The medical history (history of illness) represents an important component in the diagnosis of autism.
Family history
- Are there any inherited disorders in your family?
Social history
- What is your profession?
- Is there any evidence of psychosocial stress or strain due to your family situation?
Current medical history/systemic history (somatic and psychological complaints).
- What symptoms have you noticed?
- Does your child exhibit a contact disorder, an isolating disorder, and/or a fear of change?
- Is the development age-appropriate?
- Does your child speak? If so, when did he or she first speak?
- What is the course of motor development?
- Does your child show stereotypies?
- Is your child irritable, distant, has ritualized routines?
- What hobbies does your child have?
- Does your child have friends / friendships?
Vegetative anamnesis including nutritional anamnesis.
- Did you drink alcohol during pregnancy?
- Do you use drugs? If yes, what drugs and how often per day or per week?
Self history incl. medication history.
- Pre-existing conditions (early childhood brain damage; rubella infection of the mother during pregnancy).
- Surgeries
- Vaccination status
- Allergies
- Pregnancies (course, complications)
- Developmental history
- Care and education situation from infancy to adolescence.
- Educational history
Medication history
- Antidepressants?
- Misoprostol – active ingredient used for gastric ulcers.
- Thalidomide – sedative / sleeping pill, which became known through the so-called thalidomide scandal.
- Valproic acid / valproate – active substance used in epilepsy.
Environmental history
- Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) – pregnant women had significantly higher blood concentrations of DDT and its major metabolite dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane p,p′-dichlorodiphenyl-dichloroethylene (p,p′-DDE).
- Exposure to particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide during pregnancy and the first year of life.
- Air pollution (diesel particulates, mercury, and lead, nickel, manganese and methylene chlorides).
- Prenatal (pre-natal) exposure to pesticides.
- Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs)Note: Polychlorinated biphenyls are among the endocrine disruptors (synonym: xenohormones) that can harm health even in minute amounts by altering the endocrine system.
- Glyphosate (odds ratio 1.16; 95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.27), chlorpyrifos (odds ratio 1.13; 1.05-1.23), diazinon (odds ratio 1.11; 1.01-1.21), malathion (odds ratio 1.11; 1.01-1.22), avermectin (odds ratio 1.12; 1.04-1.22), and permethrin (odds ratio 1.10; 1.01-1.20).
When autism is suspected, the following test psychology examinations may be helpful.
- Autism diagnostic interviews
- Language development test
- Intelligence tests