1. Cerino S, Borgi M, Fiorentini I, Correale C, Lori A, Cirulli F. {{[Intervento integrato con il cavallo in un caso clinico di disturbo dello spettro autistico]}}. {Riv Psichiatr}. 2016; 51(6): 270-4.
RIASSUNTO. Sono sempre piu numerose le evidenze degli effetti positivi di interventi ricreativi e terapeutici assistiti dagli animali e rivolti a bambini con Disturbi dello Spettro Autistico (ASD). E stato ipotizzato che l’efficacia di tali interventi derivi dalla capacita degli animali di stimolare aspetti legati alla socialita e alla comunicazione, contrastando quindi il ritiro sociale che caratterizza i soggetti con autismo. In questo articolo viene descritto il caso di un bambino con autismo ad alto funzionamento incluso in un intervento assistito con il cavallo (o riabilitazione equestre) della durata di due anni. In particolare, la relazione con l’animale e stata usata dal terapista per stimolare la « narrazione » del bambino, come principale mezzo di comunicazione e di comprensione delle esperienze vissute. Durante il corso dell’intervento, il bambino ha gradualmente abbandonato la sua tendenza a evitare il contatto con il presente e a rifugiarsi in un passato o in un futuro immaginario. Gli interventi con gli animali rappresentano un interessante approccio complementare a strategie di trattamento piu classiche, soprattutto per la loro potenzialita di facilitare la verbalizzazione di stati interiori negativi e quindi di promuovere il benessere psicologico attraverso il legame con l’animale.
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2. Chin WC, Chao KY, Chang HL, Li HM, Chen SH. {{Coping Strategies of Taiwanese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders}}. {J Clin Nurs}. 2016.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore and describe the coping experiences of children with autism spectrum disorders in Taiwan. BACKGROUND: Children with autism spectrum disorders are faced with daily social and living challenges, which can cause stress. Chinese culture emphasizes discipline and obedience, which may influence coping strategies of children with autism spectrum disorders in Taiwan. DESIGN: This qualitative study employed an exploratory descriptive design. METHOD: Data were collected from in-depth, face-to-face structured interviews. Interviews explored coping strategies of Taiwanese school aged children (ages 6-19) with autism spectrum disorders. Children (N = 17) and their caregivers were recruited by purposive sampling. Transcribed interview data was thematically analyzed using the procedure of Miles and Huberman. RESULT: Five themes emerged from the analysis of the data, which described the coping strategies of the children: (1) problem solving, (2) acting-out, (3) avoidance, (4) seeking help and (5) self-regulation. These themes included multiple coping strategies, which employed the concepts of engagement and disengagement. CONCLUSIONS: The children with autism spectrum disorder utilized many strategies to cope with the stresses resulting from behaviors and symptoms associated with the disorder. Most of the Taiwanese children use both problem solving and emotional focused coping strategies. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Understanding coping strategies of children with autism spectrum disorder could help caregivers (parents, teachers) and medical professionals develop interventions to reduce these challenges, which could alleviate stress and improve social functioning for these children. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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3. Erdle S, Conway M, Weinstein M. {{A six-year-old boy with autism and left hip pain}}. {CMAJ}. 2016.
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4. Hochhauser M, Weiss PL, Gal E. {{Enhancing conflict negotiation strategies of adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder using video-modeling}}. {Assist Technol}. 2016.
Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have particular difficulty in negotiating conflict. A randomized control trial (RCT) was carried out to determine whether the negotiation strategies of adolescents with ASD would be enhanced via a 6 week intervention based on a video modeling application. Adolescents with ASD, aged 12-18 years, were randomly divided into an intervention group (n = 36) and a non-treatment control group (n = 25). Participants’ negotiating strategies prior to, and following the intervention were measured using the Five Factor Negotiation Scale (Nakkula & Nikitopoulos, 1999) and the ConflicTalk questionnaire (Kimsey & Fuller, 2003). The results suggest that video modeling is an effective intervention for improving and maintaining conflict negotiation strategies of adolescents with ASD.
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5. Hoyos LR, Thakur M. {{Fragile X premutation in women: recognizing the health challenges beyond primary ovarian insufficiency}}. {J Assist Reprod Genet}. 2016.
