Disintegrative psychosis of childhood: teenage follow-up.

Nine patients with disintegrative psychosis of childhood were reviewed after follow-up periods of 11 to 16 years. Eight of the nine had a uniform picture of early normal development for two years or more, followed by subacute regression over a period of a few months, to become functionally severely retarded with autistic behavioural features and overactivity. Neurological investigations were consistently negative. The clinical course has remained largely static for these patients, but two have developed epilepsy. They are likely to remain severely handicapped, but not to deteriorate. It is possible that this remarkably homogeneous clinical picture is the result of unidentified encephalopathic processes occurring during early childhood.