Based on positive research with divalproex in children/adolescents with autism, we would like to extend this research to autistic adults with high levels of aggression, irritability, affective instability, or agitation. We aim to have 10 adult autistic patients enrolled in our study of the treatment of aggression/irritability with divalproex sodium ER. This will be an open treatment for adult patients to determine if the tolerability of divalproex sodium is better with the extended release. We propose this open label design because previous double-blinded studies of divalproex sodium were only done in children, not adults. These results will serve as pilot data for a future blinded study for autistic adults with the extended release formulation. This naturalistic design will allow for prior stable (3 months) use of concomitant medications. Our objective is to determine how well these patients can tolerate the prescribed doses and what added benefits can be attributed to divalproex sodium ER.
12-week open label treatment trial of divalproex sodium extended release (Depakote ER) in 10 patients with a diagnosis of autism. Our objective is to determine how well these patients can tolerate the prescribed doses and what added benefits can be attributed to divalproex sodium ER.