ISDN2014_0276: Peripheral innervation in children with developmental delay: A risk marker for self‐injurious behavior?

Eleven children (N = 11) with global developmental delays (55% male; mean age = 36.8 months, 17–63) were enrolled. Self-injurious behavior (SIB) cases were defined as item endorsement on the ‘hurts self’ from the Inventory for Client and Agency Planning scale. 5/11 parents reported SIB. The SIB and no SIB groups were comparable on global developmental delay, language (expressive, receptive), and general adaptive and maladaptive behavior. Increased peripheral nerve density associated with increased Conner’s ‘mood/affect’ and ‘emotional liability’ There was preliminary evidence altered peripheral innervation (i.e., increased ENF densities) and neurochemistry (i.e., elevated SP fiber density) in a high-risk clinical group of children (high risk for intellectual disability given global developmental delay and therefore presumably high risk for self-injury). It is important to underscore that the children were not recruited into the study based on the presence or absence of SIB, but because of developmental delay. The results from this novel application of immunohistological analysis of skin and the apparent differences in innervation density does not definitively confirm or refute a SIB subgroup model, but does suggest that there may already be significant differences in peripheral innervation early in development that may somehow be related to the emergence of SIB.