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

The Behavioral Inhibition System and Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) Scales offer a framework for assessing individual differences in sensitivity to reward and punishment-processes theorized to underlie key autism features. Despite widespread use, the psychometric properties of the BIS/BAS Scales have yet to be evaluated in the autistic population. Therefore, this study sought to evaluate the factor structure and psychometric properties of the BIS/BAS Scales in a sample of children and adolescents with autism. Parents of N = 709 autistic youth (M_age [SD] = 11.22 years [3.54]; 75% male) completed the BIS/BAS Scales alongside additional convergent/divergent validity measures. Factor structures ranging from one to eight specific factors were tested, including bifactor and hierarchical models with and without general factors. Measurement invariance was assessed across age groups (< 12 years vs. ≥ 12 years) and gender. Convergent and divergent validity were evaluated using bivariate correlations. Results indicated that a five-factor bifactor model-comprising general BIS and BAS dimensions alongside specific BIS-Fight/Flight/Freezing, BIS-Worry, BAS-Drive, BAS-Reward Responsiveness, and BAS-Fun Seeking factors-exhibited best fit and measurement invariance. Factors showed strong construct validity through correlations with emotion problems, risk avoidance, response inhibition, neuroticism, shyness, activity, and extraversion. Findings support the BIS/BAS Scales as a psychometrically sound measure of reward and punishment sensitivity in autistic youth. Further research is needed to confirm model generalizability, structural stability, and measurement invariance across both clinical and non-clinical populations.

Differences in sensorimotor processing represent an important, yet underrecognized, feature of autism; typically assessed through subjective observations, which, although important, are susceptible to biases. To complement these observations, a more objective approach to assess sensorimotor function may be possible through reflex-based neurobehavioral evaluations. The clinical application of these assessments has, however, been largely confined to laboratory settings. Thus, small sample sizes and inconsistent findings have made it challenging to understand how sensorimotor function differs in autism and whether it can be used as an objective biomarker for diagnostics. Here we present a novel smartphone-based platform to conduct neurobehavioral evaluations by measuring facial and behavioral responses in at-home environments. Through a multi-center study, we explored the platform's ability to distinguish between children with and without autism. We enrolled 536 children aged 3-12 years. BlinkLab smartphone-based assessments were successfully completed in 431 children (80.4%), including 275 with autism and 156 neurotypical children. We found that autistic children showed altered sensorimotor responses across multiple domains. These included reduced prepulse inhibition (PPI), stronger startle habituation over the course of a PPI test, more variable eyeblink responses to auditory stimuli and significant sensitization. Additionally, children with autism displayed more screen avoidance, postural instability, head movements, mouth openings, non-syllabic vocalizations, horizontal pupil shifts, "side-eyeing", and variation in baseline eyelid opening. Exploratory analyses showed that these effects were largely independent of co-occurring conditions. Notably, co-occurrence did influence certain subdomains (e.g., PPI, mouth openings). These findings illustrate that smartphone-based assessments can capture distinct sensorimotor profiles associated with autism in real-world environments.

Parent-child biobehavioral synchrony, or the concordance of behavior and physiological indicators between individuals, is theorized to support children's social development; however, this relationship has yet to be investigated in autistic children. This study examined whether moment-to-moment physiological synchrony-indexed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-and its interface with global levels of behavioral synchrony was associated with the pragmatic language skills and friendship quality of school-aged autistic children in 40 mother-child dyads. Mother-child dyads participated in a collaborative task, from which RSA synchrony and behavioral synchrony were assessed. Mothers and their autistic children demonstrated negative RSA synchrony, such that when one partner displayed an increase in RSA, the other partner showed a decrease in RSA. The extent of behavioral synchrony between mothers and their children did not moderate the strength of concordance between mother and child RSA. Negative RSA synchrony was associated with better pragmatic language skills in autistic children from mother-child dyads who displayed high levels of behavioral synchrony. These findings highlight the complexity of dyadic synchrony, suggesting that the coordination of mother-child RSA, in conjunction with behavioral synchrony, may aid in the development of social skills in autistic children that extend beyond the immediate caregiver context. However, larger longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this.

