Autism: Or something else? Differential Diagnosis

Congenital malformations, deformities, and chromosomal abnormalities (Q00-Q99).

  • Fragile X syndrome (Martin-Bell syndrome) – X-linked inherited syndrome in which the main malformations are: large auricles, large genitalia, sterility, and mental retardation.

Psyche – Nervous System (F00-F99; G00-G99).

  • Affective disorders (affect disorders) – group of mental disorders characterized primarily by a clinically significant change in mood.
  • Aphasia (speech disorder; “speechlessness”).
  • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
  • Attachment disorders
  • Emotional and anxiety disorders
  • Hearing muteness – muteness despite an intact hearing.
  • Catalepsy – persistence in a particular posture.
  • Mutism – muteness with the speech organ intact.
  • Oligophrenia – mental retardation with intelligence reduction.
  • Oppositional behavior / social behavior disorder
  • Personality disorders
  • Mental hospitalism (deprivation syndrome; synonyms: Hospitalism syndrome, hospital damage, deprivation syndrome, anaclitic depression, or emotional/mental deprivation) – developmental delays and developmental disorders associated with prolonged hospital or institutionalization.
  • Psychotic disorders
  • Rett syndrome – genetic disorder with X-linked dominant inheritance; developmental disorder – occurring almost exclusively in girls – due to encephalopathy (pathological changes in the brain); in male embryos, hemizygosity (condition in which only one allele of a gene occurs in the otherwise duplicate (diploid) set of chromosomes) almost always leads to intrauterine fetal death (death of the unborn child)
  • Savant syndrome (insular giftedness) – people who have a cognitive disability or other severe developmental disorder can perform very specific exceptional performance in a small subarea (“islands”); about 50% of insular gifted people are autistic; sporadic occurrence.
  • Schizoid personality disorder
  • Schizophrenia – severe mental illness belonging to the endogenous psychoses and characterized by disturbances of thinking, perception and affectivity.
  • Stereotypic movement disorder
  • Language development disorders, late developers
  • Tic disorders – repeated occurrence of involuntary contractions of individual muscles or muscle groups.
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorders