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Head Circumference in Autism and Other Pervasive Developmental Disorders
Author(s) -
Woodhouse Wendy,
Bailey Anthony,
Rutter Michael,
Bolton Patrick,
Baird Gillian,
Couteur Ann
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1996.tb01458.x
Subject(s) - macrocephaly , head circumference , autism , pervasive developmental disorder , psychology , anthropometry , developmental disorder , percentile , developmental psychology , language development , clinical psychology , psychiatry , pediatrics , medicine , birth weight , pregnancy , statistics , mathematics , biology , genetics
Recent studies have found that an unexpectedly large proportion of autistic children have large heads. Anthropometric measures of consecutive clinic attenders with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), other psychiatric or language disorders were analysed. Similar data were obtained from two schools for language disordered children. These data, combined with those from previous studies, indicate that about one‐third of children with PDD have macrocephaly based on current percentile charts; this rate was significantly higher than in children with language disorder alone. The finding was not a consequence of recognizable medical disorders and suggests that PDD is sometimes associated with abnormal physical development.