Transdiagnostic Behavioral Phenotypes and Comorbid Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: An Exploratory Study.
Shane Cleary, Sarah Asbury, Russell J Schachar and 9 others
PMID 41416939WHAT IT FOUND
Participants aged 6 to 21 grouped into six behavior clusters that crossed autism, ADHD and typical development diagnoses.
Gastrointestinal symptoms, especially constipation, were linked with severe social communication deficits and repetitive behavior, not diagnosis alone.
Key findings
01Six behavior clusters were identified, and five included participants from autism, ADHD and typically developing groups.
02One or more gastrointestinal symptoms were reported by 40.3% of autism participants, 25.7% of ADHD participants, and 9.5% of typically developing participants.
03Constipation was the gastrointestinal symptom with the strongest association to behavioral phenotype.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether gastrointestinal symptoms and behavior change together over time. Gastrointestinal symptoms were recorded only as yes or no for reflux, frequent diarrhea and frequent constipation, without severity or duration. Medications and behavioral therapies were not controlled for, and they may influence both gastrointestinal symptoms and behavior scores. The smaller proportion of typically developing participants may have affected clustering by grouping people with mild symptoms with typically developing participants. Cluster 1, Cluster 4 and Cluster 5 were stable, but Cluster 2, Cluster 3 and Cluster 6 were considered patterns in the data rather than stable clusters.
Declared interests
The Ontario Brain Institute funded the study. Jane A. Foster serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for MRM Health NL and has received consulting or speaker fees from Alphasights, Novozymes, Klaire Labs, Takeda Canada, Rothman, Benson, Hedges Inc and WebMD. Robert Nicolson has received grant funding from F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical Inc. and Maplight Therapeutics. All other authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the higher gastrointestinal symptom rates in autism and ADHD as proof that diagnosis alone explains them. The study grouped participants by behavior profiles, and gastrointestinal symptoms were linked to severe social communication deficits and repetitive behavior across clusters.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →