The autistic-spectrum disorders.

Any person, talented or handicapped, whose social skills have been severely deficient since very early childhood, who started to talk late or whose communicative use of language is inadequate, and who perseverates and lacks cognitive and behavioral flexibility meets the diagnostic criteria for an autistic-spectrum disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV), published by the American Psychiatric Association, and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), published by the World Health Organization, use the term “pervasive developmental disorder” to encompass the broad spectrum of developmental disorders with these characteristics (see Table). Pervasive developmental disorders . . .