ABSTRACT
Individuals with genetic disorders demonstrate an increased vulnerability for developing complex, difficult, and challenging behaviors as well as frank psychiatric illness. Self-injurious behavior is a particularly problematic behavior in several different genetic syndromes that frequently requires an urgent medical and psychiatric referral and request for psychotropic medication. Specific genetic disorders appear to carry an increased vulnerability for self-injury. Paralleling other concerns, the severity of self-injury varies between syndromes, and may significantly vary among those with the same syndrome. Coupling the findings from behavior phenotype research with those from the fields of psychiatric genetics, psychosocial influences, neurodevelopment, and neurology allows emergence of a new model for examining and understanding the neuropsychiatric aspects of genetic conditions. Autism and autistic spectrum disorders constitute a group of behaviorally defined, complex neurodevelopmental disorders with onset prior to the age of 2.5 to 3 years although behavioral symptoms may be evident prior to the age of 1 year.
