Social Interactions and Repetitive Behavior of Autistic and Trainable Mentally Retarded Children

this research aimed to investigate differential diagnosis for social and stereotyped repetitive patterns of behavior among children with special needs. Using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (Lord et al., 1994), two groups of autistic (5 girls and 11 boys) and trainable mentally retarded (5 girls and 11 boys) aged 6-8 years old were selected from special schools. The results of MANOVA showed that the mean score of qualitative damage to social interaction, communication and stereo- typed repetitive patterns of behavior in autistic children is significantly higher than trainable mentally retarded children. Implica- tions on differential diagnosis of children with special needs are discussed.