Pervasive developmental disorder

A wide range of disorders within the autistic spectrum may present themselves to in-patient services. Children with classical autism, especially those with significant mental handicap, are much more likely to be treated by mental handi-cap or specialist autistic than generic child in-patient services. Nevertheless, general procedures in relation to this work will be considered in this chapter for two reasons; firstly some units may choose to specialise in this area and secondly the assessment of more atypical autistic states rests most securely in familiarity with prototypical autistic presentations and uses adaptations of techniques developed in work with classical autism.