Modern problems of diagnosis of autism

Abstract

After a brief analysis of the autism problem history in domestic and foreign literature, the authors clarifiy the concept of autism as a form of personality pathology. The major factor in the growth of the number of children diagnosed with Early Infantile Autism, from the point of view of the authors, is its overdiagnosis. This diagnosis is often mistakenly set for children with developmental delays and autistic-like behavior at early residual organic lesions of the central nervous system, in protracted neurotic and cyclothymic depressions occurring in infancy and preschool age and, of course, in early manifestation of schizophrenia. Error diagnoses are of general concern, not only because they grossly distort the statistics and generate chaos in scientific research, but primarily because they affect the treatment and correction strategy, determining education prognosis, vocational guidance, the quality of life. The article presents the main differential diagnostic features that allow to distinguish autism from clinically similar conditions.

Keywords

• Early Infantile Autism
• Early Infantile Schizophrenia
• mental retardation as a result of early residual organic CNS lesions
• depression in childhood
• overdiagnosis