Background: Growth abnormalities are uniquely associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); however, the extent to which growth abnormalities are present has hardly been investigated. The current study aims to compare the differences in anthropometric parameters in a group of autistic Egyptian children and the healthy normal population.
Methods: We recruited 100 children with ASD from the Outpatient Clinic for "Autistic Children" at the Medical Research Hospital of Excellence, National Research Centre in Cairo, Egypt. They were diagnosed by DSM-IV criteria of the American Psychiatric Association, Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, and Childhood Autism Rating Scale. Of these children at age of 3-10 years, 71 were males and 29 females. Eight anthropometric parameters were assessed in view of data of the healthy Egyptians of pertinent sex and age.
Results: Weight and body mass index increased because of a signifi cant increase in subcutaneous fat thickness. This tendency with a probable decrease in muscle mass was more evident in male or in older children, likely resulting from sedentary life style and food selectivity.
Conclusions: The Z head circumference score and its variance signifi cantly increased especially in males or older children, suggesting the relative overgrowth of the brain in a substantial percentage of Egyptian children with autism. We concluded that increased fat composition in Egyptian autistic children with decreased muscle mass necessitates tailoring a specially designed food supplementation program to ameliorate the severity of autism symptoms.

Background: The purpose of this study was to report on the psychometric measures and discriminatory function of a new diagnostic test for autism spectrum disorders, the Clinical Autism Diagnostic Scale (CADS).
Methods: The CADS was used to test 216 children in the study, including 86 with low-functioning autism specturm disorders (ASD), 16 children with highfunctioning ASD, 16 with pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified, 7 with Asperger syndrome, 65 with typical development, 11 children with language impairments and 15 with intellectual disabilities. Ages ranged from 38-73 months. Behaviors for the groups were compared across seven domains.
Results: The results indicated the instrument was reliable, valid, and successfully differentiated the different groups of children with and without autism. All ASD groups were found to display difficulties in the domains of sensory behaviors and stereotyped behaviors. The play and social domains were found to measure similar underlying concepts of behaviors, while the receptive language and expressive language domains were also found to measure similar underlying-language concepts. The group of children diagnosed as having low-functioning autism performed less well on all tested domains in the instrument than did the other three groups of children with ASD, and these other three groups each also presented unique patterns of behaviors and differed on individual domains.
Conclusions: CADS is a reliable and valid test. It successfully differentiates the abilities of children with ASD at different levels of functioning.