Repetitive and Stereotyped Behaviors in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Second Year of Life

J Autism Dev Disord (2008) 38:15181533 DOI 10.1007/s10803-007-0532-8

ORIGINAL PAPER

Repetitive and Stereotyped Behaviors in Children with Autism

Spectrum Disorders in the Second Year of Life

Nola Watt Amy M. Wetherby Angie Barber Lindee Morgan

Published online: 12 February 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract This study examined repetitive and stereotyped behaviors (RSB) in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD, n = 50), developmental delays without ASD (DD; n = 25) and typical development (TD, n = 50) between 18 and 24 months of age. Children with ASD demonstrated signicantly higher frequency and longer duration of RSB with objects, body, and sensory behaviors during a systematic behavior sample than both the DD and TD groups. RSB with objects were related to concurrent measures of symbolic capacity and social competence in the second year and predicted developmental outcomes as well as severity of autism symptoms at 3 years in children with communication delays. RSB in the second year appear to be important for early identication and prediction of developmental outcomes.

Keywords Repetitive stereotyped behavior Autism spectrum disorder Second year

Introduction

Repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities have been considered central to autistic disorder since Kanners (1943) original description of 11

children with autism. Kanner described a number of object and body stereotypies in his original case studies including spinning, jumping, and other rhythmic movements of the body. These observations and subsequent research have led to the inclusion of restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities as necessary features for a diagnosis of autistic disorder and Asperger syndrome, and as a possible feature in pervasive developmental disordernot otherwise specied (PDD-NOS), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV-Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR; APA 2000), along with social and communication impairments. Repetitive and stereotyped behaviors (RSB) therefore have strong diagnostic signicance when they are observed or reported (Turner 1999), yet far less is known about this domain of symptoms compared to the social and communication domains (Lewis and Bodsh 1998), particularly in young children.

Denitions and proles of RSB

In the literature on ASD, RSB generally refer to a broad range of behaviors including stereotypies, rituals, compulsions, obsessions, perseveration, and repetitive or stereotyped use of language. An emerging body of research now exists that...