Pubmed du 22/04/23
1. Abu Itham M, Kerpan S, Balogh R, Lloyd M. Parent Descriptions of the Active Play Behaviors of Their Twins and Triplets With Autism. Adapted physical activity quarterly : APAQ. 2023: 1-19.
Children with autism engage in active play in different ways than children who are neurotypical, but their active play behaviors are not well understood. Research with twins and triplets with autism offers a unique opportunity to gain a clear picture of the play behaviors of children with autism because twins and triplets share many similarities (age, access to toys, etc.). Through semistructured interviews, this descriptive phenomenological study aimed to describe the active play behaviors of 19 twins and triplets with autism from the perspective of their parents (N = 9). The interviews revealed two main themes: (a) parents’ descriptions of active play and (b) parents’ descriptions of social play. The results reveal the diverse active and social play behaviors of twins and triplets with autism; parents described their children’s play behavior when engaging in sensory, indoor, outdoor, and organized play. These results suggest that children with autism may be meeting the definition of active play in nontraditional ways.
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2. Kim SA, Kasari C. Working memory of school-aged children on the autism spectrum: Predictors for longitudinal growth. Autism : the international journal of research and practice. 2023: 13623613231165599.
Working memory is an important skill for school success, and it involves holding information in our memory while using it to solve complex problems at the same time. Autistic children often have difficulty with working memory. Because working memory development can be easily influenced by many factors from a young age, it is important to find factors that help with autistic children’s development. This study tested the factors that are related to autistic children’s working memory when they start kindergarten and the factors that can help with rapid improvement throughout their elementary school. We used a nationally representative data set that followed the same group of children from kindergarten to fifth grade. We found that autistic students from backgrounds with more resources and students with advanced learning approaches such as being organized, being excited to learn, and paying careful attention to their work, started school with strong working memory. Autistic students with advanced learning approaches continued to make rapid improvements during the first 3 years, and then their growth slowed down during the last 3 years. Autistic students who had a good relationship with their teachers made rapid improvements during the last 3 years of their elementary school. In addition, autistic children who struggled with working memory upon school entry were more likely to receive special education services at school. These findings suggest that we need effective ways to teach young autistic children important learning-related behaviors from a very young age through the school system, and teachers must prioritize building positive relationships with their students.
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3. Lukito S, O’Daly OG, Lythgoe DJ, Hodsoll J, Maltezos S, Pitts M, Simonoff E, Rubia K. Reduced inferior fronto-insular-thalamic activation during failed inhibition in young adults with combined ASD and ADHD compared to typically developing and pure disorder groups. Translational psychiatry. 2023; 13(1): 133.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often co-occurs with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and people with these conditions have frontostriatal functional atypicality during motor inhibition. We compared the neural and neurocognitive correlates of motor inhibition and performance monitoring in young adult males with « pure » and combined presentations with age-and sex-matched typically developing controls, to explore shared or disorder-specific atypicality. Males aged 20-27 years with typical development (TD; n = 22), ASD (n = 21), combined diagnoses ASD + ADHD (n = 23), and ADHD (n = 25) were compared using a modified tracking fMRI stop-signal task that measures motor inhibition and performance monitoring while controlling for selective attention. In addition, they performed a behavioural go/no-go task outside the scanner. While groups did not differ behaviourally during successful stop trials, the ASD + ADHD group relative to other groups had underactivation in typical performance monitoring regions of bilateral anterior insula/inferior frontal gyrus, right posterior thalamus, and right middle temporal gyrus/hippocampus during failed inhibition, which was associated with increased stop-signal reaction time. In the behavioural go/no-go task, both ADHD groups, with and without ASD, had significantly lower motor inhibition performance compared to TD controls. In conclusion, only young adult males with ASD + ADHD had neurofunctional atypicality in brain regions associated with performance monitoring, while inhibition difficulties on go/no-go task performance was shared with ADHD. The suggests that young people with ASD + ADHD are most severely impaired during motor inhibition tasks compared to ASD and ADHD but do not reflect a combination of the difficulties associated with the pure disorders.
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4. Pan PY, Taylor MJ, Larsson H, Almqvist C, Lichtenstein P, Lundström S, Bölte S. Genetic and environmental contributions to co-occurring physical health conditions in autism spectrum condition and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Molecular autism. 2023; 14(1): 17.
BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum condition and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are associated with a range of physical health conditions. The aim of this study was to examine the etiological components contributing to co-occurring physical health conditions in autism and ADHD. METHODS: In this nationwide Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, we analyzed data from 10,347 twin pairs aged 9 and 12. Clinical diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and physical health conditions were identified through the Swedish National Patient Register. Subclinical phenotypes of autism and ADHD were defined by symptom thresholds on a standardized parent-interview, the Autism-Tics, ADHD, and Other Comorbidities inventory. Associations between physical health conditions and autism/ADHD phenotypes were examined using generalized estimating equations. Bivariate twin models were applied to estimate the extent to which genetic and environmental risk factors accounted for physical health comorbidities. RESULTS: Similar patterns of association with physical health conditions were found in clinical and subclinical autism/ADHD, with odds ratios ranging from 1.31 for asthma in subclinical ADHD to 8.03 for epilepsy in clinical autism. The estimated genetic correlation (r(a)) with epilepsy was 0.50 for clinical autism and 0.35 for subclinical autism. In addition, a modest genetic correlation was estimated between clinical autism and constipation (r(a) = 0.31), functional diarrhea (r(a) = 0.27) as well as mixed gastrointestinal disorders (r(a) = 0.30). Genetic effects contributed 0.86 for mixed gastrointestinal disorders in clinical ADHD (r(a) = 0.21). Finally, subclinical ADHD shared genetic risk factors with epilepsy, constipation, and mixed gastrointestinal disorders (r(a) = 0.30, 0.17, and 0.17, respectively). LIMITATIONS: Importantly, since medical records from primary care were not included in the registry data used, we probably identified only more severe rather than the full range of physical health conditions. Furthermore, it needs to be considered that the higher prevalence of physical health conditions among autistic children and children with ADHD could be associated with the increased number of medical visits. CONCLUSIONS: Shared genetic effects contribute significantly to autism and ADHD phenotypes with the co-occurring physical health conditions across different organ systems, including epilepsy and gastrointestinal disorders. The shared genetic liability with co-occurring physical health conditions was present across different levels of autism and ADHD symptom severity.
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5. Patrick ME, Hughes MM, Ali A, Shaw KA, Maenner MJ. Social Vulnerability and Prevalence of Autism, Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program (MADDSP). Annals of epidemiology. 2023.
PURPOSE: The Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program (MADDSP) tracks autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in selected counties within Georgia as part of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. ADDM Network analyses have historically found higher prevalence of ASD in areas of higher socioeconomic status. METHODS: We linked 2018 data from CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to two MADDSP counties by census tract, grouped census tracts into tertiles representing low, medium, and high social vulnerability, and calculated ASD prevalence for each tertile, overall and by each of four SVI themes. RESULTS: We found that overall prevalence was higher in areas of low compared to high vulnerability for the socioeconomic status and transportation themes, and in areas of medium compared to high vulnerability for all themes. This pattern was consistent among males but varied for females and by race/ethnicity. CONCLUSION: Linking ASD prevalence to SVI metrics can improve understanding of inequities among children with ASD in racial and ethnic minority groups or those living in low resource settings. These methods can be applied to other ADDM Network surveillance sites and public health surveillance programs.
