Abstract
An overview study deals with a summary of current knowledge. At first, studies evaluating the reliability of standardized diagnostic criteria for childhood autism and pervasive developmental disorders in various diagnostic manuals were introduced.
In the second part, subtyping efforts were divided into studies based primarily on subtypisation of psychopathological symptoms, and into studies using primarily neurobiological variables. In the discussion it was shown that the identification of narrow autistic subtypes was urgently needed.
Further directions in autistic research were suggested.