"On the ward he was noted to be socially withdrawn but his sleep and appetite were normal. His irritability abated after a few days, during which he received no medication but discontinued his cannabis smoking and responded to nursing care. Although no further incidents or aggressive outbursts were reported, he remained socially isolated, displaying flat affect yet often evincing irritability and suspiciousness. He was subsequently observed to have awkward, fleeting eye contact, a pedantic and almost theatrical use of language, and a remarkably unchanging facial mimicry. In the absence of any obvious continuing psychotic symptoms, and in view of both his encouraging response to the ward environment and clinical features that seemed to be traits rather than symptoms, we decided to review his diagnosis in the light of DSM-IV criteria for AS (APA 2000), all of which he seemed to meet. We further corroborated the diagnosis of AS by applying the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) (Baron-Cohen et al 2001), a self-rating scale, in which he scored 32, well above the suggested screening threshold of 26 for an autism-spectrum disorder." - Dratcu, L et al. 2007
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 15:25:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015