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This study investigated the effect of age on adaptive behavior and academic skill in autistic and mentally retarded children. Subjects were 47 autistic and 128 mentally retarded children from a special school. Cross-sectional comparisons were made between junior and senior groups using ratings obtained from teachers on adaptive behaviors and academic skills. We found that the levels of toilet training, eating skills, participation in group activities, and self-control in the autistic children improved significantly with age. The skills of number concepts in the autistic children also improved with age. However, these adaptive and academic levels were in general significantly lower than those of the mentally retarded children. The levels of initiative did not improve significantly in either the autistic or the mentally retarded children, and they were significantly lower in the autistic children. The implications of these findings in the context of our previous study on the changes of communication and maladaptive behaviors with age in the autistic children are discussed.

One hundred and twenty-eight mentally retarded children, ages 6 to 14, from a special school were assessed by teachers in terms of nine maladaptive behaviors. The results indicated that the prevalence of some maladaptive behaviors changed as a function of IQ and age, and that there were splits of such changes as IQ-dependent and as age-dependent by maladaptive behavior.