Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research最新文献

Autism remains understudied and under-detected in Indigenous communities across the globe. This content analysis investigates key themes and future directions for Indigenous autism research, as discussed during a Special Interest Group at the 2025 International Society for Autism Research meeting in Seattle, United States. Discussions and perspectives were explored with shared knowledge from international participants who were service providers, Autistic self-advocates, academics, and other autism-related stakeholders. The emergent themes emphasized the need for autism research in Indigenous communities to utilize approaches that are decolonized, culturally informed, and strengths-based. The results highlighted the need for researchers to focus on building trust, fostering relationship-building, and encouraging collaborative research partnerships with communities, while addressing systemic limiting factors and integrating knowledge systems from Indigenous and Western models. There is also a desire for more Indigenous-led initiatives that allow non-Indigenous researchers to provide support. Overall, there is a clear interest in further Indigenous autism research initiatives, but further shifts are needed to ensure that efforts are community-led and strengths-based.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic, life-altering events that occur in childhood with long-term negative physical and/or mental health outcomes. Previous research, while limited and largely focused on males, suggests children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at higher risk of experiencing ACEs than typically developing (TD) peers. The study aimed to enhance our understanding of ACEs by focusing on female participants comparing diagnostic (ASD, TD), developmental (age, puberty), and mental health (anxiety, depression) factors. Participants included 212 female children with ASD (N = 112) or TD (N = 100) between 6:0 to 12:11 years. Following diagnostic testing, the 10-item ACEs questionnaire was administered. Statistical analyses included Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, negative-binomial models, linear regression, and Spearman correlations. There was a significant group difference in the total number of ACEs such that autistic children had more parent-reported total adverse events (p = 0.024). There were no significant diagnosis by age or puberty stage interactions (p > 0.05). Depressive symptoms were significantly positively associated with autism diagnosis (p < 0.001, RESI = 0.574) and ACE total (p < 0.001, RESI = 0.282), indicating overall higher rates of depressive symptoms in autistic youth, and an increase in depressive symptoms for participants with at least one ACE. There were similar findings for anxiety. Results highlight that having autism along with ACEs may place youth at a higher risk of mental health conditions. Treatments developed to address the unique challenges of adverse events in autism may be warranted to prevent long-term sequelae and poor mental health outcomes.

There is a critical need to understand the early vocabulary of young children with autism who have limited language, defined in this study as producing fewer than 20 different spontaneous and functional spoken or augmented words, to better inform educational targets and vocabulary selection for spoken as well as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions, particularly given the lack of evaluation tools designed for children with limited language. The spontaneous words and gestures produced by 66 preschoolers with autism (ages 3.5-5) during a natural language sample are compared with words in two early vocabulary tools including the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (MCDI) and a list of core words compiled from research studies of early AAC vocabulary. Participants' expressive words and gestures were coded from the transcripts of 20-min natural language samples. Forty-nine children (74.24%) used spoken words, gestures, or a combination of both, with six children (9.09%) communicating using a speech-generating device (SGD). Spoken words were primarily used for commenting, while gestures, especially pointing, were used for requesting. Although more than half of the unique words expressed by the children during the natural language sample overlapped with those in the MCDI, only 32% of unique words expressed by the children overlapped with Laubscher's and Light's core word lists, suggesting that young children with autism who have limited language may use more fringe words related to their personal interests or experiences. The study's limitations as well as implications for vocabulary selection for AAC systems and intervention goals are discussed.

This study measured experiences of parenting stress and stressful life events in caregivers of families with a toddler who has either an autistic or non-autistic older sibling(s). Caregivers of toddlers (12-18 months old) with older autistic siblings (Sibs-autism; n = 58) and toddlers with older non-autistic siblings (Sibs-NA; n = 46) completed questionnaires assessing stress related to parenting their toddler and their exposure to stressful life events since their toddler's birth. We compared levels of parenting stress and stressful life events between caregivers of Sibs-autism and Sibs-NA and examined the association between these measures. Caregivers of Sibs-autism reported significantly higher levels of parenting stress and stressful life events relative to caregivers of Sibs-NA, with small to moderate effects. Parenting stress and stressful life events were moderately correlated. Across these groups of caregivers, parenting stress and stressful life events appear to be related, but partially distinct aspects of caregiver stress. These findings highlight the importance of assessing multiple aspects of stress to better understand how stress may influence both caregiver wellbeing and the development of children with autistic siblings.

