Christopher Gillberg

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Lars Christopher Gillberg (born 19 April 1950) is a professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Bergen, New York, Odense, St George's (University of London), San Francisco, Glasgow, and Strathclyde.<ref name=APS>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Modern Approaches in Learning Disabilities Conference Template:Webarchive. Developmental Disabilities Research Group (DDREG) 2005 annual conference, South West Centre for Education, Research & Development. Retrieved 23 May 2008.</ref> Gillberg is the founding editor of the journal European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Autism research

In the early 1980s, the concept of the 'autism spectrum' was introduced by Lorna Wing and Gillberg.<ref>Gillberg, C. (2006) "Autism Spectrum Disorders". A Clinician's Handbook of Child and Adolescent. Eds. Christopher Gillberg, Richard Harrington and Hans-Christoph Steinhausen. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Template:ISBN, p. 447.</ref> Gillberg has conducted extensive research on autism throughout his academic career. In 2003, a French and Swedish research team at the Institut Pasteur, and the psychiatry departments at University of Gothenburg and the University of Paris, led by Thomas Bourgeron, Marion Leboyer, and Gillberg, discovered the first precisely identified genetic mutations in individuals with autism.<ref name=Gosline05>Gosline, Anna. "Roadmap to unravelling autism revealed". New Scientist, 28 June 2005. Retrieved 20 August 2006.</ref> The team identified mutations altering two genes on the X chromosome, which appear to play a role in the formation of synapses (communication spaces between neurons), in two families where multiple members were diagnosed with autism. Earlier studies, such as the Paris Autism Research International Sib-Pair Study (PARIS), coordinated by Gillberg and Marion Leboyer, have more generally associated the X-chromosome regions with autism. The 2003 findings indicated the location of the mutation to be on the NLGN4 gene and the NGLN3 gene. The mutation prevents a complete protein from forming, and is inherited from the mother.<ref>Template:Cite journal Press release: "Two genes associated with autism" Template:Webarchive. Press Office, Institut Pasteur, University of Paris. 31 March 2003. Retrieved 20 August 2006.</ref>

Since 2006, Gillberg has participated in a cross-disciplinary project titled "Autism spectrum conditions: the Gothenburg collaborative studies", funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).<ref name="VRProjekt06">Vetenskapsrådet. Detaljerad information för diarienr 2006–3449 Template:Webarchive: Gillberg, Christopher "Psychiatric diseases". 8 November 2006 (in Swedish). Retrieved 6 May 2008.</ref> The project is a collaboration between scientists specialized in child and youth psychiatry, molecular biology, and neuroscience, and involves a genetic part with an international study team of French, British, and U.S. researchers examining various aspects of autism. Some of the results were published in 2007.<ref>Christopher Gillberg Template:Webarchive. Scientific Commons. Retrieved 6 May 2008.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The project also includes a genetic study on the Faroe Islands.<ref name="VRProjekt06"/><ref>Ellefsen, Asa et al. (2008). "Autism in the Faroe Islands. An Epidemiological Study". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37-3 (March 2007), pp. 437–444.</ref>

DAMP, MBD, and ADHD

In the 1970s, Gillberg and colleagues introduced the concept Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception (DAMP), primarily used in Scandinavia.<ref>Gillberg, C. (2003). "Deficits in attention, motor control, and perception: A brief review". Archives of Disease in Childhood. London: Oct 2003. Vol. 88, Iss. 10; p. 904: "In Scandinavia, the DAMP (deficits in attention, motor control, perception) concept was developed in the 1970s, in an attempt to operationalise the syndrome of MBD, long before the publication of the DSM-III-R (in which ADHD appeared in a formalised fashion for the first time)."</ref><ref>Tervo, Raymond C. et al. (2002)."Children with ADHD and motor dysfunction compared with children with ADHD only". Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 2002; 44, p. 383: "Establishing a diagnosis is often difficult because separately identified disorders such as DCD and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a substantial overlap (Bax 1999). A child who has problems of attention may have difficulties with movement, perception, and memory (Gillberg and Rasmussen 1982a,b). In Scandinavia these overlapping symptoms and signs are labeled as deficits in attention, motor control, and perception (DAMP)".</ref> The DAMP concept as used in more recent publications, refers to Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in combination with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). According to Gillberg, it constitutes a "subgroup of the diagnostic category of ADHD, conceptually similar – but not clinically identical – to the WHO concept of HKD (hyperkinetic disorder)", and is diagnosed on the basis of "concomitant attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder in children who do not have severe learning disability or cerebral palsy".<ref name="DAMP_review"/>

