Abstract
This chapter is written for parents and other caregivers of persons with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) with the intent to help them gain more knowledge of when and how pharmacotherapy can and should be used as an important part of the comprehensive treatment of PDDs. This chapter reviews English-language studies published between 1994 and 2006 and carried out using the Entrez PubMed Database (www.pubmed.gov), which is a service of the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health. PubMed includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. The term ASD is used as a synonym of PDDs throughout this chapter. ASD is characterized by deficits in language usage, impairments in social reciprocity, and the presence of behavioral rigidity. ASD also has many coexisting neuropsychiatric disorders. It is quite reasonable to speculate that ASD is related to dysfunctions of certain neurotransmitter systems and that certain medications may be appropriate and effective in improving ASD and coexisting neuropsychiatric disorders.
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