THE ANGELMAN SYNDROME: A BRIEF REVIEW

AGATA MALTESE¹, MARGHERITA SALERNO², GABRIELE TRIPI^3,4, PALMIRA ROMANO⁵, ANNACLAUDIA RICCIARDI⁵, ANNABELLADI FOLCO¹, TERESA DI FILIPPO¹, LUCIA PARISI¹

¹Department of Psychological, Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, University of Palermo, Italy - ²Sciences for Mother and Child Health Promotion, University of Palermo, Italy - ³Department PROSAMI, University of Palermo, Italy - ⁴Childhood Psychiatric Service for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, CH Chinon, France - ⁵Clinic of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Department of Mental Health and Physical and Preventive Medicine; Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy

Angelman's Syndrome (AS) was described for the first time by Harry Angelman in the 1960s, based on obervation of three child patients with similar physical and behavioral features such as severe intellectual impairment, lack of language, motor disorders and happy behaviour. Many years later the typical patients’ features were identified as linked to genetic abnormalities mainly characterized by neurological symptoms. Life expectancy is good although the symptoms tend to be stable and severe.