1. Borie AM, Dromard Y, Chakraborty P, Fontanaud P, Andre EM, François A, Colson P, Muscatelli F, Guillon G, Desarménien MG, Jeanneteau F. Neuropeptide therapeutics to repress lateral septum neurons that disable sociability in an autism mouse model. Cell Rep Med. 2024: 101781.

Confronting oxytocin and vasopressin deficits in autism spectrum disorders and rare syndromes brought promises and disappointments for the treatment of social disabilities. We searched downstream of oxytocin and vasopressin for targets alleviating social deficits in a mouse model of Prader-Willi syndrome and Schaaf-Yang syndrome, both associated with high prevalence of autism. We found a population of neurons in the lateral septum-activated on termination of social contacts-which oxytocin and vasopressin inhibit as per degree of peer affiliation. These are somatostatin neurons expressing oxytocin receptors coupled to GABA-B signaling, which are inhibited via GABA-A channels by vasopressin-excited GABA neurons. Loss of oxytocin or vasopressin signaling recapitulated the disease phenotype. By contrast, deactivation of somatostatin neurons or receptor signaling alleviated social deficits of disease models by increasing the duration of contacts with mates and strangers. These findings provide new insights into the treatment framework of social disabilities in neuropsychiatric disorders.

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2. Dickerson AE, Murphy L, McIntyre M. Outcomes from a Driving and Community Mobility Intervention Designed for Novice Drivers with Autism from the Perspective of the Participants and Their Parents. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024.

To examine change in driving and community mobility outcomes for teens and young adults with autism as a result of participating in an occupational therapy intervention designed as a Bootcamp as perceived by the participants and their parents. Matched questionnaires were completed by novice drivers with autism as well as their parents prior to and immediately after the intervention. The intervention consisted of a 5-day (32 h) intervention using interactive driving simulators, role playing, and highly interactive learning experiences. Sixty-seven participants and their parents completed the pre and post surveys. Of these, 52 (80%) were male and 13 (20%) were female, with a mean age of 17.8 ± 3.03 years. Wilcoxon signed rank tests was used for the Likert scale questions and paired t test for ratio level data. Results demonstrated participants perceived significant improvement in knowledge, skills and abilities related to both driving and community mobility. There were also significant differences in perception from the parents’ perspective, but not as evident as the participants. Only a few significant changes were perceived in terms of executive functioning, which support accuracy of the results. Findings also showed significantly improvement in anxiety and confidence.As driving and community mobility is critical for young adults with autism to be successful in adult roles, intervention for improving knowledge, skills, and abilities in this complex daily task is essential. This study demonstrates statistically significant outcomes of a driving and community mobility occupational therapy intervention from the perspective of the participants and their parents.

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3. Garagozzo A, Aziz A, Kaplan-Kahn EA, Yerys BE. Community Perspectives on Psychological Assessment Reports for Autistic Young Adults. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024.

PURPOSE: Clinicians rarely solicit community feedback on psychological assessment reports. This study addresses this knowledge gap to: (1) improve the usefulness of reports for patients and families, (2) increase access to needed services, and (3) make reports accessible for autistic people and their families. METHODS: An autistic researcher and a non-autistic researcher jointly conducted qualitative interviews with autistic young adults, caregivers, and a service provider. Participants read a de-identified psychological assessment report about an autistic young adult with intellectual disability seeking resources for his transition to adulthood. Participants provided feedback about (1) how easy the report was to read, (2) how useful the report seemed, and (3) perceptions of language (i.e., empowering/offensive/neutral). RESULTS: Autistic young adults, caregivers, and the service provider all expressed a desire for short and clear reports in bulleted format. Caregivers stressed the importance of (1) using simple language to describe diagnostic testing and (2) including comprehensive resources, and autistic young adults expressed the importance of (1) including information about daily routines, habits, and interests and (2) giving patients’ long-term goals the same consideration as caregivers’ long-term goals. CONCLUSION: We highlight that standard psychological assessment reports have not effectively met the needs of autistic people and family members. Autistic people and caregivers prefer brief reports written in plain language that include more information about the patients’ interests, routines, and preferences and less detailed information about psychological tests. Our findings identify ways to improve the usefulness and readability of psychological assessment reports for autistic people.

