Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:25-29
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Behavioral characteristics of high- and low-IQ autistic children
BJ Freeman, ER Ritvo, PC Schroth, I Tonick, D Guthrie and L Wake
The authors are developing the Behavior Observation Scale to objectively
differentiate autistic, normal, and mentally retarded children aged 30--60
months. They describe operational definitions and procedures and report
data on the frequency of selected behaviors among 114 children. Prior
studies have revealed that to assess the clinical significance of behaviors
in autistic children, both frequency of occurrence per subject and the
number of children exhibiting the behaviors must be considered
concurrently. This study confirms the hypothesis that it is critical to
consider the IQ of the child when assessing the clinical significance of
individual behaviors and groups of behaviors.
