Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders最新文献

Purpose: Many Autistic individuals present with comorbid conditions, including internalising and externalising behaviours, sleep issues, intellectual disabilities, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. We investigated the impact of these child comorbidities on parenting stress in an effort to elucidate the underlying mechanism and how they interact with autistic core symptoms. In total, three theoretical models were tested, being the Amplification, Additive, and Mediation Hypotheses.

Methods: Participants were 453 parents of an Autistic child reporting on their child's core symptoms, comorbid conditions, and their parenting stress.

Results: Correlation analyses reveal moderate associations between the comorbid conditions and parenting stress, but uncovered a weak link between core symptoms and parenting stress. Regression analyses revealed that, when key variables were allowed to adjust for one another, comorbid conditions were found to be independent predictors of parenting stress. A subsequent path analysis indicated that internalising and externalising behaviours partially mediated the relationship between core symptoms and parenting stress. There was no evidence to support the Amplification Hypotheses, and limited evidence to support the Additive and Mediation Hypotheses.

Conclusion: The findings reinforce the argument that Autistic children require multidisciplinary services and interventions that stretch beyond their primary diagnosis. Further suggestions for future research into child comorbid factors and parenting stress are discussed.

Purpose: Social skill interventions are frequently used to support the development of social competence in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The Superheroes Social Skills program (SSS), a multicomponent social skills curriculum, has shown promise in supporting social skill acquisition and use in autistic children. The present exploratory pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of a brief version of SSS on social skill accuracy and quality of skill use of five young children with ASD.

Method: Single-case design (multiple probe design across skills, replicated across participants) was used to evaluate the effect of a brief SSS intervention implemented in a series of weekly 20-minute sessions. Five young autistic children participated in the study. Social skill accuracy and quality of skill use were measured to assess the impact of the intervention.

Results: Results of the study indicated that participants increased in social skill accuracy and quality of skill use following participation in the intervention, with statistical analysis of data also supporting the effectiveness of the brief intervention.

Conclusion: Although preliminary, findings of this pilot study suggest that a brief variation of SSS may have utility as a strategy to address social skill needs in young children with ASD. Given the small sample included in the study, further replication is necessary to address limitations to external validity.

Objectives: This study investigates the co-occurrence between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) in pediatric populations, focusing on prevalence rates, comorbid psychiatric conditions, and their impact on clinical presentation and treatment outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of children and adolescents (ages 3-17) referred for psychiatric care to ambulatory care clinics (pediatric psychopharmacology [N = 2,307] and specialized autism spectrum disorder [N = 416] programs) at a major academic medical center. Psychopathology was assessed by the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Epidemiologic Version and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). ASD was diagnosed using DSM criteria.

Results: Our findings revealed a co-occurrence and bidirectional relationship between ASD and MDD (55% of ASD patients had MDD, while 9% of MDD patients had ASD). The symptom profile of depression in youth with ASD was consistent with the typical DSM-based presentation. The burden of psychopathology was significantly greater in the presence of ASD and MDD comorbidity, and in particular the rates of comorbid anxiety disorders, OCD, and psychosis were significantly elevated. Social competence and global functioning were worse in the presence of ASD and MDD comorbidity.

Conclusions: A high prevalence of comorbidity with MDD was observed in psychiatrically referred youth with ASD, with a clinical presentation of MDD that is typical of the disorder. Higher prevalence of anxiety disorders and psychosis was observed in the presence of ASD and MDD comorbidity. These findings underscore the need for comprehensive assessment and tailored interventions for children with co-occurring ASD and MDD, particularly in addressing anxiety and ensuring adequate access to mental health services.

Purpose: In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the majority of children with developmental disorders live, access to early, specialized interventions is highly limited. While studies from high-income countries show that tailored early intervention can be effective in learning new skills, there remains a lack of evidence-based approaches specifically designed for the realities of LMICs.

Methods: The study included 50 preschoolers, 25 of whom (mean age = 52.4 months) participated in an individualized developmental and behavioral program combined with parent education in addition to preschool attendance over a six-month period. The remaining 25 children (mean age = 50.5 months) attended only preschool. The intervention averaged 2.9 h per week (range: 2.1-4 h) and targeted age-appropriate developmental goals. Additionally, parents received an average of 0.6 h per week (range: 0.2-0.7 h) of education to support the generalization of skills to daily life.

