Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders最新文献

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the predictors of parental burnout among Chinese parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD), focusing on the potential nonlinear and interactive effects of socio-demographic characteristics, Big Five personality traits, and parenting perfectionism.

Methods: A total of 528 parents of children with DD were recruited from various regions in China. Participants completed standardized questionnaires assessing parental burnout, Big Five personality traits, parenting perfectionism, and socio-demographic characteristics. To examine both linear and nonlinear associations between these predictors and parental burnout, we employed generalized linear model (GLM)-the extension of linear regression that accommodates non-normal outcome distributions-and generalized additive model (GAM), which allow for the flexible modeling of nonlinear effects. Interaction effects between personality traits and parenting perfectionism were also tested using GAM.

Results: Results indicated that GAM outperformed GLM in capturing complex relationships, revealing significant nonlinear associations between parental burnout and several predictors, including parental age, education, income, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and both dimensions of parenting perfectionism. Notably, personality traits and parenting perfectionism interacted in predicting burnout. For example, high neuroticism combined with high perfectionistic concerns significantly increased the risk of burnout.

Conclusion: The study underscores the need to consider nonlinear and interactive effects in understanding parental burnout. GAM offers a useful approach for revealing complex patterns, especially in non-Western contexts.

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to be physically less active than their peers. Parents play an important role in their children's engagement in physical activities. This study adopted network analysis to examine the association between parental beliefs, support, and physical activity in children with ASD and compared the differences in the association patterns between two age groups (6-11 vs. 12-18 years).

Methods: We surveyed 269 Chinese parents of children with ASD regarding their beliefs, support, and their children's physical activity. The networks were constructed using the Extended Bayesian Information Criterion Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (EBICglasso) model, and differences between age groups were examined using a Network Comparison Test.

Results: Supportive parental behaviors of encouragement and perceived ease of participation were identified as key bridge nodes connecting parental beliefs and support with physical activity engagement in children with ASD. The unique bridge node was parent-perceived benefits related to friendships for younger children, whereas parental support was used to explain the benefits of physical activity for older children.

Conclusion: The research findings indicate that parental encouragement and perceived ease of participation are key factors associated with physical activity in children with ASD.

Purpose: Empathy has become a key area of research in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in recent years. However, the neural characteristics of empathy in children with ASD remain controversial. To advance the understanding of the neural mechanism of ASD's empathy and test the classic empathy imbalance hypothesis, it is necessary to explore the cognitive-affective empathy in young children with ASD from another electrophysiological perspective in detail.

Methods: The present study explored the specific neural characteristics of children with ASD and typically developing children under cognitive empathy and affective empathy via simultaneous EEG recording of social animation, which would be able to capture reliable and effective evidence in children with ASD.

Results: The present study mainly revealed that the ASD group had abnormal electrophysiological characteristics under cognitive empathy, including increased functional connectivity in the θ band and abnormalities in the microstate classes C and D. Incidentally, this study also roughly found that the severity of autism symptoms was significantly correlated with the β-band amplitude of certain brain regions when viewing cognitive empathy clips, whereas the severity of autism symptoms was significantly correlated with the θ-band amplitude when viewing affective empathy clips.

Conclusion: The present study supported the empathy imbalance hypothesis in young children with ASD and might indicate that children with ASD have distinct neural characteristics related to cognitive empathy and affective empathy processing. Future studies can combine eye movement measurements while watching animations, and further longitudinal studies on the electrophysiological characteristics of empathy in children with ASD.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of using adapted science eBooks within shared reading on comprehension and task engagement of high school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A grade-level science textbook was selected and converted into an eBook format, incorporating various visual and auditory features (e.g., text-to-speech, summarized sentences, highlighted keywords) and presented on an iPad. The shared reading intervention included before, during, and after reading strategies (i.e., pre-teaching target vocabulary words, sharing information, retelling), with direct instruction on locating literal information. The intervention effects on reading comprehension and task engagement were evaluated using a single-case multiple probe design. The results of this study indicated that all participants demonstrated improvements in reading comprehension. Despite the longer intervention sessions compared to the baseline, all participants exhibited similar or enhanced levels of task engagement during the intervention sessions. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence supporting the use of adapted eBooks within shared reading as a means to increase access to grade-level science texts for high school students with ASD while maintaining a high level of task engagement. This intervention holds promise for improving the learning outcomes for students with ASD in science content area.

