Brief report: Lack of correlation between age of symptom onset and contemporaneous presentation

The parents/guardians of 50 individuals were surveyed using a semistructure d interview to determine the feasibility of this method and to establish ag es of symptom onset. Thirty-eight informants were able to recall sufficient derail to allow categorization of the age of symptom onset. Chi-square ana lysis confirmed a significant association between investigators' categoriza tion and informants' categorization. Contemporaneous presentation was index ed using Childhood Autism Rating Scale, the Autism Behavior Checklist, the Conners Hyperactivity Index, and the Ritvo-Freeman Real Life Rating Scale f or Autism. No significant correlations were determined between any of these indices of symptom severity and age of symptom onset.