The current study reports comparative analyses of the ADOS-2 Module 1 (Some Words) (n = 918) and Module 2 (Phrase Speech) (n = 881) algorithmic items between Black, Hispanic, and White children aged 3-5 on data from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED). Significant Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was identified on ADOS-2 Social Affect and Restrictive Repetitive Behavior (RRB) items from both modules, but differential test functioning (DTF) was close to zero for each subscale (range = -0.07 to 0.08). No discernible patterns were identified when comparing these results with other published studies conducted with older populations. Item level scoring differences may reflect unique study sample variance, and existing data suggests DIF is unlikely to impact scale level ADOS-2 interpretations for clinicians assessing preschool age children from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Autistic individuals often exhibit high rates of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS), yet traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), especially exposure and response prevention (ERP), tends to be less effective for them. This may be due to differences in the function of compulsive behaviors: while OCD-related compulsions are typically ego-dystonic and aimed at reducing anxiety, autistic compulsions may be ego-syntonic, serving regulatory or sensory modulation purposes. This study investigated whether compulsions in autism are more aligned with regulation and sensory modulation than with anxiety reduction. Participants included 39 autistic university students, 25 non-autistic students with high OCS, and 25 non-autistic students with low OCS. A factor analysis of seven binary items from the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS-I) revealed two factors explaining 58% of the variance. The first factor showed high loadings for Repetition, Counting, and Hoarding compulsions, reflecting regulatory and sensory modulation processes. The second factor showed high loadings for checking and organizing compulsions that were previously associated with anxiety reduction. Chi-square analyses showed autistic students reported significantly more regulatory/sensory compulsions than low-OCS individuals. For anxiety-reduction compulsions, autistic students reported significantly fewer positive responses than both non-autistic groups. Trait and state anxiety correlated with OCS levels in non-autistic participants, but not in autistic individuals. These findings indicate that compulsions in autism may reflect distinct functional mechanisms compared to those in classical OCD. Specifically, the weaker association with anxiety or threat reduction suggests that ERP-based CBT, which targets anxiety-driven compulsions, may be less effective for autistic individuals. Broader implications for both diagnosis and therapeutic approaches are discussed.

Children diagnosed with autism often present with an atypical discrepancy between their receptive and expressive language levels, or an atypical receptive-expressive language phenotype. Children with an atypical receptive-expressive phenotype present with a relative receptive language advantage (expressive level < receptive level) or a relative expressive language advantage (expressive level > receptive level), whereas those with a typical phenotype have balanced receptive and expressive language levels. It remains unclear whether atypical receptive-expressive language phenotypes are evident before 24 months in children with autism features or whether they are associated with concurrent child developmental functioning or later language growth. Participants (N = 80) were drawn from a randomized comparative efficacy intervention study for 12-23-month-olds with autism features and elevated scores on an autism diagnostic instrument. Baseline receptive and expressive language age equivalent (AE) scores were used to describe continuous variation in receptive-expressive language phenotypes by quantifying the gap between each child's receptive and expressive language levels. These continuous metrics were then used to classify children into discrete language profile groups: expressive advantage (EA), receptive advantage (RA), and balanced. On average, children had a gap of three AE "months" between their receptive and expressive language levels. Over 75% of children presented with an atypical receptive-expressive phenotype (40% EA profile, 36% RA profile), whereas only 24% of children had a typical receptive-expressive phenotype (balanced profile). Language profiles were not concurrently associated with age, autism features, joint attention skills, motor or cognitive functioning. However, children with the EA profile at baseline showed significantly slower expressive language growth over 12 months than those with RA or balanced language profiles, suggesting that receptive-expressive language profiles may hold promise as early prognostic markers of expressive language growth in emerging autism.

