ABSTRACT
Psychotropic medication has a long and extensive history in the treatment of behavioral disorders in children and adults with intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), often referred to as “autism.” Recent data on medication-prescribing rates indicate that pharmacologic treatment is provided to a significant proportion of individuals from these two populations. For example, a review of prevalence studies of psychotropic drug use among both children and adults with ID found that, from 1986 to 1995, psychotropic medication use prevalence rates [excluding antiepileptic drugs (AEDs)] in institutions ranged from 12% to 40%; for AEDs, prevalence use rates ranged from 24% to 41%. Medication use prevalence rates in the community were somewhat lower, ranging from 19% to 29% for psychotropics and 18% to 23% for AEDs (1). More recently, Stolker et al. (2) reported that 22.8% of persons with ID residing in group homes in the Netherlands were prescribed psychotropics and that 15.9% were prescribed AEDs.
