Background
It has been reported that children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder
have a significantly smaller head circumference at birth and that their head circumference
then increases disproportionately rapidly in the first year of life.
Methods
We attempted to replicate these findings using 15 narrowly defined autistic children
from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project and approximately 40,000 nonautistic
control subjects.
Results
The autistic group had a slightly but not significantly larger head circumference
at birth. At 4 months, the head circumference in the autistic group was not significantly
larger than that of control subjects, but body weight and length were significantly
larger in the autistic group.
Conclusions
We believe this is the first report of significant general body growth in autistic
children in infancy; the larger head circumference may be part of this excessive general
growth.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
September 20,
2004
Received in revised form:
May 3,
2004
Received in revised form:
September 8,
2004
Received:
February 19,
2004
Identification
Copyright
© 2004 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
