The Adult Outcome of Early Behavioural Abnormalities

Abstract

Greater constancies across time are to be expected in seriously deviant conditions compared with less abnormal development. Selective reviews are offered on adult outcomes of severe mental retardation, autism, conduct disorders, mild retardation and adjustment disorders of childhood. In the first category, a highly dependent life path is inevitable. For autism there is a small "escape rate". With conduct disorders, around half have a very poor outcome. An important prospective study of mild retardation, supported by other findings, indicated that two-thirds of those who were administratively classified as retarded in childhood, were as young adults, no longer in need of special services. Finally, adjustment disorders of childhood only rarely show continuities into adult life. Each category is heterogeneous in aetiology, and multifactorial influences commonly operate in individual cases. The presence of an organic component appears to narrow the range of reaction between constitution and environment. It seems probable that, with increasingly common social and familial disruptions, conduct disorders, mild retardation and adjustment problems will become increasingly prevalent, whereas biomedical advances are likely to reduce the incidence of severe retardation.