1. Chojnicka I, Wawer A. {{Social language in autism spectrum disorder: A computational analysis of sentiment and linguistic abstraction}}. {PLoS One};2020;15(3):e0229985.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate impairments with pragmatic (social) language, including narrative skills and conversational abilities. We aimed to quantitatively characterize narrative performance in ASD using natural language processing techniques: sentiment and language abstraction analyses based on the Linguistic Category Model. Individuals with ASD and with typical development matched for age, gender, ethnicity, and verbal and nonverbal intelligence quotients produced language samples during two standardized tasks from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition assessment: Telling a Story from a Book and Description of a Picture. Only the narratives produced during the Book Task differed between ASD and control groups in terms of emotional polarity and language abstraction. Participants with typical development used words with positive sentiment more often in comparison to individuals with ASD. In the case of words with negative sentiment, the differences were marginally significant (participants with typical development used words with negative sentiment more often). The Book Task narratives of individuals with ASD were also characterized by a lower level of language abstraction than narratives of peers with typical development. Linguistic abstraction was strongly positively correlated with a higher number of words with emotional polarity. Neither linguistic abstraction nor emotional polarity correlated with participants’ age or verbal and nonverbal IQ. The results support the promise of sentiment and language abstraction analyses as a useful tool for the quantitative, fully automated assessment of narrative abilities among individuals with ASD.
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2. Leven Y, Wiegand F, Wilken B. {{Sleep Quality in Children and Adults with Rett Syndrome}}. {Neuropediatrics};2020 (Mar 6)
BACKGROUND: Over 80% of individuals suffering from Rett syndrome (RTT) are affected over their life period by sleeping disorders. Little is known about the impact of those on the quality of life and a clinical approach to the treatment of sleep disturbances is lacking. AIMS: Primary aim was to assess sleep quality in children and adults. Secondary aim was to assess behavioral disorders and their relationship to sleep quality. The medication taken by the subjects was also included. METHODS: Sleep quality and medication were assessed using the sleeping questionnaire for children with neurological and other complex diseases (SNAKE). Behavioral disorders were assessed by the Rett Syndrome Behavior Questionnaire (RSBQ). Questionnaires were sent to the 700 members of the Elternhilfe fur Kinder mit Rett Syndrom in Deutschland e.V. (Rett Aid) of which 287 were included. Questionnaires were filled out by the primary caregivers. RESULTS: Sleep quality was rated as very good to good by over 60% of caregivers in contrast to data available in the literature. Behavioral disorders related to regression such as loss of acquired hand skills (p = 0.046) and isolation (p = 0.002) were found to be associated with sleep quality. Melatonin showed a significant association (p = 0.007) with sleep quality. CONCLUSION: Our study showed sleep dysfunction to be less prevalent in RTT-affected individuals than evidence from past studies has suggested. Nevertheless, this remains a subjective assessment of sleep quality and therefore the need to find objective, disorder-specific parameters that measure sleep quality in RTT patients persists.
