中華心理衛生協會

Purpose and Methods: The first purpose of this study was to use Chinese Child Development Inventory (CCDI) for comparing developmental profiles between young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and with developmental delay (DD), who were under three years of age. This study could be further to find the developmental indicators to discriminate the young ASD children from DD children. The second purpose was to examine the relationship between developmental abilities and autism symptomatology. Participants were 40 ASD children and 40 MA-matched DD children. Results: While comparing the developmental profiles within each group, children with DD showed weakness in the abilities of expressive language and concept comprehension. Children with ASD manifested their shortcoming in the abilities of expressive language, personal social and concept comprehension. The patterns of developmental profiles were different between the two groups. The abilities of personal social and fine motor were the two powerful indexes to discriminate the two groups. The significantly negative relationships were found between developmental abilities and the severity of autism symptoms only in the ASD group. Conclusions: The results provided some implications for early diagnosis and early intervention in ASD.