ABSTRACT
Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication, reciprocal social interaction, and repetitive behaviors and interests. It was previously known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders. It affect 1 in 88 children, Males are affected four times more than females. It has a complex and multifactorial aetiology
It is known to be highly heritable. It is frequently associated with comorbid psychopathology as high as 70%. The most common are intellectual disability, ADHD, Eating disorder, depression, sleep disorder and Anxiety disorder
There is no [gold standard] measure for assessing ASD so Diagnosis takes place typically from a complete history, physical and neurological evaluation. EEC has been the primary measure used to capture and characterize epileptiform and abnormal paroxysmal activity through the detection of focal spikes, which occur with increased frequency in ASD
Methods: Cross sectional descriptive study, conducted on 32 children attending the outpatient clinic of Special Need Center, Institute of Postgraduate Childhood studies, Ain Shams University
They underwent Thorough Full medical history, clinical examination, Clinical Psychiatric assessment using CARS, IQ test and BEG
Results: ASD is more common in males than females, although 53.1% had positive history of consanguinity but no statistically significant difference. As regarding EEG findings, 56.3% of children had normal EEG Finding; while 43.8% had abnormal EEG Findings. 50% with abnormal EEG Findings had subcortical Dysrythmia, 14.3% Generalized Epileptic Dysrythmia. There was no statistically significant relationship between different EEG Findings and CARS in the studied children with ASD
Conclusion: ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with altered brain connectivity
There is no agreement on EEG features in ASD. Although clinical EEG studies generally agree on the high prevalence of epileptiform abnormalities in children with ASD