Long-term follow-up study of 13 autistic children.

This is a report concerning 13 autistic children who have been followed up from their early infancy to adulthood. Some intake variables, such as speech development at the age of 5, were correlated with the outcome status. As a result, we showed that a higher level of speech development at age 5 did not necessarily lead to a better outcome in social adaptability. We showed also that any of the variables we examined, such as the presence of brain organic abnormality, the duration of schooling and the duration of medical treatment, were not factors in determining a good or poor prognosis. We concluded that a rather poor outcome seen in our subjects might be due to the particular situation in Japan throughout this study period, and not a reflection of the real natural history of early infantile autism.