Handicaps and the development of skills between childhood and early adolescence in young people with severe intellectual disabilities

The authors examined 183 children with autistic symptoms and found that the age-specific incidence rates of seizures in this sample were between 3 and 28 times the rates for children in the general population. The subjects classified as totally autistic were at high risk of developing seizure from early childhood well into adolescence, but especially so at puberty. The partially autistic children had an increased risk of seizures only up to age 10. The authors suggest that the high incidence of seizures at puberty observed in this study may be specific to children with total autistic symptomatology and may represent a distinct pathological process associated with autism.