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4. Hedley D, Williams ZJ, Deady M, Batterham PJ, Bury SM, Brown CM, Robinson J, Trollor JN, Uljarević M, Stokes MA. The Suicide Assessment Kit-Modified Interview: Development and preliminary validation of a modified clinical interview for the assessment of suicidal thoughts and behavior in autistic adults. Autism. 2024: 13623613241289493.

People with a diagnosis of autism are at increased risk of death by suicide. There is a need for clinical instruments that are adapted to the needs of autistic people. In this study, we modified and evaluated a clinical suicide interview (Suicide Assessment Kit-Modified Interview) for use with autistic people who do not have an intellectual disability. Autistic people helped us to modify the original version of the instrument by improving the questions, providing explanations for difficult terms or concepts, and recommending that we use different rating scales. Our results support the use of Suicide Assessment Kit-Modified Interview for assessing autistic adults without intellectual disability for suicidal thoughts and behavior. In the future, we will test how well Suicide Assessment Kit-Modified Interview works in clinical settings and with different clinical populations.

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5. Kim HW, Kim JH, Chung US, Kim JI, Shim SH, Park TW, Lee MS, Hwang JW, Park EJ, Hwang SK, Joung YS. AST-001 versus placebo for social communication in children with autism spectrum disorder: A randomized clinical trial. Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2024.

AIM: This study examined the efficacy of AST-001 for the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. METHODS: This phase 2 clinical trial consisted of a 12-week placebo-controlled main study, a 12-week extension, and a 12-week follow-up in children aged 2 to 11 years with ASD. The participants were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to a high-dose, low-dose, or placebo-to-high-dose control group during the main study. The placebo-to-high-dose control group received placebo during the main study and high-dose AST-001 during the extension. The a priori primary outcome was the mean change in the Adaptive Behavior Composite (ABC) score of the Korean Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales II (K-VABS-II) from baseline to week 12. RESULTS: Among 151 enrolled participants, 144 completed the main study, 140 completed the extension, and 135 completed the follow-up. The mean K-VABS-II ABC score at the 12th week compared with baseline was significantly increased in the high-dose group (P = 0.042) compared with the placebo-to-high-dose control group. The mean CGI-S scores were significantly decreased at the 12th week in the high-dose (P = 0.046) and low-dose (P = 0.017) groups compared with the placebo-to-high-dose control group. During the extension, the K-VABS-II ABC and CGI-S scores of the placebo-to-high-dose control group changed rapidly after administration of high-dose AST-001 and caught up with those of the high-dose group at the 24th week. AST-001 was well tolerated with no safety concern. The most common adverse drug reaction was diarrhea. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of AST-001 for the core symptoms of ASD.

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6. Koegel LK, Abrams DA, Tran TN, Koegel RL. Improving Social Communication in Autistic Adolescents Through a Clinic-Home-School Collaboration. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024.

Differences in social communication are common in highly verbal autistic adolescents and can interfere with development of friendships as well as lead to other co-occurring challenges. The purpose of this initial study was to assess whether targeted areas of social communication would improve following the implementation of a manualized social communication package with parent participation and school coordination. Autistic adolescents who demonstrated challenges with social communication participated in this study in the context of a rigorous concurrent multiple baseline experimental design. Weekly intervention targeting social communication was implemented over a period of six to seven weeks (depending on preintervention scores). Additionally, parents and participants completed standardized assessments of anxiety and depression and a post-intervention questionnaire was administered to assess their satisfaction with the intervention. This study demonstrated that social communication could be improved with a short-term intervention program with parent and school participation. All participants showed improvements in social communication, which was maintained at follow-up. Also, all participants and their parents reported high satisfaction with the program. These findings corroborate a growing literature base suggesting that support in the area of social communication is needed and can benefit autistic adolescents.

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7. Meng J, Pan P, Guo G, Chen A, Meng X, Liu H. Transient CSF1R inhibition ameliorates behavioral deficits in Cntnap2 knockout and valproic acid-exposed mouse models of autism. J Neuroinflammation. 2024; 21(1): 262.

