GENETIC DISORDER Link to autism questioned

Children with a genetic disorder known as 22q11.2 deletion syndrome are often also diagnosed with autism at rates of up to 50 percent. But those children may not be autistic, according to a new study from the UC Davis MIND Institute.
The disorder is caused by the deletion of a small part of the 22nd chromosome, resulting in widely varying symptoms, such as heart abnormalities or a cleft palate. Children with the disorder also frequently suffer from developmental delay and social impairments, and 20 to 50 percent are diagnosed as falling somewhere on the autism spectrum. The risk of the disorder is about 1 in 2,000.
UC Davis researchers found that while those social impairments may mimic the features of autism, in a study of 29 children with 22q11.2, none of those children met "strict diagnostic criteria" for autism.
One noticeable difference: they often seemed to have higher levels of social motivation than children on the autism spectrum. Social deficits, researchers noted, might be more a function of developmental delay than autism.
The finding points to a need to develop different treatments for children with 22q11.2, separate from those used in children with autism. Further research is needed to determine what those more appropriate treatments might be.
The study was published online Sept. 17 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
- Kristen V. Brown