Little is known about what happens when autistic children grow up. So Marsha Seltzer, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and her colleagues decided to conduct a study to learn more.

The study involved 427 autistic subjects, 40 percent of whom were between the ages of 20 and early 50s, as well as their parents. The first round of findings from the investigation was reported on August 3 in Seattle at a meeting of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Disability.

While behavioral problems such as repetitive actions or aggressive behavior tend to be common in adolescents with autism, they often become less intense in adults with autism. As a result, mothers of adult children with autism tend to suffer less from anxiety and depression than do mothers of adolescents with autism.

In contrast, adults with autism still often present a challenge to parents because of other medical problems. Eighty-three percent of the individuals with autism who were studied had at least one secondary diagnosis—60 percent with mental retardation, 24 percent with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 23 percent with seizure disorders.

Of the individuals studied, over half are in school, 40 percent are in vocational programs or hold jobs in the community, and only 4 percent have no such day activity.

One major goal of the study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, was to identify the types of services that are needed by persons with autism and are not being provided. Some 400,000 Americans are estimated to have the disorder.