Purpose: The purpose of this retrospective cohort analysis was to investigate sex differences in receipt of standard of care sleep and constipation drug treatments among autistic children and youth with sleep disorder and constipation, respectively.

Methods: We used the data from the OneFlorida + Data Trust to analyze healthcare claims for 19,877 autistic patients with sleep disorder and 32,355 patients with constipation, ages 1 to 22. We used logistic regression to examine sex differences in receiving sleep and constipation treatments, and a multivariate logistic regression model to further assess sex differences in ever receiving sleep and constipation treatments, adjusting for age, race, ethnicity, and urbanicity.

Results: In our multivariate analysis, autistic girls with sleep disorder were 1.27 times more likely than boys to receive sleep treatment (p < 0.0001). Although autistic girls with constipation appeared to be 1.10 times more likely than boys to receive treatment, it was not significantly different after adjusting for demographic and socio-economic characteristics (p = 0.372). Older children were 1.09 times more likely than younger children to receive sleep treatment (p < 0.0001) and 1.07 times more likely to receive constipation treatment (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion: We did not find sex differences among autistic children for treatment of constipation, but autistic girls with sleep disorder were significantly more likely to have ever received treatment, which could indicate that girls experience more significant sleep disorders.

We compared the epilepsy phenotypes in children with genetically defined versus undefined autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A single-center retrospective study was conducted to investigate diagnostic yields of different genetic testing for children with ASD. Patients with at least one testing modality were included and classified as having genetically defined ASD or not based on updated genotype-phenotype correlation. Of the 523 patients included, 79 (15.1%) had results explaining their ASD diagnosis. WES (whole exome sequencing) outperformed CMA (chromosomal microarray) on diagnostic yield (23.0% versus 8.3%). Compared to those with non-diagnostic test(s), children with genetically defined ASD were associated with higher rates for microcephaly, hypotonia, dysmorphic features, and developmental delay/regression. The prevalence of epilepsy was significantly higher in children with genetically defined ASD than those without a genetic diagnosis (35.4% versus 16.4%, p < 0.001, power = 0.97). Furthermore, children with genetically defined ASD had a younger age of epilepsy onset (median 2.2 versus 5.0 years, p = 0.002, power = 0.90) and a higher rate of drug-resistant epilepsy although not reaching statistical significance (35.7% versus 21.9%, p = 0.20). Our study has provided further evidence to support WES as first-tier test for children with ASD and that an early genetic diagnosis has the potential to inform further surveillance and management for ASD comorbid conditions including epilepsy.

KAT6B and KAT6A belong to the MYST family of lysine acetyltransferases, and regulate gene expression via histone modification. Although both proteins share similar structure and epigenetic regulatory functions, it remains unclear if KAT6A/6B mutation disorders, both very rare conditions, yield the same neurocognitive presentation and thus benefit from similar treatment approaches. This study provides a preliminary overview of neuropsychological functioning of 13 individuals with KAT6B disorder (Mean age = 9.01 years, SD = 5.46), which was compared to that of a recently published sample of 15 individuals with KAT6A syndrome (Mean age = 10.32 years, SD = 4.12). Participants completed a neuropsychological test battery to assess non-verbal cognition, and caregivers completed a series of standardized rating inventories to assess daily behavioral functioning. Results reveal those with KAT6B disorders present with severe adaptive deficits (92.3%) and autism-related behaviors (83.3%), juxtaposed with relatively low concerns with externalizing behaviors (7.6%), a pattern shared by the KAT6A group. Those with KAT6B disorders present with high levels of autistic features, including reduced affiliative interest, whereas social motivation is less affected within the KAT6A group. Overall, the levels of impairment in nonverbal cognition and receptive language were comparable among those with KAT6B disorders, a trend also seen in the KAT6A group. In brief, KAT6B and KAT6A disorders yield analogous neuropsychological profiles. Findings implicate common molecular pathophysiological mechanisms for these epigenetic disorders, such that similar therapies may have shared effect across diseases.