1. Braconnier ML, Coffman MC, Kelso N, Wolf JM. {{Sibling Relationships: Parent-Child Agreement and Contributions of Siblings With and Without ASD}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
Research on the experiences of siblings of individuals with ASD and the quality of their sibling relationships has yielded mixed results. The present study examined the significance of parent- versus child-report of both positive and negative behaviors exhibited by siblings and their brothers and sisters with ASD within sibling dyads. Findings indicated that siblings were more positive in their assessment of the sibling relationship than were their parents. Siblings exhibited more positive behaviors within the sibling relationship than did their brothers and sisters with ASD, and were recipients of aggression. These findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that siblings tend to take on a caretaking role, and point to important targets for intervention.
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2. Cortes MJ, Orejuela C, Castellvi G, Folch A, Rovira L, Salvador-Carulla L, Irazabal M, Munoz S, Haro JM, Vilella E, Martinez-Leal R. {{Psychometric Properties of Spanish Adaptation of the PDD-MRS Scale in Adults with Intellectual Developmental Disorders: The EVTEA-DI Scale}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
Strategies for the early detection of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in people with intellectual developmental disorder (IDD) are urgently needed, but few specific tools have been developed. The present study examines the psychometric properties of the EVTEA-DI, a Spanish adaptation of the PDD-MRS, in a large randomized sample of 979 adults with IDD. Factorial solution analysis suggested a three-factor solution (stereotyped behavior, communication, and social behavior). The EVTEA-DI showed good reliability and convergent validity when compared to the Childhood Autism Rating Scale. Discriminative validity analysis resulted in an acceptable global sensitivity of 70% and a high specificity of 90%. The EVTEA-DI proved to be a valid screening tool in ASD assessment of the adult Spanish population with IDD.
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3. Derguy C, Poumeyreau M, Pingault S, M’Bailara K. {{Un programme d’education therapeutique destine a des parents d’enfant avec un TSA : resultats preliminaires concernant l’efficacite du programme ETAP.}}. {Encephale};2017 (Nov 24)
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by particularities of cognitive and socio-adaptive functioning. Daily, they require specific interventions for the disabled person as well as support for parents who often report deterioration in their physical and mental health. To this end, the latest Autism Plan 2013-2017 highlights the need « to help families to be present and active alongside their loved ones, to avoid situations of exhaustion and stress and to enable them to play their role fully in the long term ». The support devices must therefore be based on an analysis of the parents’ needs and propose multiple intervention modalities, which respond to the complexity of the caregiving mission. Therapeutic education (TE) seems to answer to these different elements by proposing a global approach improving the development of child-centered skills and the educational challenges (self-care skills) but also of skills centered on the projects and the fulfillment of the parent (psychosocial skills). The ETAP (Therapeutic Education Autism and Parenting) program is an initial TE offer intended for parents of children with ASD aged between 3 and 10years. It consists of seven group sessions and two semi-structured interviews, called educational diagnosis. A booster session is also proposed three months after the last session. It was developed following rigorously the guidelines on program construction, published by the High Authority of Health. In addition, it is based on an assessment of the needs of the parents, an in-depth analysis of the literature and the opinion of nine experts in this area. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the ETAP program on the quality of life and anxio-depressive symptoms of parents of a child with ASD. To our knowledge, the ETAP program is the first TE program in France for parents of children with an ASD that has been evaluated. Our sample is composed of 40 participants, including 30 parents who participated in the ETAP program (« ETAP Group »), compared to ten controls who did not participate, but who are on a waiting list (« Control Group »). Each participant completed a Quality of Life Questionnaire (WhoQol-Brief) and an Anxiety-Depressive Symptomatology Questionnaire (HADS) prior to the start of the program (T1) and after the session 7 (T2). Preliminary analyses show a good intergroup matching on socio-demographic and medical data. Moreover, the two groups are not significantly different at T1 over the set of dependent variables measured. Our results show an improvement in the quality of life of the depressive symptomatology in the participants. On the other hand, we did not notice any significant decrease in anxiety symptoms. However, when we consider the proportion of parents with a significant anxiety state (in terms of the clinical threshold of HADS, score >/=10), we see that it tends to decrease after the program only for the group ETAP. These data should be interpreted with caution because of their preliminary nature and the small size of our sample. However, the first steps are encouraging and confirm the value of the therapeutic education model for parents of children with ASD. The different information given during the sessions takes into account the previous representations, knowledge and skills of the parent. Thus the program promotes the upholding and the development of individual resources in parents. In addition, the psychosocial skills targeted also to make access easier to available environmental resources. Finally, in a more indirect way, the ETAP program also aims to maintain or restore a positive parenthood and individual identity and the progressive development of new ways of to interact with the environment. An adaptation of the Hobfoll resource conservation model is proposed by the authors to formulate hypotheses on the mechanisms of action of the ETAP program.