Atypical infant head circumference (HC)-including increased rates of macrocephaly and microcephaly-has been linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, specific head growth trajectories associated with ASD remain poorly defined. This retrospective case-control study aimed to delineate these trajectories and examine their relationship to height. The study sample included 262 children diagnosed with ASD and 560 matched controls. Growth measures at 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months of age were obtained from health clinics in southern Israel. The sample was classified into seven clusters based on HC patterns across these six time points, and associations with ASD were estimated using conditional logistic regression. Results demonstrated significant correlations between HC and height throughout the study period (Pearson correlation r = 0.44-0.55, p < 0.001), with stronger correlations in ASD (r = 0.50-0.67) compared to controls (r = 0.32-0.50). Children with consistently small or large HC exhibited the highest ASD likelihood (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.95, 95% CI = 1.88-4.94; and aOR = 3.17, 95% CI = 1.92-5.01, respectively), with the most extreme percentiles (0-5th and 95th-100th) showing the strongest associations (aOR = 9.53, 95% CI = 2.49-35.26; aOR = 6.51, 95% CI = 2.91-15.35, respectively). These associations were primarily driven by children with similar height trajectories (aOR = 7.71, 95% CI = 3.23-15.43; and aOR = 6.89, 95% CI = 2.99-13.26, respectively), indicating that atypical HC growth in ASD during infancy may reflect broader physiological growth dysregulation.

Bilingualism has been associated with enhanced metalinguistic awareness (MA), the ability to reflect upon language. However, findings remain mixed, and little is known about how proficiency in the most proficient (L1) and second-best language (L2) contribute to MA, especially in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who often present heterogeneous cognitive and linguistic profiles. We tested 270 children aged 5-12 (90 autistic, 180 neurotypical) using a two-dimensional Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) requiring two components of MA: analyzed knowledge (understanding of grammatical rules) and cognitive control (suppressing irrelevant semantic cues). Bilingualism was examined both categorically (monolingual vs. bilingual) and continuously (L2 proficiency), using generalized linear mixed-effects models controlling for age, nonverbal IQ, and L1 proficiency. Among neurotypical children, no significant bilingual advantage was found. In contrast, bilingual autistic children significantly outperformed monolingual peers on items requiring cognitive control, and higher L2 proficiency was associated with better overall GJT performance. These findings advance understanding of how bilingualism relates to metalinguistic abilities in autism and suggest that it is not only non-detrimental but may confer specific metalinguistic benefits. The study underscores the importance of combining categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism to better capture individual variability in neurodiverse populations.

There is a growing need to examine how Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities impact real-time social engagement in autistic children. Caregivers of 45 young autistic children (70.7 ± 23.3 months) and those of 36 neurotypical peers (59.2 ± 11.8 months) carried a mobile device for 7 days to repeatedly record their child's social interactions and in-the-moment anxiety. They also completed the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 and the Theory of Mind Inventory-2 to evaluate their child's severity of autistic symptoms and ToM abilities. Multilevel analyses found that young autistic children with higher ToM abilities were more likely than those with lower abilities to interact with peers (OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 1.01-1.23) but also experienced more anxiety during interactions with both peers and adults (OR = 1.36, 1.28, 95% CI = 1.12-1.67, 1.01-1.63). In contrast, no significant associations between ToM and social interactions or anxiety were found in the neurotypical group. This study highlights the critical role of ToM abilities in the real-life social engagement of autistic children and emphasizes the importance of understanding real-time subjective social experiences.

Previous studies concluded that theory of mind (ToM) development is deviant in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Typically developing children's ability to understand that one may hide their emotion would be acquired before false belief understanding in children with ASD (e.g., Peterson and Wellman 2019), but with contradictory results (e.g., Zhang et al. 2016). In the current work, we aim to determine whether the order of acquisition of ToM-related concepts in ASD differs, using methodological improvements compared to previous studies. Our results support the conclusion of a non-deviant developmental trajectory for ToM in individuals with ASD, with a general ability to understand hidden emotions that is not mastered before false belief attribution.

Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating compound derived from the cannabis plant, has garnered increasing attention as a potential pharmacological therapeutic for autism. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to understand whether oral CBD oil containing terpenes can improve outcomes in autistic children. Twenty-nine children (18 male), aged 5 to 12 years (M = 9.62 years, SD = 2.05), diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, completed the study. Participants received weight-based dosing of CBD oil (10 mg/kg/day) or matched placebo oil over two 12-week intervention periods (crossover), separated by an 8-week washout period. Outcome measures included the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2; primary outcome), PROMIS Social Relating, Anxiety, and Sleep, Developmental Behavior Checklist-2 (DBC-2), Vineland-3, and Autism Parenting Stress Index (APSI; secondary outcomes). There was no significant effect observed for the primary outcome measure (SRS-2) for CBD oil relative to placebo oil after 12 weeks (β = -11.15, SE = 7.19, p = 0.125). Significant improvements were observed in secondary measures of social functioning, including DBC-2 Social Relating (β = -2.35, SE = 0.92, p_(adj) = 0.024), as well as reduced anxiety on the DBC-2 subscale (β = -3.20, SE = 0.94, p_(adj) = 0.002), and lower parental stress (APSI; β = -4.63, SE = 2.26, p_(adj) = 0.044). No differences were detected on Vineland-3 adaptive functioning (ABC: β = 2.06, SE = 2.67, p_(adj) = 1.000), and domain scores were not significant. Safety and tolerability data indicated that two children experienced gastrointestinal discomfort while taking CBD. Findings from this pilot trial suggest that while CBD combined with terpenes did not improve the primary outcome of social responsiveness, it may hold potential in addressing certain autism-related difficulties, particularly anxiety and social relating. Further research with larger sample sizes is needed to fully evaluate the efficacy and safety of CBD for autistic children.

Given the rising prevalence of autism among racial minority children in the United States, but persistent service use disparities, this study examines potential bias in specific items from the autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS), a highly regarded autism evaluation. We leveraged unidimensional item response theory graded response models and a sample of 735 children to analyze the differential item functioning (DIF) of items within ADOS Module 3. Three items showed significant signs of racial bias: A1 (overall language level), A5 (offers information), and D5 (compulsions and rituals). On these items, Black/African American and Asian children were usually more likely to be rated as showing autistic behaviors than White children with similar autism levels. The impact of racial bias on the item score was small, and the impact on the overall test score was even smaller: on a scale of 0-48 points, the effect of racial bias was estimated at 0.23 total points for Black/African American children and 0.16 points for Asian children. Furthermore, none of the items showing significant bias contribute to the autism classification algorithm. This analysis suggests a small but detectable amount of bias in several specific ADOS items, but not in items central to informing an autism diagnosis. Thus, bias appears statistically, but not clinically, significant. This contributes to examinations of racial bias in the ADOS as the first analysis of Asian children and the first in-depth look at all items in the most commonly used version among school-aged children.

Sensorimotor impairments are well documented in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about how these difficulties present in middle-aged and older autistic adults or how they relate to demographic factors and autistic traits. In this study, 52 autistic and 56 age- and sex-matched non-autistic adults (aged 30-73 years) completed a visually guided precision grip task designed to assess temporal (reaction time, duration), spatial (force accuracy, variability), and dynamic (rate of force change) features of grip control under two conditions: varying motor output demands (target force test) and visual feedback (visual gain test). Autistic adults showed prolonged duration, delayed reaction time, and greater target overshooting at lower force levels during the rise phase. During the sustained phase, they exhibited increased grip force variability across both tasks. In contrast, autistic adults demonstrated shorter reaction times during the relaxation phase. Subgroup analyses revealed that the middle-aged autistic subgroup displayed elevated grip force variability, whereas the older autistic subgroup showed broader impairments affecting both spatial and temporal aspects of precision gripping. Within the autistic group, temporal grip force variables under the low target force condition were significantly associated with age and repetitive behaviors. These findings demonstrate that manual motor impairments persist into adulthood in ASD, and suggest shared neurobiological networks that underlie both motor dysfunction and core autistic traits.