Sexual development is thought to be unaffected, as evidenced by a single reported case of a woman with Angelman syndrome conceiving a female child who also had Angelman syndrome.The majority of those with AS achieve continence by day and some by night. Angelman syndrome is not a degenerative syndrome, and thus people with AS may improve their living skills with support.Dressing skills are variable and usually limited to items of clothing without buttons or zippers. Most adults can eat with a knife or spoon and fork, and can learn to perform simple household tasks. Particular problems which have arisen in adults are a tendency to obesity (more in females), and worsening of scoliosis if it is present. The affectionate nature may also persist into adult life where it can pose a problem socially, but this problem is not insurmountable. People with Angelman syndrome appear to have a reduced but near-normal life expectancy, dying on average 10 to 15 years earlier than the general population. Epidemiology
Though the prevalence of Angelman syndrome is not precisely known, there are some estimates. The best data available are from studies of school age children, ages 6–13 years, living in Sweden and from Denmark where the diagnosis of AS children in medical clinics was compared to an 8-year period of about 45,000 births. The Swedish study showed an AS prevalence of about 1/20,000 and the Danish study showed a minimum AS prevalence of about 1/10,000. History
Harry Angelman, a pediatrician working in Warrington, England, first reported three children with this condition in 1965.
Angelman later described his choice of the title "Puppet Children" to describe these cases as being related to an oil painting he had seen while vacationing in Italy:

The history of medicine is full of interesting stories about the discovery of illnesses. The saga of Angelmans syndrome is one such story. It was purely by chance that nearly thirty years ago (e.g. [sic], circa 1964) three handicapped children were admitted at various times to my childrens ward in England. They had a variety of disabilities and although at first sight they seemed to be suffering from different conditions I felt that there was a common cause for their illness. The diagnosis was purely a clinical one because in spite of technical investigations which today are more refined I was unable to establish scientific proof that the three children all had the same handicap. In view of this I hesitated to write about them in the medical journals. However, when on holiday in Italy I happened to see an oil painting in the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona called ... a Boy with a Puppet. The boys laughing face and the fact that my patients exhibited jerky movements gave me the idea of writing an article about the three children with a title of Puppet Children. It was not a name that pleased all parents but it served as a means of combining the three little patients into a single group. Later the name was changed to Angelman syndrome.