Parent Report of Community Psychiatric Comorbid Diagnoses in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Table 2

Characteristics of children with ASD by presence of ≥1 psychiatric comorbidity, aged 5–18 y, significantly different from peers without particular comorbidity (𝑃<.01 by chi-square).

	Proportion by reported history of psychiatric diagnoses
Child characteristic	Any anxiety disorder (n)	Depression (n)	Bipolar disorder (n)	AD/HD or ADD (n)
Proportion reported in total sample (𝑛=4343)*	26.2 (1136)	11.0 (477)	5.2 (222)	38.1 (1653)
Current age category (y), n
5–8 (𝑛=2276)	15.6 (356)	2.5 (57)	2.3 (52)	26.9 (611)
9–12 (𝑛=1271)	33.4 (424)	15.7 (200)	6.9 (87)	48.0 (610)
13–18 (𝑛=796)	44.7 (356)	27.6 (220)	10.4 (83)	54.3 (432)
Current autism spectrum disorder, %
Autism/autistic disorder (𝑛=2161)	19.0 (410)	4.8 (104)	3.0 (65)	26.5 (572)
PDD-NOS (𝑛=1024)	25.2 (258)	8.3 (85)	5.6 (57)	39.8 (407)
Asperger syndrome (𝑛=1150)	40.4 (468)	24.9 (288)	8.6 (100)	58.2 (674)
SRS t score category, % (𝑛=1171)
<55 unaffected (𝑛=46)	21.7 (10)	6.5 (3)	4.4 (2)	23.9 (11)
55–59 borderline (𝑛=47)	12.8 (6)	6.4 (3)	2.1 (1)	34.0 (16)
60–75 mild/moderate (𝑛=432)	18.8 (81)	6.3 (27)	1.6 (7)	37.0 (160)
>75 severe (𝑛=1843)	27.7 (511)	12.0 (254)	5.5 (101)	39.3 (724)
Intellectual disability, %
Not reported (𝑛=3156)	25.1 (793)	12.0 (380)	4.7 (147)	37.4 (1181)
Present (𝑛=1170)	29.2 (342)	8.2 (96)	6.3 (74)	40.1 (469)
History of specific skill loss ^a, %
No loss (𝑛=2930)	28.0 (820)	13.1 (384)	5.9 (173)	42.4 (1241)
Skill loss (𝑛=1413)	22.4 (316)	6.6 (93)	3.5 (49)	29.2 (412)
Ethnicity, %
Hispanic (𝑛=330)	19.1 (63)	11.3 (455)	3.3 (11)	32.1 (106)
Not Hispanic (𝑛=4013)	26.7 (1073)	6.7 (22)	5.3 (211)	38.6 (1547)
Maternal psychiatric history, % (𝑛=2017)
No reported history (𝑛=1798)	20.5 (369)	6.4 (115)	2.9 (52)	30.5 (549)
History of psychiatric illness^b (𝑛=2253)	31.7 (713)	15.3 (345)	6.9 (156)	44.7 (1008)
Initial evaluator %
Psychiatrist or psychologist (𝑛=1343)	33.8 (454)	18.0 (242)	7.8 (105)	49.0 (658)
Other (𝑛=2999)	22.7 (682)	7.8 (235)	3.9 (117)	33.1 (994)

*Note: Individuals with multiple comorbidities are counted separately for each comorbidity.
AD/HD or ADD = attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or attention-deficit disorder, respectively; SRS = Social Responsiveness Scale.
Comorbidity did not significantly vary (𝑃>.01) by gender, region, or maternal education.
^aModerate-severe loss of communication and/or social skills between ages 12 and 36 months.
^bIncludes any anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, AD/HD or ADD, and/or schizophrenia.
^†Any of the following comorbidities reported at the time of data collection: anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, AD/HD or ADD, or schizophrenia.
--23/4343 had history of schizophrenia (0.5%).