Thursday, February 16, 2012

Study Examines Medication Use Among Children

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Many children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can benefit from medication for related disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Unfortunately, there is very poor understanding of overall medication use for kids with autism,” says Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
As a step toward improving the situation, Shattuck and colleagues studied psychotropic medication use compared across individuals with an ASD, ADHD and both an ASD with ADHD.
They found that children and young adults with both an ASD and ADHD had the highest rates of medicine use (58.2 percent) followed by youths with ADHD-only (49 percent) and youths with ASD-only (34.3 percent).

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