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. 2017 Nov;47(11):3333-3346.
doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3245-7.

Association Between Autistic Traits in Preschool Children and Later Emotional/Behavioral Outcomes

Aya Saito  1 , Andrew Stickley  1   2 , Hideyuki Haraguchi  1 , Hidetoshi Takahashi  1 , Makoto Ishitobi  1 , Yoko Kamio  3
Affiliations

Association Between Autistic Traits in Preschool Children and Later Emotional/Behavioral Outcomes

Aya Saito et al. J Autism Dev Disord. 2017 Nov.

Abstract

Although children with a greater number of autistic traits are likely to have other mental health problems, research on the association between earlier autistic traits in preschool children and later emotional/behavioral outcomes is scarce. Using data from 189 Japanese community-based children, this study examined whether autistic traits at age 5 were related to emotional/behavioral outcomes at age 7. The results showed that prior autistic traits were subsequently associated with all emotional/behavioral domains. After controlling for baseline emotional/behavioral scores autistic traits continued to predict later emotional symptoms and peer problems. This study highlights that in addition to clinical ASD, it is also important to focus on subthreshold autistic traits in preschool children for better subsequent emotional/behavioral outcomes.

Keywords: Autistic traits; Emotional/behavioral outcomes; Preschool children; Social Responsiveness Scale; Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram of the study participants
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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