Microglial abnormality and heterogeneity are observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patients and animal models of ASD. Microglial depletion by colony stimulating factor 1-receptor (CSF1R) inhibition has been proved to improve autism-like behaviors in maternal immune activation mouse offspring. However, it is unclear whether CSF1R inhibition has extensive effectiveness and pharmacological heterogeneity in treating autism models caused by genetic and environmental risk factors. Here, we report pharmacological functions and cellular mechanisms of PLX5622, a small-molecule CSF1R inhibitor, in treating Cntnap2 knockout and valproic acid (VPA)-exposed autism model mice. For the Cntnap2 knockout mice, PLX5622 can improve their social ability and reciprocal social behavior, slow down their hyperactivity in open field and repetitive grooming behavior, and enhance their nesting ability. For the VPA model mice, PLX5622 can enhance their social ability and social novelty, and alleviate their anxiety behavior, repetitive and stereotyped autism-like behaviors such as grooming and marble burying. At the cellular level, PLX5622 restores the morphology and/or number of microglia in the somatosensory cortex, striatum, and hippocampal CA1 regions of the two models. Specially, PLX5622 corrects neurophysiological abnormalities in the striatum of the Cntnap2 knockout mice, and in the somatosensory cortex, striatum, and hippocampal CA1 regions of the VPA model mice. Incidentally, microglial dynamic changes in the VPA model mice are also reported. Our study demonstrates that microglial depletion and repopulation by transient CSF1R inhibition is effective, and however, has differential pharmacological functions and cellular mechanisms in rescuing behavioral deficits in the two autism models.

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8. Pearson JN, Martin DLM, Stewart-Ginsburg JH, Malone KM, Manns LD, Johnson JA, Macko J, Rivera AQ, Lewis J, Green K, Minerali A. Correction: Analyzing Community-Based Support Requests Made by Black Families Raising Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024.

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9. Quesada JA, Sánchez-Ferrer F, López-Pineda A. Autism Spectrum Disorder and Associated Factors in Children in Spain, 2017: Population-Based Cross-Sectional Study. Matern Child Health J. 2024.

OBJECTIVES: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with biological, multicausal and polygenic origins. The true prevalence of ASD has not been clearly established. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of ASD in children aged 3 to 14 years in Spain and to analyze the factors associated with it. METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study using data from the 2017 National Survey of Health in Minors in Spain. Primary outcome was the diagnosis of ASD, and sociodemographic, behavioral, health-related, the use of health services, household and medication use variables was analyzed. Multivariable logistic regression model with a correction for modelling rare events was fitted. Complex sampling was undertaken, using the survey elevation factor in the analysis. RESULTS: A total of 4409 children were included, and there were 26 children with ASD, for a prevalence of 0.59%, representing 29,143 children with ASD. Factors significantly associated were male sex, having visited a psychologist, and/or a speech therapist in the past year, presenting probable problems with peers, antisocial behavior, taking antibiotics and taking other medications. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study may be useful to inform health policies and develop strategic plans to identify and address the needs of children with ASD.

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10. Rivard M, Grenier-Martin J, Mello C, Sanchez C, Morin D, Forget J, Lefebvre C, Mestari Z, Duchaine J. Implementing a Positive Behavior Support Program for Young Children with Autism in Public Agencies: A Social Validity Evaluation from Parents, Practitioners, and Administrators. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024.

Challenging behaviors in young children with autism and intellectual disabilities pose significant barriers to learning and inclusion. The Prevent-Teach-Reinforce for Young Children (PTR-YC) program is an evidence-based intervention that addresses these behaviors according to Positive Behavior Intervention Support principles. It is essential to assess the social validity of an intervention, when implemented into a public service system, to ensure sustainability and relevance to stakeholders. The present study aimed to document the social validity of PTR-YC from the point of view of three key informants: parents, practitioners, and administrators. Sixty-one participants were interviewed about their experience with PTR-YC (9 administrators, 31 practitioners, and 20 families). Semi-structured interviews assessed three fundamental components of social validity (Wolf, 1978): (a) social relevance of intervention goals, (b) social appropriateness of intervention procedures, and (c) social importance of intervention effects. Participants’ responses were subjected to thematic analysis. Intervention goals, namely family participation in the clinical process, strategies that focuses on prevention, and teaching alternative adaptive behaviors, were identified as relevant. Participants appreciated the program’s clear, structured, and turnkey clinical process, its parent-practitioner collaboration, and its consistency with practices already in place in the field. Positive instrumental outcomes (e.g., knowledge, competencies, self-efficacy) and ultimate outcomes (e.g., decrease in challenging behavior) of the intervention were reported on children, families, and practitioners. This study represents the first in-depth evaluation of the social validity of PTR-YC in specialized public services for autism and demonstrates its appropriateness for universal implementation in this sector.

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