The Route to Autism Spectrum Diagnosis in Pediatric Practice in Bulgaria.

Unlabelled: Diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before the age of three years is a challenge. Analyzing the present practice may help reaching that goal.

Aim: To investigate developmental abnormalities and diagnostic pathway of ASD patients in pediatric practice.

Epilepsy in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

The comorbidity of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and epilepsy has been widely discussed but many questions still remain unanswered. The aim of this study was to establish the occurrence of epilepsy among children with ASD to define the type of epileptic seizures and syndromes, the age of onset of epilepsy, EEG abnormalities, the used antiepileptic drugs and the therapeutic responses for seizures and autistic behavior, as well as to find some correlations between epilepsy and gender, etiology and intellectual disability (ID). A retrospective study of medical files of 59 patients (aged 1⁻18 years) with ASD during a 5-year period was performed.