Autism is a condition some children grow out of, a study has indicated.
Experts studied 34 school-age children and young adults who had been diagnosed with autism early in life but now appeared to be functioning normally.
Tests confirmed that the group, aged eight to 21, no longer suffered symptoms of the developmental condition that makes it difficult to communicate and socialise.
The results, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, provide no estimate of the proportion of children likely to recover from autism.
Dr Thomas Insel, director of the US National Institute of Mental Health which supported the study, said: Although the diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time, the findings suggest that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes.
For an individual child, the outcome may be knowable only with time and after some years of intervention. Subsequent reports from this study should tell us more about the nature of autism and the role of therapy and other factors in the long term out come for these children.
Previous studies looking at the likelihood of autism recovery have proved inconclusive.
Questions remained over the accuracy of the original diagnosis, and whether children who appeared to grow up functioning normally started out with mild forms of the condition.
For the new study, early diagnostic reports by clinicians were reviewed by a team of expert investigators.
The results suggested that recovering children tended to have relatively milder social difficulties early in life, but they were likely to suffer more severe symptoms relating to communication and repetitive behaviour.
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Some children 'grow out of autism', study of 34 children finds