{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.049253731343283584, 'fraction_numerical': 0.024626865671641792, 'mean_word_length': 5.478260869565218, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Prevalence of Behavioural and Emotional Problems in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders

Objective: The goal of the present study was to examine the prevalence of behavioural and emotional problems among children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Method: Archival data from a total of 71 children (Mage = 10.24, SD = 2.91) diagnosed by their clinicians to have high-functioning ASD were obtained. Information on demographics and behavioural and emotional problems from the Child Behavioural Checklist (CBCL) were entered. Results: We found that between 72% and 86% of children with high-functioning ASD had at least one behavioural or emotional problem of clinical concerns as indicated by the CBCL syndromes and DSM-oriented scales. The most commonly reported problems were social problems (60.6%), thought problems (50.7%), attention problems (49.3%), and withdrawn/depressed (40.8%). Using the DSM-oriented scales, the most commonly reported problems were attention deficit/hyperactivity problems (35.2%), anxiety problems (33.8%) and affective problems (31%). Conclusions: Findings from the present study provide further evidence to support the high prevalence of behavioural and emotional problems, which could result in multiple psychiatric diagnoses among children with high-functioning ASD.