Chromosomal abnormalities in a series of children with autistic disorder.

In a series of 127 children diagnosed with autistic disorder the karyotypes of 8, on whom data were available, showed the following chromosomal abnormalities: breakage, a 47 XY pattern, trisomy 13, inversion-duplication of chromosome 15, 47 XY, +der (15) (pter q15: p11 pter), 47 XXY and 46 XY, inv (2) (p11:q13pat, 3q+). Compared to those who were not karyotyped or had normal karyotypes, the children with abnormalities, although cognitively more delayed, were not rated as more severely autistic. Facial dysmorphias and minor physical anomalies tended to be more frequent in the chromosomally deviant subgroup.

Assessing resources and stress in parents of severely dysfunctional children through the Clarke modification of Holroyd's Questionnaire on Resources and Stress.

The Holroyd (1974) Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (QRS) although clinically useful may be too inclusive and not exclusively relevant to severely dysfunctional individuals. Hitherto, efforts at shortening and psychometrically validating the QRS have met with some success: the shorter forms however still target both mentally and physically handicapped children and are clinically not as useful as the original instrument. The 78-item Clarke modification of the QRS, mainly a subset of the original, was an attempt to remedy these problems.

Effects of developmental disorder on parents: theoretical and applied considerations.

Only recently have we begun to examine systematically the effect of dysfunctional children on other family members. This article addresses several issues: (1) It presents two models of family stress, the ABCX and the social ecology model, and discusses how they can be employed for a systematic mapping of known key variables that, in complex interplay, appear to influence the family's ability to cope with a dysfunctional child. (2) It reviews evidence from our own work and research by others related to the main elements of the ABCX model of family stress.

Assessing child symptom severity and stress in parents of autistic children.

Parents of 44 autistic children rated their children's symptom severity and their own stress on a 14-item symptom scale. Thirteen child and family characteristics were also examined to assess how they affected symptom perception and stress. Preschoolers were rated less symptomatic by their parents than by clinicians.