Some scholars disagree with the lumping of ADHD and DCD, arguing that they are unrelated.<ref name="Tervo"/> In 2003, Gillberg noted that, although there could be "an issue of how to deal with the conflict between splitting (ADHD plus DCD) and lumping (DAMP)", he maintained that "the DAMP construct has helped identify a group of children with ADHD and multiple needs that will not be self-evident if the diagnosis is just ADHD or just DCD."<ref name="DAMP_review"/> Before the Scandinavian studies, recognition that individuals with attention problems may also have difficulties with movement, perception, and memory had received little attention in studies.<ref name="Tervo">Template:Cite journal</ref> According to various studies, half of the children with ADHD also have DCD.<ref name="AHDH_DCD">Template:Cite journal</ref>

With the development of the ADHD concept, the previous, less precise, category of Minimal Brain Dysfunction (MBD), "a term almost universally employed in child psychiatry and developmental pediatrics from the 1950s to the early 1980s"<ref name="DAMP_review"/> was replaced. Gillberg began to study DAMP in the late 1970s, when ADHD was still called MBD, and the DAMP concept has been adjusted as the term ADHD was introduced and became internationally used. Around 1990, DAMP had become a generally accepted diagnostic concept in two Nordic countries,<ref name="Airaksinen">Template:Cite journal</ref> but when the DSM-IV appeared in 1994, DAMP became considered a redundant term in many countries, since DAMP is essentially equivalent to ADHD in combination with DCD, as defined by DSM-IV.<ref name="DAMP_review"/><ref name="Nordisk">Template:Cite journal</ref> Gillberg's four criteria for DAMP are:

According to Gillberg, clinically severe form of DAMP (or ADHD + DCD) affects roughly 1.5% of the general population of school age children; another few per cent are affected by more moderate variants. Boys are overrepresented; girls are currently probably underdiagnosed. There are many overlapping conditions, including conduct disorder, depression/anxiety, and academic failure. There is a strong link with autism spectrum disorders in severe DAMP. Familial factors, and pre- and perinatal risk factors, account for much of the variance. Psychosocial risk factors appear to increase the risk of marked psychiatric abnormality in DAMP. Outcome in early adult age was psychosocially poor in one study in almost 60% of unmedicated cases. About half of all cases with ADHD have DCD, and conversely, ADHD occurs in about half of all cases of DCD.<ref name="DAMP_review"/>

Template:As of, Gillberg has authored 780 papers (listed at PubMed) on DAMP, ADHD and related conditions.<ref name="DAMP_review">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Gillberg's criteria for Asperger syndrome

In 1989, Gillberg created one of the first diagnostic criteria for Asperger syndrome, which was revised in 1991.<ref>Attwood, Tony (2006). The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006. Template:ISBN, p.36: "One of the results of the discussions [at a small international conference about Asperger's syndrome in London in 1988] was the publication of the first diagnostic criteria in 1989, revised in 1991 (Gillberg 1991; Gillberg and Gillberg 1989)".</ref> They are applied in clinical practice due to the adhesion to the original description of Hans Asperger.<ref>Attwood, Tony (2006). The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006. Template:ISBN, p.36: "the criteria of Christopher Gillberg, who is based in Sweden and London, remain those that most closely resemble the original descriptions of Asperger. Thus, these are the criteria of first choice for me and many experienced clinicians."</ref> All of the following six criteria must be met for confirmation of diagnosis:<ref name=Gill>Template:Cite journal</ref>

  1. Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction (at least two of the following)
    1. Inability to interact with peers
    2. Lack of desire to interact with peers
    3. Lack of appreciation of social cues
    4. Socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior
  2. All-absorbing narrow interest (at least one of the following)
    1. Exclusion of other activities
    2. Repetitive adherence
    3. More rote than meaning
  3. Imposition of routines and interests (at least one of the following)
    1. On self, in aspects of life
    2. On others
  4. Speech and language problems (at least three of the following)
    1. Delayed development
    2. Superficially perfect expressive language
    3. Formal, pedantic language
    4. Odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics
    5. Impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings
  5. Non-verbal communication problems (at least one of the following)
    1. Limited use of gestures
    2. Clumsy/gauche body language
    3. Limited facial expression
    4. Inappropriate expression
    5. Peculiar, stiff gaze
  6. Motor clumsiness: poor performance on neurodevelopmental examination

Gillberg's criteria differ from those given in the DSM-IV-TR. Some scholars have therefore criticized them for "making it difficult to compare with other studies."<ref name="Klinetal">Template:Cite journal</ref> It has been argued that the failure of some research groups to replicate some of Gillberg's findings "may relate primarily to fundamental differences in diagnostic approach".<ref name="Klinetal"/>

Awards

Gillberg has received several awards for his research, including:

  • Minor Fernström prize,1991<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Ingvar Award, 1995<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Arvid Carlsson Foundation Major Prize (2024)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • The Hilda och Alfred Eriksson Prize from the Royal Academy of Science in Sweden (2024)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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See also

Notes

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Selected publications by Gillberg

Journal articles

Selected books

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|CitationClass=web }} University of Gothenburg, 2001 (in Swedish)

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