A diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is usually taken to be permanent. In this study, 13 two-year-old children with ASD lost the diagnosis by age 4, at which time they scored within the normal range on standardized measures of cognitive and adaptive functioning. No differences were found in symptom severity, socialization, or communication between children who lost the ASD diagnosis and children who did not, but children with PDD-NOS were significantly more likely than those with full autistic disorder to move off the spectrum. The clearest distinguishing factor was motor skills at age 2. Results support the idea that some toddlers with ASD can lose their diagnosis and suggest that this is difficult to predict.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 April 2025.
All research outputs
#3,392,867
of 34,519,212 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
#1,262
of 6,250 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#13,350
of 229,695 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
#10
of 37 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,519,212 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,250 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 229,695 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 37 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its contemporaries.