Although motor-skill differences in autistic individuals are well established, there is diverging evidence regarding what happens to motor skills in autistic children as they become adolescents. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we examined fine and gross motor skills and grip strength of 187 autistic participants and 136 non-autistic participants (i.e., with no known diagnoses), aged 6-18 years-old. Participants completed the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-Short Form, Second Edition (BOT-2 SF), and maximal grip strength testing. Linear mixed-effects regression analyses indicated motor-skill differences between autistic and non-autistic participants across this age range; however, the nature of these differences depended on the specific motor domain (i.e., strength) and measure. Specifically, grip strength and BOT-2 SF strength subtest scores showed widening group differences with increasing age, whereas overall BOT-2 SF scores and subtests showed sustained or narrowing group differences through adolescence. However, items on the BOT-2 SF also demonstrated substantial ceiling effects, which may obscure later group differences between autistic and non-autistic participants and highlight the need for measures that encompass a greater range of motor skills into adolescence. These findings have important implications for healthcare, education, and community supports that address age-related motor differences within the autistic population.

Autistic youth have been shown to be at risk for negative peer experiences, but experiences of being ignored are rarely examined in this group. This study is an early-stage examination of the experience of being ignored in autistic youth. Objectives are to test psychometric properties of a measure of being ignored; describe rates of being ignored; identify who is most at risk for being ignored; and test the association of being ignored with other social experiences and psychological health. One hundred and forty-nine autistic high school students with full scale IQs of 70 or above (M = 99.86, SD = 16.5) and aged 15-23 years completed self-reported, online surveys regarding day-to-day experiences, well-being, and psychological health. Parents completed additional measures assessing ASD symptomology and other demographic and clinical characteristics. A confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha indicated good psychometric properties for the Ignore factor. While the average score on the Ignore scale was relatively low, ~40% reported often having at least one type of experience of being ignored. Being ignored was associated with having more SRS-2 Restricted Interests/Repetitive Behaviors and Social Communication and Interaction Problems. Peer victimization was associated with higher rates on the ignore scale and social inclusion scale was associated with lower rates of being ignored. Multiple regressions controlling for peer victimization and inclusion found being ignored to be associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety. The findings suggest that being ignored may be an especially impactful experience for autistic youth.

Although clinical observations have noted early speech abnormalities in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), automatic speech-based detection remains challenging. This is primarily due to the reliance on scripted tasks, which younger children often struggle to complete and which are not generalizable to large-scale, non-clinical screening. To address this, we developed an unscripted speech-based framework to quantify atypical acoustic-prosodic patterns for automatic ASD identification in naturalistic interactions. It processes free-flowing conversations, extracts multidimensional acoustic features from the time and frequency domains, and models ASD-related prosodic patterns for classification. For evaluation, we collected spontaneous speech from 88 children with ASD (3-10 years) and 82 typically developing (TD) children (3-9 years) during naturalistic interactions on daily topics (e.g., toys, animated movies, storybook reading). Group comparisons revealed atypical prosodic patterns in ASD, including reduced speech continuity, speech rate, and Formant 3, alongside increased zero-crossing rate, pitch, pitch variability, and Formant 1 (all p < 0.01). Using these features, a linear discriminant analysis classifier achieved robust performance (accuracy = 0.85 ± 0.07, F1 = 0.86 ± 0.07). Further analyses indicated no significant gender interaction (p > 0.05), but a pronounced effect of speech context (p < 0.01), with atypical patterns being more evident in open-ended dialogues than in text-guided settings. Moreover, these patterns correlated with clinical scores (p < 0.05), particularly language ability, demonstrating the framework's utility for assessing ASD severity. These findings underscore the importance of analyzing unscripted speech to capture atypical prosodic patterns and provide a basis for large-scale ASD screening outside clinical settings.