Structuring Knowledge about ASD: An Ontology to Support the Care Network for Autistic Children Based on the MSD Manuals and DSM-5
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by persistent deficits in communication and social interaction, as well as the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors, according to the DSM-5. Diagnostic manuals have technical language that is not easily accessible. This research proposes an ontology to represent ASD-related concepts and promote greater understanding. An Ontology Requirements Specification Document (ORSD) was developed, with conceptual modeling in OntoUML and operationalization in OWL. The evaluation was carried out through competency questions and automatic inferences. The objective is to support families, teachers, and caregivers in understanding ASD and the diagnostic process.
Keywords:
OntoUML, Ontology, OWL, Diagnosis, DSM-5, MSD, Autism, ASD
References
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Sowa, J. F. (1984). Conceptual structures: information processing in mind and machine. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
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Waltz, D. L. (2014). The state of the art in natural-language understanding. Strategies for natural language processing, pages 3–32.
APA, A. P. A. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association, Arlington, VA, 5th edition.
DeBellis, M., Dutta, N., Gino, J., and Balaji, A. (2024). Integrating ontologies and large language models to implement retrieval augmented generation. Applied Ontology, 19(4):389–407.
Falbo, R. d. A., Menezes, C. S. d., and Rocha, A. R. (1998). A systematic approach for building ontologies. In IBERAMIA, volume 1484, pages 349–360. Springer.
Grandin, T. (2015). O cérebro autista: pensando através do espectro. Editora Record.
Guarino, N. (1998). Formal ontology in information systems: Proceedings of the first international conference (FOIS’98), June 6-8, Trento, Italy, volume 46. IOS press.
Guizzardi, G. (2005). Ontological foundations for structural conceptual models. Phd thesis - research ut, graduation ut, University of Twente.
Guizzardi, G., Fonseca, C. M., Almeida, J. P. A., Sales, T. P., Benevides, A. B., and Porello, D. (2021). Types and taxonomic structures in conceptual modeling: a novel ontological theory and engineering support. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 134:101891.
Hassan, M. M. and Mokhtar, H. M. (2022). Autismont: an ontology-driven decision support for autism diagnosis and treatment. Egyptian informatics journal, 23(1):95–103.
Lima, J., Oliveira, V., Silva, P., and Alves, S. (2024). Understanding asd: Design and development of a domain ontology to assist professionals in understanding autistic children based on dsm-5. In Proceedings of the Joint Ontology Workshops (JOWO) - Episode X: The Tukker Zomer of Ontology, and satellite events co-located with the 14th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2024).
Merck & Co. (2022). Manual msd – versão para profissionais de saúde. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2025.
Shaw, K. A. (2025). Prevalence and early identification of autism spectrum disorder among children aged 4 and 8 years—autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, 16 sites, united states, 2022. MMWR. Surveillance Summaries, 74.
Silva, A. B. B., Gaiato, M. B., and Reveles, L. T. (2012). Mundo singular. Rio de janeiro: Objetiva.
Silva, S. D., Neto, F. M. M., de Lima, R. M., de Macêdo, F. T., Santo, J. R. S., and Silva, W. L. N. (2017). Knowledgemon hunter: a serious game with geolocation to support learning of children with autism and learning difficulties. In 2017 19th symposium on virtual and augmented reality (SVR), pages 293–296. IEEE.
Siqueira, B. (2025). Censo 2022 identifica 2,4 milhões de pessoas diagnosticadas com autismo no Brasil. [link]. Acesso em: 22 jun. 2025.
Sowa, J. F. (1984). Conceptual structures: information processing in mind and machine. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
Venkatesan, K., Nelaturu, S., Vullamparthi, A. J., and Rao, S. (2013). Hybrid ontology based e-learning expert system for children with autism. In 2013 International Conference of Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT), pages 93–98. IEEE.
Waltz, D. L. (2014). The state of the art in natural-language understanding. Strategies for natural language processing, pages 3–32.
Published
2025-09-29
How to Cite
LIMA, Jéssica Ruana Costa; OLIVEIRA, Victor Benoiston Jales de; ALVES FILHO, Sebastião Emidio; SILVA, Patrício de Alencar.
Structuring Knowledge about ASD: An Ontology to Support the Care Network for Autistic Children Based on the MSD Manuals and DSM-5. In: LLMS, GRAPH ANALYSIS, AND ONTOLOGIES (LAGO) - BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON DATABASES (SBBD), 40. , 2025, Fortaleza/CE.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 393-403.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbbd_estendido.2025.247985.