Results: Children who received the individualized developmental and behavioral intervention combined with parent education in addition to preschool made statistically significant progress across all developmental areas compared to those who attended only preschool.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the potential of locally adapted, evidence-based, low-intensity interventions, combined with parent education, to improve outcomes for children with developmental disorders, including autism, in LMICs.

Purpose: Vocal cues embed speech with crucial emotional expression. Recognizing subtle changes in intonation, pitch and prosody provides rich social information and cues for responding in everyday interactions - cues that may be missed by individuals with differences in sensory processing and social development, such as those with autism. Although atypical auditory processing in autism is well-established in the literature, the contribution of these sensory differences to emotional prosody recognition requires further investigation. This study examined whether the associations of auditory abilities and social cognition with emotional prosody recognition differ between autistic and non-autistic children.

Methods: Twenty-eight autistic children and twenty-eight non-autistic children completed tasks assessing rapid auditory processing (RAP), pitch discrimination, social cognition (SC), and emotional prosody recognition (EPR) of spoken words and sentences.

Results: Autistic children demonstrated better RAP but lower SC performances compared to non-autistic children. No group differences were found in pitch discrimination or emotional prosody recognition. Across both groups, better RAP was associated with better emotional prosody recognition. In contrast, pitch discrimination was positively associated with emotional prosody recognition of low-intensity emotional words only in autistic children.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the important association between RAP and emotional prosody recognition in both autistic and non-autistic children, while indicating a distinct association between pitch discrimination and emotional prosody recognition in autistic children. The results suggest the need for further research into the role of auditory processing in emotional speech perception in autism, and the potential benefits of interventions targeting pitch discrimination and RAP.

Objective: To examine the characteristics of gaze behavior, particularly gaze-stimulus synchrony, and their association with developmental levels in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods: Eye-tracking data were obtained from 52 children with ASD, 58 with global developmental delay (GDD), and 55 typically developing (TD) children, aged 18 to 48 months, while they viewed a video of a girl rhythmically clapping and moving to a song. Area of interest (AOI) analysis was performed to assess visual fixation patterns throughout the task, and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) was used to evaluate gaze-stimulus synchrony. Correlation analyses were further conducted to examine the associations between AOI, RQA measures and developmental levels.

Results: Children with ASD demonstrated significantly reduced visual fixation on the whole face and mouth-and-nose AOIs compared to TD children. RQA revealed that the ASD group exhibited significantly lower [Formula: see text], indicating less sustained gaze-stimulus synchrony. Both RQA and AOI measures were significantly associated with developmental level in the ASD group.

Conclusion: The findings highlight reduced visual engagement and gaze-stimulus synchrony in young children with ASD compared to their TD peers, and indicate that gaze-based metrics may serve as potential objective markers of developmental functioning. The results underscore the utility of diverse analytic approaches, such as RQA, in uncovering temporal characteristics of gaze behavior. Future research should include nonsocial stimuli to determine whether reduced gaze-stimulus synchrony reflects domain-general atypicalities in visual processing.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the mediating role of cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) in explaining social communication difficulties in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASDLevel 1).

Methods: The sample included 107 children (58 with ASD-Level 1 and 49 typically developing controls). Autism symptom severity (ASSQ), cognitive disengagement (CABI-SCT), social communication (SCQ), and daytime sleepiness (ESS-CHAD) were assessed. Group comparisons, correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were conducted.

Results: Compared to controls, the ASD-Level 1 group had significantly higher scores on ASSQ, CABI-SCT, and SCQ (p < .001). Regression analysis showed that both ASSQ (β = 0.382) and CABI-SCT (β = 0.124) significantly predicted SCQ scores, while Epworth had no effect. Mediation analysis indicated that CDS partially mediated the relationship between ASSQ and SCQ (indirect effect = 0.099, 95% CI [0.041, 0.181]).

Conclusion: Findings suggest that social communication deficits in ASDLevel 1 are not solely explained by core autism symptoms. CDS may independently and transdiagnostically contribute to social dysfunction and should be considered in clinical evaluations and interventions. The study emphasizes the need to move beyond core diagnostic criteria and incorporate cognitive disengagement processes into clinical models of autism. CDS may represent a novel, modifiable target for intervention in ASD-Level 1 populations with preserved cognitive capacity but impaired social functioning.