Studies evaluating change in autism symptom severity across the lifespan have yielded inconsistent results, making it difficult to assess the prevalence of meaningful change in autism symptom severity, and what characterizes it. Better understanding the ways in which autism symptoms change over time is crucial, with important implications for intervention. Synthesizing information across past studies, autism symptom severity change (especially decreases) appears common, though stability of symptoms is also frequent. Symptom severity change is characterized by variability in patterns of change between different individuals (between-person), variability in change within a person's trajectory across time (within-person), and variability in change patterns across symptom domains (i.e., social-communication, restricted/repetitive behaviors). Variability in severity change is likely impacted by differences in person-level characteristics (e.g., sex, IQ, sociodemographic factors) as well as developmental processes across time. Numerous methodological issues may impact our ability to understand how common change in symptom severity is, including varying measurement tools, analytic approaches, and change patterns between symptom domains across time. Potential implications of better understanding and characterizing symptom severity change include incorporation of severity change patterns and predictors of change into research on biomarkers, and consideration of such predictors as moderators or mediators of change in clinical practice.

评估整个生命周期自闭症症状严重程度变化的研究得出了不一致的结果，因此很难评估自闭症症状严重程度有意义的变化的发生率及其特征。更好地了解自闭症症状随时间变化的方式至关重要，这对干预具有重要意义。综合过去研究的信息，自闭症症状严重程度的变化（尤其是减轻）似乎很常见，尽管症状的稳定性也很常见。症状严重程度变化的特点是不同个体之间（人与人之间）变化模式的变异性、一个人随时间变化的轨迹（人内）变化模式的变异性以及跨症状领域（即社交沟通、限制/重复行为）。严重程度变化的变异性可能受到个人特征（例如性别、智商、社会人口因素）以及不同时间的发展过程差异的影响。许多方法论问题可能会影响我们理解症状严重程度变化的普遍性的能力，包括不同的测量工具、分析方法以及不同时间症状域之间的变化模式。更好地理解和表征症状严重程度变化的潜在影响包括将严重程度变化模式和变化预测因素纳入生物标志物研究中，以及在临床实践中考虑将此类预测因素作为变化的调节因素或中介因素。