Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:71-73
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
Autism and the fragile X syndrome
GS Fisch, IL Cohen, EG Wolf, WT Brown, EC Jenkins and A Gross
The fragile X chromosome is an important factor in inherited mental
retardation in males. It has also been reported that infantile autism is
associated with fragile X. Recently, an article reported an examination of
a small sample of autistic children in whom the fragile X chromosome was
not found. Its authors concluded that if an association between fragile X
and autism exists, it is infrequent. In the present study of 144 autistic
male subjects, 18 were found to have the fragile X chromosome, supporting
other (epidemiological) findings that the association between fragile X and
autism occurs relatively frequently.
