Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders最新文献

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether face-to-face and therapist-assisted online (i.e., blended) behavioral parent training are effective on reducing disruptive behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in routine mental health care. Ninety-seven children with ASD (4-13 years; 76 boys) were randomized to face-to-face parent training, blended parent training, or a waitlist control condition. We assessed treatment effects on parent-rated child noncompliance (primary outcome) and irritability (secondary outcome). This involved comparing both formats separately to the control condition using linear regression models. Child behaviors at 6 months follow-up were also examined. Children in the face-to-face parent training condition improved significantly more on noncompliance and irritability than children in the waitlist condition and improvements sustained to 6 months follow-up. Children in the blended condition did not improve more than children in the waitlist condition and attrition was high. Our results extend findings from efficacy studies to routine mental health care and advocate the use of face-to-face parent training for disruptive behaviors in children with ASD. More research into blended parent training programs for children with ASD and disruptive behaviors in routine mental health care should be conducted to draw more definite conclusions about the value of blended parent training for these children. Trial registration number NL4712; date of registration 22-10-2014.

This descriptive study was designed with a clear focus: to use structural equation modeling to determine the intricate relationships between family sense of coherence, coping, and role performance in parents of children with disabilities. The study was conducted with a sample of 185 parents of children receiving special education at the primary school level in a province in Türkiye. Data was collected using a parent introduction form, the Family Sense of Coherence Scale-short form (FSOC-S), the Family Role Performance (FRP) scale, and the Revised-COPE Scale (R-COPE). The effect of FSOC-S on FRP and R-COPE was statistically significant. The effect of FRP on R-COPE was statistically significant. Moreover, FSOC-S predicted 22.4% of FRP, while FSOC-S and FRP predicted 17.1% of R-COPE. The study's findings underscore the urgent need for interventions to improve the family's sense of coherence and positive coping attitudes. These interventions are crucial for parents to effectively manage the challenges they face while caring for a child with a disability. The study also highlights the significant role of positive coping attitudes and family sense of coherence in enhancing role performance in parents of children with disabilities.

Previous research suggests that an eyewitness credibility bias can arise when mock jurors are informed of a child's disability diagnosis. The aim of the present study was to examine mock jurors' lie-detection accuracy and credibility perceptions when assessing eyewitness testimonies provided by children diagnosed with an intellectual disability. Adult mock jurors (N = 217; half informed of the child's disability status) read four transcriptions from interviews with children (ages 10 to 15) diagnosed with an intellectual disability before evaluating the credibility and truthfulness of each eyewitness report. The mock jurors' lie-detection accuracy of the eyewitness reports produced by children with an intellectual disability (55.76%) was found to be similar to prior lie-detection research involving typically developing populations. Furthermore, there were no differences in the lie-detection accuracy and credibility ratings between mock-jurors who were informed of the child's disability when compared to those who were not informed. Although mock jurors perceived the children's testimony to have low credibility, they seemed reluctant to consider many of these testimonies to be false. The current findings also suggest that the disclosure of a disability may not independently cause worsened perceptions of child eyewitnesses.

Purpose: To evaluate sex differences in autistic traits in youth born extremely preterm (EP; 23-27 weeks) who were later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 10-years.

Method: A longitudinal cohort design from the Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborn Study (ELGAN) followed N = 857 EP infants from birth through 10-years. EP infants later diagnosed with ASD (N = 61, 20 females) participated in the study. Group differences were evaluated via inferential and Bayesian statistics (values > 1 suggest evidence for alternate hypothesis) on ASD screeners (M-CHAT at 2-years, SCQ and SRS-2 at 10-years), and gold-standard diagnostic measures (ADOS-2, ADI-R) at 10-years.

Results: Males scored significantly higher than females on measures of Social Affect from the ADOS-2, t(34.27)=-2.20, BF₁₀ = 2.33, and measures of Repetitive and Restricted Behaviors from the ADI-R, t(40.52)=-2.85, BF₁₀ = 5.26. Bayesian estimates suggested marginal evidence for sex differences in Nonverbal Communication, t(30.66)=-1.81, BF₁₀ = 1.25, and Verbal Communication, t(24.64)=-1.89, BF₁₀ = 1.39, from the ADI-R, wherein males scored higher than females. No statistically significant sex differences were identified on any of the ASD screeners at 2 (M-CHAT) or 10 years (SCQ). No significant sex differences were observed on any subscales of the SRS at 10 years.

Conclusions: EP autistic males present with more autistic traits than EP autistic females on gold-standard diagnostic measures of autism at 10-years of age, despite not presenting with higher autistic traits on screeners at either age. These results align with sex differences observed in full-term, autistic youth. These results suggest ASD screeners may under identify autism in EP youth, particularly females.

Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Third Edition (GARS-3) serves as an effective screening tool for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that is based on the latest and authoritative diagnostic criteria, however, there is a deficiency in adaptive research in China. We aimed to revise the Chinese version of GARS-3 (CV-GARS-3) and evaluate its psychometric characteristics, providing a theoretical basis for the improvement of ASD screening tools in China. This study developed CV-GARS-3 through translation and cultural adaptation of GARS-3. 362 ASD individuals, 126 typical development individuals, and 103 individuals with other disorders were recruited to analyze the psychometric characteristics of CV-GARS-3. The results showed that exploratory structural equation model demonstrated satisfactory goodness-of-fit. Within the non-verbal ASD samples, all items loaded on anticipated factors. Regarding verbal ASD samples, 3 items exhibited considerable cross-loadings and were categorized under unexpected factors. Meanwhile, acceptable criterion validity was reflected in the four subscales (r = 0.71) and the six subscales (r = 0.74). Satisfactory reliability was observed in the four subscales (Cronbach's α = 0.96, inter-rater consistency = 0.86, test-retest consistency = 0.87) and the six subscales (Cronbach's α = 0.94, inter-rater consistency = 0.81, test-retest consistency = 0.81). In addition, receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated that both the four subscales (sensitivity = 89%, specificity = 85%, accuracy = 88%) and the six subscales (sensitivity = 86%, specificity = 88%, accuracy = 86%) had outstanding screening effects. Therefore, the results suggested that the CV-GARS-3 is considered as a useful tool for the screening and auxiliary diagnosis of ASD. Notably, the expression of scale should be further improved to adapt the context of Chinese culture and achieve more precise diagnostic results.

