Table 1.

Clinical characteristics of the sample

Variable	Frequency or mean/median
Gender (boys/girls)	193/44
Mean age at diagnosis (years)	5.8 ± 2.2
Median age at diagnosis (years)	5.3
Range of age at diagnosis (years)	2.2–14.8
ICD-10 diagnoses
Childhood autism	196
Atypical autism	31
Asperger syndrome	9
Other childhood disintegrative disorders	1
Mental retardation in total (% of the sample)	148 (62.4%)
Mild	62
Moderate	59
Severe	10
Unspecified	17

ICD-10 International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition