traits appear to be pervasive, persistent, an d unlikely to be limited to a particular devel-
opmental stage or another mental disorder. It sh ould be recognized that the traits of a per-
sonality disorder that appear in childhood will often not persist unchanged into adult life.
For a personality disorder to be diagnosed in an individual younger than 18 years, the fea-
tures must have been present fo r at least 1 year. The one exception to this is antisocial per-