Autistic individuals and law enforcement officers are likely to engage under various circumstances within the community. Therefore, law enforcement officers require training on supporting those with autism and better understanding autistic behaviors. Aims for this study include: (1) developing and delivering high quality professional development on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to support autistic individuals during encounters with law enforcement officers, and (2) examining how law enforcement officers respond to the professional development session. For this study a four-hour, in-person training on autism for law enforcement officers was developed. Law enforcement officers (n = 27) attended the training session. Subsequently, participants completed an open-ended survey gathering perceptions related to the topics covered in the training, thoughts on the feasibility and applicability of content, and transfer to future safety encounters involving autistic individuals. Data was analyzed using a qualitative approach including concept driven thematic coding with constant comparisons. Data yielded themes on experiences with the autistic community, strategies learned from the training, thoughts on specific content, and feedback on the training format. Overall, law enforcement officers reported they felt better prepared, more knowledgeable on the autistic community, and believed the strategies were feasible and applicable to the field. These findings point to the importance of training on autism and that law enforcement officers found it was time well spent. Future directions include examining how training transfers to practice in the field and ways to connect law enforcement officers with the autistic community outside of emergency response.

Recent theoretical accounts suggest that differences in the processing of probabilistic events underlie the core and associated traits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These theories hypothesize that autistic individuals are differentially impacted by disruptions in probabilistic input relative to neurotypical peers. According to this view, autistic individuals assign disproportionate weight to prediction errors such that novel input is overweighted relative to the aggregation of prior input; this is referred to as 'hyperplasticity' of learning. Prediction among autistic individuals has primarily been examined in nonverbal, visual contexts with older children and adults. The present study examined 32 autistic and 32 cognitively-matched neurotypical (NT) children's ability to generate predictions and adjust to changes in predictive relationships in auditory stimuli using two eye gaze tasks. In both studies, children were trained and tested on an auditory-visual cue which predicted the location of a reward stimulus. In Experiment 1 the cue was non-linguistic (instrumental sound) whereas in Experiment 2 the cue was linguistically-relevant (speaker gender). In both experiments, the cue-reward contingency was switched after the first block of trials, and predictive behavior was evaluated across a second block of trials. Analyses of children's looking behavior revealed similar performance in both groups on the non-linguistic task (Exp. 1). In the linguistically-relevant task (Exp. 2), predictive looking was less disrupted by the contingency switch for autistic children than NT children. Results suggest that autistic children may demonstrate hyperplastic learning in linguistically-relevant contexts, relative to NT peers.

Difficulties in controlling emotions - a proxy for emotion dysregulation (ED)-and difficulties in expressing feelings in words-'absence of emotion labelling' or alexithymia-co-exist in autism and contribute to elevated levels of impulsive and suicidal behaviour. To date, studies linking the two phenomena have relied on retrospective self-reported measures, lacking support for generalizability to real-life situations. The present study investigated in vivo emotion labelling and its impact on emotion control in 29 autistic adults without intellectual disability (ASC) and 28 neurotypical (NT) individuals of similar age, sex, and educational level. Participants were trained in an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to label their emotions, the arousal dimension, and their emotion control via smartphone over a one-week period. Findings showed that the ASC group experienced more instances of 'having an emotion that I cannot name' and, when they were able to label their emotions, they reported higher rates of negative and conflicting (simultaneously positive and negative) emotions. In both groups, the absence of emotion labelling, and intense negative emotions were associated with impaired emotion control. However, the association between lack of emotional awareness-'I have no emotion'-and impaired emotion control was only evident in ASC individuals. Our study highlights a nuanced facet of emotional processing in the ASC population. Further research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between ED and alexithymia in autism.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is on the rise worldwide with an increasing acknowledgement that its continuum of care to enhance participation should be multidisciplinary. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and its derivatives ICF - Children and Youth (ICF - CY) and ICF Core Sets have been increasingly used among health professionals to enhance communication and documentation of outcomes. This study aimed at investigating the comprehensiveness of the ICF - CY and ICF Core Sets with regard to occupational therapy goals and the extent of participation representation in these goals. Forty occupational therapists working with children with ASD stated their most common three long-term goals. The goals were then mapped to the ICF - CY two level classification. The percentage of goals reflecting "Participation" was calculated. The overlap between ICF - CY and the ICF ASD Core Sets was assessed. A total of 155 goals were extracted, of which only seven (4.5%) related to sensory processing were not linked to the ICF - CY categories. 35.1% of the total linked goals were regarded as reflecting "Participation". 84.5% of ICF - CY categories overlapped with the ICF ASD Core Sets. Categories related to hand function, and taking care of body parts were found to be lacking in the ICF ASD Core Sets. The ICF - CY and the ICF ASD Core Sets may be feasible clinical tools for children with ASD, however, they may not be sufficient to cover occupational therapy goals. Goals also need to be modified to better reflect participation.