DEPRESSION IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS - A CASE-CONTROL FAMILY HISTORY STUDY

Limited information is available about the occurrence of depression in children with autism and other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD ). Although depression has been described in autistic children, questi ons about its validity have often been raised One approach to address this issue is to investigate family histories of those autistic childr en diagnosed with clinical depression. Based on data available in nona utistic children, autistic children with depression would be expected to show an increased family history of depression. Since studies of th is nature have not been attempted in autistic children, we compared th e family history of 13 autistic/PDD children with depression (11 male; 2 female; M full-scale IQ 86.2, SD 24.2; M age 10.4 years, SD 2.2) wi th 10 autistic/PDD children without a history of current or previous d epression (9 male; 1 female; M full-scale IQ 67, SD 12.9; M age 10.5 y ears, SD 1.6). Diagnosis of depression was based on the DSM-III-R crit eria and confirmed independently by two psychiatrists. Ten (77%) of th e depressed children had a positive family history of depression compa red to 3 (30%) of the nondepressed group, t(21) = -2.4; p = .02. These findings lend support to the validity of depression as a distinct con dition in some children with autism/PDD and suggest that, as in the no rmal population, autistic children who suffer from depression are more likely to have a family history of depression.