Dominique Sauvage

Blind Ratings of Early Symptoms of Autism Based upon Family Home Movies

Ratings of family home movies of 12 infants (0 to 2 years old) who were later diagnosed as autistic and 12 normal infants were performed by two diagnosis-blind psychiatrists with Infant Behavior Summarized Evaluation scale. The objective was to identify early symptoms of autism and their intensity and frequency before and after 1 year of age. Several pathological types of behavior related to socialization, communication, motility, and attention were noted during the first year of infant life and differentiated autistic and normal groups. These same differentiating behaviors, observed again in the second year, were more intense and associated with other pathological types of behavior, in particular, gaze avoidance, hypoactivity, and absence of emotional expressions. Analysis of the evolution of behavioral pathology in autistic children as a group during the 2 first years of life confirms the persistence of and the increase in some types of abnormality related to socialization, communication, motility, and attention functions. The limitations and values of this study concerning the early identification of autistic symptoms and functional impairments from home movies for diagnosis and establishing individualized treatment program are discussed.

Possible association of c-harvey-ras-1 (HRAS-1) marker with autism

We tested for an association between autism and genes coding for enzymes involved in monoaminergic metabolism and for a linked marker, c-Harvey-Ras-1 (HRAS 1), using restriction fragment length polymorphisms. We did not find evidence of an association between autism and genes coding for tyrosine hydroxylase, dopamine-beta-hydroxylase (DBH), and tryptophan hydroxylase. However, we report a positive association between autism and the locus containing the gene for HRAS-1.

A Brief Clinical Scale for the Early Evaluation of Imitation Disorders in Autism

Many authors have described a deficit of imitation of gestures and of symbolic and affective tasks in infants and young children with autism. This deficit is paradoxically associated with echolalia (atypical verbal imitation) and echopraxia (atypical gesture imitation) which in themselves appear to be excessive imitation. We have developed a brief clinical scale, the Imitation Disorders Evaluation scale (IDE scale), to evaluate these different early features of imitation disorders in autism. The present article reports (1) the validation study (inter- rater reliability, factor analysis) of the IDE scale carried out with a population of 30 infants and young children with autism aged from 10 to 46 months, and (2) the results of a follow-up study in which this scale was applied to a group of young children with autism (from 30 to 46 months) over 9 months’ treatment. Factor analysis provided two factors: factor 1, called ‘deficient imitation’, comprising six items describing a deficit of facial, gestural, vocal and affective imitation; and factor 2, called ‘atypical imitation’, including echolalia, echopraxia and variability of imitation. The descriptive results of the follow-up study emphasize the sensitivity of the IDE scale for assessment of improvement in imitation disorders of early autism.

Infantile Rumination: Diagnosis and Follow-up Study of Twenty Cases

A longitudinal pediatric and psychiatric study of 20 infants (17 boys and 3 girls) with rumination was conducted over a period of 5 years. Previous spitting-up and/or vomiting were generally observed; 5 infants had a developmental factors, including psychosocial stressors, concomitant anxiety and/or depression in the primary caregiver, and under- or overstimulation. Suggestions for treatment are made and possible means of reducing some of the physical and/or pschoemotional damage of infantile rumination are discussed.