Abstract
The study aims were to identify developmental trajectoriesof young children with autism and investigate their prognosticfactors. The participants were 208 children, assessed first at the ageof 5 years, followed longitudinally, and reassessed 3 years later. Thechildren’s clinical characteristics and the interventions received wererecorded. The results indicated two distinct outcome groups with morestability than change. When changes did occur, they pertained tosymptom severity (which decreased) and speech level and adaptivebehavior (which improved). A logistic regression analysis pointed outtwo main risk factors (symptom severity and speech level) and twomain protection factors (communication skills and person-related cognition).Surprisingly, the amount of intervention (in terms of numberof hours) was not related to outcome.