1st Edition

Autism The Science of Mental Health

Edited By Steven E. Hyman Copyright 2002

    First published in 2001. This is Volume 2 in a series on the science of mental health and focuses on Autism. It begins with an overview presentation of a case and a recent consensus description of diagnostic instruments for autistic-spectrum disorders. This is followed by recent epidemiologic data. Epidemiology has an enhanced prominence in studies of autism because there is an unresolved controversy about the incidence of new cases of autism. In some surveys the incidence of autism appears to be increasing, and the controversy is over whether this is a true observation or whether greater diagnostic awareness is leading to the apparent increase. This volume attempt to resolve the conflicting data as if autism is indeed on the rise, there must be a new, significant environmental risk factor, which has to be identified with a view to prevention.

    Introduction; 1: Overview; 1: An 8-Year-Old Boy with Autism; 2: Description; 2: The Screening and Diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorders 1; 3: Epidemiology; 3: Epidemiology of Autism; 4: The epidemiology of autism: a review; 5: Autistic and Dysphasic Children. II: Epilepsy; Part IV: Genetics; 6: Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study; 7: Genetics of Autism: Characteristics of Affected and Unaffected Children from 37 Multiplex Families; 8: Rapid Publication: Evidence Supporting WNT2 as an Autism Susceptibility Gene; Part V: Neurobiology of Disease; 9: The neuroanatomy of autism: a voxel-based whole brain analysis of structural scans; 10: Abnormal Processing of Social Information from Faces in Autism; 11: The human amygdala in social judgment; 12: A clinicopathological study of autism; 13: Autism: Towards an Integration of Clinical, Genetic, Neuropsychological, and Neurobiological Perspectives; 14: Hypoplasia of Cerebellar Vermal Lobules VI and VII in Autism; 15: ‘Theory of mind' in the brain. Evidence from a PET scan study of Asperger syndrome; 16: Neuropathology of Infantile Autism; 17: Autism Spectrum Disorders; 18: Frontal Lobe Contributions to Theory of Mind; Part VI: Treatment; 19: A Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of Risperidone in Adults With Autistic Disorder and Other Pervasive Developmental Disorders; 20: Long-Term Outcome for Children With Autism Who Received Early Intensive Behavioral Treatment; 21: Empirically Supported Comprehensive Treatments for Young Children With Autism

    Biography

    Steven Hyman, National Institute of Mental Health