Childhood and current autistic features in adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder

Abstract

The diagnostic boundaries between autistic-and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders have varied over the years, and some overlap in diagnostic criteria persists. The present study examined childhood and current signs of autistic disorder (AD) in adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) or other personality disorders, as well as healthy controls. A structured interview was administered to rate participants' current symptoms. Participants' guardians were interviewed with the Autism Diagnostic Inventory-Revised (ADI-R), a clinical assessment of childhood and current autistic signs. Compared to both the other personality-disordered and healthy groups, adolescents with SPD were rated as having significantly more impairment on childhood and current social functioning, and having more unusual interests and behaviors. For the entire sample, impaired childhood social functioning and unusual interests and behaviors were associated with higher negative symptom scores. Current impairments in social functioning, unusual interests and behaviors, and communication were also linked with greater negative symptoms. However, neither childhood nor current autistic features significantly predicted later conversion to an Axis I psychotic disorder over the course of three years of follow-up. The findings indicate that past and current autistic signs are more common in adolescents with SPD, but neither current nor childhood autistic features are linked with conversion to psychosis.

The Timing and Specificity of Prenatal Immune Risk Factors for Autism Modeled in the Mouse and Relevance to Schizophrenia

“…In terms of ventricular indices of global brain maturational differences, early or later immune activation may shift development along a path which is more 'schizophrenia-like' or more 'autism-like', respectively. However, the shared aspects of the early and late phenotype described in mouse models mirror well the many shared features of neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and schizophrenia [31,34,47,48] .…”

“…Indeed, autism was originally referred to as a 'schizophrenic syndrome of childhood' or 'childhood psychosis', and has been suggested to lie on the same spectrum as schizophrenia [34,47] . One way to conceptualize this is to consider that it is not the autistic or schizophrenic condition itself which is inherited, but rather altered neurodevelopment [48] .…”

How and Why is Autism Spectrum Disorder Misdiagnosed in Adult Patients? - From Diagnostic Problem to Management for Adjustment -

“…Actually, many studies have indicated that there is a phenomenological overlap between ASD and the above-mentioned personality disorders [36, [104][105][106]. Nevertheless, borderline personality disorder (BPD) as a cluster B personality disorder seems to be an important psychiatric comorbidity that can mask autistic features and easily lead to misdiagnosis of ASD patients, as shown in Table 1.…”

Precursors of Personality Disorders in Children and Adolescents

“…Findings in the literature indicate that adolescents with schizotypal PD showed significantly more severe current and past autistic features in the areas of social functioning and eccentric interests and behaviors compared to healthy controls and other personality disorder controls (Esterberg et al 2008). The other symptoms of schizotypal PD include lack of close friends (Olin et al 1997), cognitive distortions (Trotman et al 2006), social anxiety, poor educational achievement, paranoid ideation, odd thinking, speech without incoherence, odd beliefs and magical thinking (APA 2000).…”