ESCAP practice guidance for autism: a summary of evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and treatment
ESCAP · 2020 · Europe
Source and licence
- Authors
- Joaquin Fuentes, Amaia Hervás, Patricia Howlin et al.
- Title
- ESCAP practice guidance for autism: a summary of evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and treatment
- Journal
- European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2020
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Changes
- Verbatim excerpts; formatting adapted
Full text retrieved 2026-10-27 from Europe PMC · PMC8140956
Licence statement of the original publication
Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
This page reproduces excerpts of the original publication; the original is authoritative. It has not been reviewed by a physician, does not state a recommendation of Medelix and does not replace medical advice. The guideline may have been updated since.
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Recommendations
We found no explicitly labelled recommendations in this publication; its recommendations are in the running text of the original.
Abstract
Across Europe, there is increased awareness of the frequency and importance of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is now recognised not only as a childhood disorder but as a heterogeneous, neurodevelopmental condition that persists throughout life. Services for individuals with autism and their families vary widely, but in most European countries, provision is limited. In 2018, European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (ESCAP) identified the need for a Practice Guidance document that would help to improve knowledge and practice, especially for individuals in underserviced areas. The present document, prepared by the ASD Working Party and endorsed by the ESCAP Board on October 3, 2019, summarises current information on autism and focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and treating this condition.
Electronic supplementary material: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00787-020-01587-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Contents of the original publication
The section headings of the original.
- Process and methods for the development of this practice guidance
- Diagnostic classification systems
- DSM-5
- ICD-11
- Prevalence
- Early detection
- Early decline
- Early identification of autism
- Diagnosis
- Common co-occurring conditions
- Socio/environmental considerations
- Assessments in adulthood
- Diagnosing autism in women and girls
- Limitations of standard diagnostic procedures
- Sharing diagnostic information
- Prognosis in autism
- Autism in older adults
- Treatment
- General principles
- Intervention across the lifespan
- Specific therapeutic interventions
- Treatments that should not be used
- Summary and conclusion
- Compliance with ethical standards
- Ethical standards
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