1. Belmonte MK, Saxena-Chandhok T, Cherian R, Muneer R, George L, Karanth P. {{Oral motor deficits in speech-impaired children with autism}}. {Frontiers in integrative neuroscience}. 2013;7:47.
Absence of communicative speech in autism has been presumed to reflect a fundamental deficit in the use of language, but at least in a subpopulation may instead stem from motor and oral motor issues. Clinical reports of disparity between receptive vs. expressive speech/language abilities reinforce this hypothesis. Our early-intervention clinic develops skills prerequisite to learning and communication, including sitting, attending, and pointing or reference, in children below 6 years of age. In a cohort of 31 children, gross and fine motor skills and activities of daily living as well as receptive and expressive speech were assessed at intake and after 6 and 10 months of intervention. Oral motor skills were evaluated separately within the first 5 months of the child’s enrolment in the intervention programme and again at 10 months of intervention. Assessment used a clinician-rated structured report, normed against samples of 360 (for motor and speech skills) and 90 (for oral motor skills) typically developing children matched for age, cultural environment and socio-economic status. In the full sample, oral and other motor skills correlated with receptive and expressive language both in terms of pre-intervention measures and in terms of learning rates during the intervention. A motor-impaired group comprising a third of the sample was discriminated by an uneven profile of skills with oral motor and expressive language deficits out of proportion to the receptive language deficit. This group learnt language more slowly, and ended intervention lagging in oral motor skills. In individuals incapable of the degree of motor sequencing and timing necessary for speech movements, receptive language may outstrip expressive speech. Our data suggest that autistic motor difficulties could range from more basic skills such as pointing to more refined skills such as articulation, and need to be assessed and addressed across this entire range in each individual.
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2. Hutman T. {{From attention to interaction: the emergence of autism during infancy}}. {Biol Psychiatry}. 2013 Aug 1;74(3):162-3.
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3. Manning C, Charman T, Pellicano E. {{Processing Slow and Fast Motion in Children With Autism Spectrum Conditions}}. {Autism Res}. 2013 Jul 11.
Consistent with the dorsal stream hypothesis, difficulties processing dynamic information have previously been reported in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). However, no research has systematically compared motion processing abilities for slow and fast speeds. Here, we measured speed discrimination thresholds and motion coherence thresholds in slow (1.5 deg/sec) and fast (6 deg/sec) speed conditions in children with an ASC aged 7 to 14 years, and age- and ability-matched typically developing children. Unexpectedly, children with ASC were as sensitive as typically developing children to differences in speed at both slow and fast reference speeds. Yet, elevated motion coherence thresholds were found in children with ASC, but in the slow stimulus speed condition only. Rather than having pervasive difficulties in motion processing, as predicted by the dorsal stream hypothesis, these results suggest that children with ASC have a selective difficulty in extracting coherent motion information specifically at slow speeds. Understanding the effects of stimulus parameters such as stimulus speed will be important for resolving discrepancies between previous studies examining motion coherence thresholds in ASC and also for refining theoretical models of altered autistic perception. Autism Res 2013, : -. (c) 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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4. Stanton AS. {{Autism assessment tools: a (partial) misinterpretation}}. {Archives of disease in childhood Education and practice edition}. 2013 Aug;98(4):159.
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5. Swanson AR, Warren ZE, Stone WL, Vehorn AC, Dohrmann E, Humberd Q. {{The diagnosis of autism in community pediatric settings: Does advanced training facilitate practice change?}}. {Autism}. 2013 Jul 11.
The increased prevalence of autism spectrum disorder and documented benefits of early intensive intervention have created a need for flexible systems for determining eligibility for autism-specific services. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a training program designed to enhance autism spectrum disorder identification and assessment within community pediatric settings across the state. Twenty-seven pediatric providers participated in regional trainings across a 3.5-year period. Trainings provided clinicians with strategies for conducting relatively brief within-practice interactive assessments following positive autism spectrum disorder screenings. Program evaluation was measured approximately 1.5 years following training through (a) clinician self-reports of practice change and (b) blind diagnostic verification of a subset of children assessed. Pediatric providers participating in the training reported significant changes in screening and consultation practices following training, with a reported 85% increase in diagnostic identification of children with autism spectrum disorder within their own practice setting. In addition, substantial agreement (86%-93%) was found between pediatrician diagnostic judgments and independent, comprehensive blinded diagnostic evaluations. Collaborative training methods that allow autism spectrum disorder identification within broader community pediatric settings may help translate enhanced screening initiatives into more effective and efficient diagnosis and treatment.
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6. Vivanti G, Barbaro J, Hudry K, Dissanayake C, Prior M. {{Intellectual development in autism spectrum disorders: new insights from longitudinal studies}}. {Frontiers in human neuroscience}. 2013;7:354.
The presence/absence of Intellectual Disability (ID) is considered to be the most critical factor affecting outcomes in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the question of the specific nature of ID in ASD has received little attention, with the current view being that ID is a comorbid condition (i.e., one that is unrelated in etiology and causality from the ASD itself). Recent advances in developmental neuroscience, highlighting the importance of early exposure to social experiences for cognitive development, support an alternative view; that ID in ASD might emerge as a consequence of severe social-communication deficits on the experience-dependent mechanisms underlying neurocognitive development. We tested this prediction in two independent samples of young children with ASD (Ns = 23 and 60), finding that children with greater ASD severity at an initial assessment were more likely to present with poorer cognitive outcomes at a later assessment, irrespective of initial cognitive level. The results of this proof of principle study suggest that ASD symptom severity contributes to the extent to which the environmental input required to support « typical » brain development can be processed by the individual, so that the risk of developing ID increases as the number and severity of ASD social-communicative impairments increase.
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7. Watson TL. {{Implications of holistic face processing in autism and schizophrenia}}. {Frontiers in psychology}. 2013;4:414.
People with autism and schizophrenia have been shown to have a local bias in sensory processing and face recognition difficulties. A global or holistic processing strategy is known to be important when recognizing faces. Studies investigating face recognition in these populations are reviewed and show that holistic processing is employed despite lower overall performance in the tasks used. This implies that holistic processing is necessary but not sufficient for optimal face recognition and new avenues for research into face recognition based on network models of autism and schizophrenia are proposed.
