**Author details**

Eric C. Larsen, Catherine Croft Swanwick and Sharmila Banerjee-Basu

MindSpec, Inc., U.S.A.

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**Chapter 11**

**Genetic Etiology of Autism**

Agnes Cristina Fett-Conte,

Patrícia Pereira-Nascimento

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53106

**1. Introduction**

nym for ASD.

Sato et al., 2009; Biederman et al., 2010).

Persico, 2009; Avchen et al., 2011).

Ana Luiza Bossolani-Martins and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are severe neurodevelopment disorders characterized by impairment in social interaction and communication, and repetitive and stereotyped behav‐ iors. Motor deficits, aggressive behavior, abnormal sleep patterns, gastrointestinal problems, epilepsy and intellectual disability are also observed. Manifestations are observed before three years of age with early stimulation being recommended (Baird et al., 2006; Faras et al., 2010; Bronsard et al., 2011; Miles, 2011; Angelidou et al., 2012). Due to the great phenotypic variability of carriers and the subjectivity of the differential diagnostic criteria of "Pervasive Developmental Disorders" (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), ASD is today consid‐ ered the most appropriate denomination. The general term, autism, is often used as a syno‐

ASD were described more than seven decades ago (Sanders, 2009) and many neurobiologi‐ cal changes have been illustrated in carriers, yet the diagnosis is still based on behavioral aspects using diagnostic scales. However, even though there is a detailed "checklist" made up of several scales, most are not translated and validated in different countries, which hin‐ ders standardized and efficacious diagnosis (Marteleto et al., 2008; Rapin & Goldman, 2008;

The prevalence of ASD varies by region, but it is believed to be around 1:150 individuals. However, higher prevalences of up to 1:88 children have been described (Currenti, 2010; An‐ gelidou et al., 2012). The tentatives to explain such high prevalence rates involve changes in diagnostic criteria, greater knowledge of the general population and the exposure of the ge‐ netic material of fetus to internal and external toxic agents (King & Bearman, 2009; Lintas &

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 Fett-Conte et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

