Autism is a wide spectrum disorder, this means it affects people in a wide variety of ways, and how children respond to interventions also varies, researchers from Columbia University in New York reported in the journal Pediatrics. The authors explained that although the vast majority of kids who are diagnosed with an ASD (autism spectrum disorder) continue having an ASD diagnosis during adolescence, how they develop differs substantially.

Christine Fountain, PhD, Alix S. Winter, BA, and Peter S. Bearman, PhD wrote that learning which routes children with autism take may help better understand how etiology (causes, origins), family characteristics and therapies might shape ASDs.

The authors describe six most common paths that children with an ASD take from the moment a diagnosis is made up to fourteen years of age.

They gathered data on the recorded autism signs and symptoms of 6,975 children in California. They had been born between 1992 and 2001. They focused on the trajectories of the children’s communications skills, social aptitudes, and repetitive behaviors.

They discovered that while some kids made considerable and rapid improvement, particularly in social and communication skills, others made less progress, while some struggled to show any significant improvements.

The majority of children’s trajectories in repetitive behaviors were found to be relatively stable.

Approximately 1 in every 10 children with an ASD made rapid and substantial improvements, and moved from being classified as severely affected to high functioning.

Those who made the most significant improvements from diagnosis to age 14 tended to be:

  • Children who were born in the later years
  • Children whose mothers were more educated
  • Children of Caucasian mothers

Children from poorer households tended to have made the least progress, the authors found. The researchers stressed that equal access to treatments and interventions is crucial.

In an Abstract in the journal, the authors wrote:

“Children with autism have heterogeneous developmental pathways. One group of children evidenced remarkable developmental change over time. Understanding what drives these outcomes is thus critical.”

Written by Christian Nordqvist