorders, can have a tremendous impact on the day-to-day lives of autistic individuals, for both their adaptive functioning as well as their sense of wellbeing. Furthermore, the initial presentation of core symptoms and their likelihood of changing over time are influenced by the presence of such co-occurring conditions. In order to truly understand how a person’s autism impacts their life, both core symptoms as well as other challenges should be considered. This approach was recently taken byThe Lancet Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism, which proposed the term “profound autism” for a subgroup of individuals presenting with high core symptom severity, co-occurring intellectual disability, and little or no language, who require extensive long-term care. Considering other individual factors such as daily living skills, specific support needs and environmental resources would also enhance the evaluation of disability in autistic individuals. As currently employed in the assessment of intellectual disability, a multidimensional approach to autism could provide a more comprehensive system for classification of impairment. At present, however, there is no formal way to designate the combined effect of these different aspects of autism on a person’s life. A comprehensive outlook that acknowledges impairments, capabilities, co-occurring conditions, and environmental factors would be useful for identifying subgroups of individuals as well as for determining individual needs and strengths in clinical assessments. 2023-04 2023-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10500663/ /pubmed/36786314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2898 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Article
Waizbard-Bartov, Einat
Fein, Deborah
Lord, Catherine
Amaral, David G.
Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title_full Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title_fullStr Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title_full_unstemmed Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title_short Autism severity and its relationship to disability
title_sort autism severity and its relationship to disability
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10500663/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36786314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2898
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