Abstract

Introduction: Measuring health- related quality of life (HRQoL) is very important for children with developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Down syndrome (DS). However, no HRQoL studies found in the literature for the differences between children with ASD and children with DS. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine HRQoL in children with ASD and children with DS. Methods: The participants consisted of 206 children with ASD (61), DS (55) and typical development (TD) (90), aged 5-10 years old, after administering anonymous questionnaires to their parents–caregivers. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory ™ 4.0– Parent Report (PedsQL) was used to measure HRQoL. One-way analysis of variance and χ2 were applied for comparisons among groups. Results: TD group scored higher than ASD and DS in all comparisons. Post-hoc (Tukey) comparisons revealed that the statistically univariate effect was due to differences between the TD group and the other two groups, ASD and DS (p

Key words: Health Related Quality of Life, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down syndrome, children.