Fragile X premutation carriers have 55-200 CGG repeats in the 5′ untranslated region of the FMR1 gene. Women with this premutation face many physical and emotional challenges in their life. Approximately 20% of these women will develop fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency (FXPOI). In addition, they suffer from increased rates of menstrual dysfunction, diminished ovarian reserve, reduction in age of menopause, infertility, dizygotic twinning, and risk of having an offspring with a premutation or full mutation. Consequent chronic hypoestrogenism may result in impaired bone health and increased cardiovascular risk. Neuropsychiatric issues include risk of developing fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome, neuropathy, musculoskeletal problems, increased prevalence of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances independent of the stress of raising an offspring with fragile X syndrome and higher risk of postpartum depression. Some studies have reported a higher prevalence of thyroid abnormalities and hypertension in these women. Reproductive health providers play an important role in the health supervision of women with fragile X premutation. Awareness of these risks and correlation of the various manifestations could help in early diagnosis and coordination of care and services for these women and their families. This paper reviews current evidence regarding the possible conditions that may present in women with premutation-sized repeats beyond FXPOI.
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6. LaLiberte T, Piescher K, Mickelson N, Lee MH. {{Child protection services and parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities}}. {J Appl Res Intellect Disabil}. 2016.
BACKGROUND: Information about parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in the child protection system (CPS) continues to evolve. This study examined characteristics, experiences and representation of parents with IDD across three CPS decision points, as compared to parents with other disabilities and parents without disabilities in the United States. METHODS: The sample consisted of 303,039 individuals: 2,081 were individuals identified as parents in a CPS investigation; 1,101 had children in out-of-home care (OHC); and 308 experienced termination of parental rights (TPR). Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, disparity indices and logistic regression were employed. RESULTS: Parents with IDD were significantly more likely than parents without disabilities (but not significantly more likely than parents with other types of disabilities) to experience disproportionately representation. CONCLUSIONS: Parents with IDD are generally over-represented within CPS; however, this representation is dependent upon the comparison group utilized and other risk factors. CPS system-level changes are necessary.
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7. Maenner MJ, Yeargin-Allsopp M, Van Naarden Braun K, Christensen DL, Schieve LA. {{Development of a Machine Learning Algorithm for the Surveillance of Autism Spectrum Disorder}}. {PLoS One}. 2016; 11(12): e0168224.
The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network conducts population-based surveillance of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among 8-year old children in multiple US sites. To classify ASD, trained clinicians review developmental evaluations collected from multiple health and education sources to determine whether the child meets the ASD surveillance case criteria. The number of evaluations collected has dramatically increased since the year 2000, challenging the resources and timeliness of the surveillance system. We developed and evaluated a machine learning approach to classify case status in ADDM using words and phrases contained in children’s developmental evaluations. We trained a random forest classifier using data from the 2008 Georgia ADDM site which included 1,162 children with 5,396 evaluations (601 children met ADDM ASD criteria using standard ADDM methods). The classifier used the words and phrases from the evaluations to predict ASD case status. We evaluated its performance on the 2010 Georgia ADDM surveillance data (1,450 children with 9,811 evaluations; 754 children met ADDM ASD criteria). We also estimated ASD prevalence using predictions from the classification algorithm. Overall, the machine learning approach predicted ASD case statuses that were 86.5% concordant with the clinician-determined case statuses (84.0% sensitivity, 89.4% predictive value positive). The area under the resulting receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.932. Algorithm-derived ASD « prevalence » was 1.46% compared to the published (clinician-determined) estimate of 1.55%. Using only the text contained in developmental evaluations, a machine learning algorithm was able to discriminate between children that do and do not meet ASD surveillance criteria at one surveillance site.
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8. Rommelse N, Buitelaar JK, Hartman CA. {{Structural brain imaging correlates of ASD and ADHD across the lifespan: a hypothesis-generating review on developmental ASD-ADHD subtypes}}. {J Neural Transm (Vienna)}. 2016.
We hypothesize that it is plausible that biologically distinct developmental ASD-ADHD subtypes are present, each characterized by a distinct time of onset of symptoms, progression and combination of symptoms. The aim of the present narrative review was to explore if structural brain imaging studies may shed light on key brain areas that are linked to both ASD and ADHD symptoms and undergo significant changes during development. These findings may possibly pinpoint to brain mechanisms underlying differential developmental ASD-ADHD subtypes. To this end we brought together the literature on ASD and ADHD structural brain imaging symptoms and particularly highlight the adolescent years and beyond. Findings indicate that the vast majority of existing MRI studies has been cross-sectional and conducted in children, and sometimes did include adolescents as well, but without explicitly documenting on this age group. MRI studies documenting on age effects in adults with ASD and/or ADHD are rare, and if age is taken into account, only linear effects are examined. Data from various studies suggest that a crucial distinctive feature underlying different developmental ASD-ADHD subtypes may be the differential developmental thinning patterns of the anterior cingulate cortex and related connections towards other prefrontal regions. These regions are crucial for the development of cognitive/effortful control and socio-emotional functioning, with impairments in these features as key to both ASD and ADHD.
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9. Shen L, Lin Y, Sun Z, Yuan X, Chen L, Shen B. {{Knowledge-Guided Bioinformatics Model for Identifying Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnostic MicroRNA Biomarkers}}. {Sci Rep}. 2016; 6: 39663.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a severe neurodevelopmental disease with a high incidence and effective biomarkers are urgently needed for its diagnosis. A few previous studies have reported the detection of miRNA biomarkers for autism diagnosis, especially those based on bioinformatics approaches. In this study, we developed a knowledge-guided bioinformatics model for identifying autism miRNA biomarkers. We downloaded gene expression microarray data from the GEO Database and extracted genes with expression levels that differed in ASD and the controls. We then constructed an autism-specific miRNA-mRNA network and inferred candidate autism biomarker miRNAs based on their regulatory modes and functions. We defined a novel parameter called the autism gene percentage as autism-specific knowledge to further facilitate the identification of autism-specific biomarker miRNAs. Finally, 11 miRNAs were screened as putative autism biomarkers, where eight miRNAs (72.7%) were significantly dysregulated in ASD samples according to previous reports. Functional enrichment results indicated that the targets of the identified miRNAs were enriched in autism-associated pathways, such as Wnt signaling (in KEGG and IPA), cell cycle (in KEGG), and glioblastoma multiforme signaling (in IPA), thereby supporting the predictive power of our model.
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10. Spain D, Rumball F, O’Neill L, Sin J, Prunty J, Happe F. {{Conceptualizing and Treating Social Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Focus Group Study with Multidisciplinary Professionals}}. {J Appl Res Intellect Disabil}. 2016.
BACKGROUND: Individuals who have autism spectrum disorders (ASD) commonly experience social anxiety (SA). Disentangling SA symptoms from core ASD characteristics is complex, partly due to diagnostic overshadowing and co-occurring alexithymia. Causal and maintaining mechanisms for SA in ASD are underexplored, but it is feasible that there is an ASD specificity to the clinical presentation, with implications for the development of targeted treatments. METHODS: Five focus groups were conducted with multidisciplinary professionals to investigate their perspectives about, and approaches to, working with individuals with ASD and SA. Data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Data analysis revealed two overarching themes: conceptualizing SA in ASD and service provision. Our results suggest that adaptations to service provision are pertinent, so as to accommodate inherent impairments that can mediate assessment and intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should establish how aspects of the care pathway can be improved for individuals with ASD and SA.
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11. Trzebinski J, Wolowicz-Ruszkowska A, Wojcik AD. {{The Impact of Self-Narratives of Motherhood for Mothers of Children with Autism}}. {Front Psychol}. 2016; 7: 1899.
The main goal of this study was to identify the impact of a narrative construction of a life challenge – discovering to have a child with autism – on the meaning of life and on resources for coping depending on the challenge’s novelty, i.e., the number of years from the diagnosis. Three hundred and sixty four mothers of children with autism participated in a long-term 3 x 2 experiment. Half of the mothers had children with autism at the age of 9-12 years. For the remaining half, having children with autism was a new and stressful life situation. Their children were 2-3 years old and just diagnosed by a medical center as having autism spectrum disorder. The mothers were assigned to one of three study conditions: they were either asked to write stories of their motherhood or to describe their children’s behavior on a questionnaire or they did not participate in any tasks. One month and then 4 months after this task the participants completed measures of meaning of life and several well-being scales. The results indicated that following the narrative writing the participants had the highest scores on the meaning of life and well-being scales. This affect was sustained over 4 months and was significant only for mothers with older children. The mediation analysis showed that the effects of the experimental conditions on different well-being scales were mediated by the changes in perceived meaning of life. The results suggest that construction of self-narratives of difficult ongoing challenges facilitates meaning making and subsequently strengthens resources for coping. However, it seems that a meaning-making construction of such self-story may be blocked by the uncertainty and stress caused by novelty of the challenging situation.