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4. DuBay M, Watson LR, Zhang W. {{In Search of Culturally Appropriate Autism Interventions: Perspectives of Latino Caregivers}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
Most evidence-based autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interventions are tested with primarily White, mid-upper class, English-speaking populations, despite the increase in Latino children with ASD in early intervention programs throughout the United States. Unfortunately, interventions that are incongruent with a target population’s culture may be relatively ineffective. This mixed-methods study explored how culturally appropriate, feasible, and acceptable Latino caregivers perceived intervention models, strategies, and targets. Survey data were compared for 28 Latino and 27 non-Latino White parents of young children with ASD. Further, 20 Latino caregivers participated in focus groups to describe their challenges, perspectives and preferences for intervention strategies and models, and unmet needs from providers. These findings underscore the need for culturally modified interventions for Latino children and families.
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5. Endevelt-Shapira Y, Perl O, Ravia A, Amir D, Eisen A, Bezalel V, Rozenkrantz L, Mishor E, Pinchover L, Soroka T, Honigstein D, Sobel N. {{Altered responses to social chemosignals in autism spectrum disorder}}. {Nat Neurosci};2018 (Jan);21(1):111-119.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired social communication, often attributed to misreading of emotional cues. Why individuals with ASD misread emotions remains unclear. Given that terrestrial mammals rely on their sense of smell to read conspecific emotions, we hypothesized that misreading of emotional cues in ASD partially reflects altered social chemosignaling. We found no difference between typically developed (TD) and cognitively able adults with ASD at explicit detection and perception of social chemosignals. Nevertheless, TD and ASD participants dissociated in their responses to subliminal presentation of these same compounds: the undetected ‘smell of fear’ (skydiver sweat) increased physiological arousal and reduced explicit and implicit measures of trust in TD but acted opposite in ASD participants. Moreover, two different undetected synthetic putative social chemosignals increased or decreased arousal in TD but acted opposite in ASD participants. These results implicate social chemosignaling as a sensory substrate of social impairment in ASD.
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6. Erturk B, Machalicek W, Drew C. {{Self-Injurious Behavior in Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Systematic Review of Behavioral Intervention Literature}}. {Behav Modif};2017 (Nov 1):145445517741474.
We reviewed single-case research studies examining the effects of behavioral interventions for self-injurious behavior (SIB) in young children with autism and developmental disabilities. Systematic searches of electronic databases, journals, and reference lists identified 46 studies (66 participants younger than the age of 12) meeting inclusion criteria. Studies were examined based on (a) participant demographics, (b) topography and function of SIB, (c) type of functional behavior assessment (FBA), (d) intervention procedures and outcomes, and (e) experimental design and measurement. Intervention strategies were categorized as antecedent manipulations, teaching behavior, consequence-based procedures, and/or extinction procedures. Positive outcomes were reported for 78% of participants in the reviewed studies and 88% of the participants were diagnosed with autism. Results suggest the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to decrease SIB for young children with disabilities; however, the frequent use of packaged interventions without component analysis limits the conclusiveness of any treatment recommendation. Suggestions for future research are discussed.
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7. Hamm J, Yun J. {{Influence of physical activity on the health-related quality of life of young adults with and without autism spectrum disorder}}. {Disabil Rehabil};2017 (Nov 28):1-7.
BACKGROUND: Health-related quality of life constructs has been used to understand the multiple dimensions (i.e., physical health, psychological, environment and social relationships) that affect a person’s health status. In order to improve health-related quality of life for young adults, it is important to understand the factors that influence each dimension. The purpose of this paper was to examine the influence of the presence of autism spectrum disorder and physical activity on the multiple domains of health-related quality of life for young adults. METHODS: Three-hundred and twenty participants, including young adults with ASD, completed a questionnaire about their physical activity and health-related quality of life. RESULTS: Five multiple regressions revealed that the presence of autism spectrum disorder significantly predicted overall health-related quality of life, the physical health domain, psychological domain, and the environment domain. Additionally, physical activity significantly predicted each domain and overall health-related quality of life regardless of the presence of autism spectrum disorder. CONCLUSION: Practitioners should recognize the limitations that individuals with autism spectrum disorder may experience regarding their health-related quality of life, and utilize physical activity as a tool for improving health-related quality of life. Implications for Rehabilitation In order to address an individual’s overall health, practitioners must consider multiple dimensions of health-related quality of life. Autism spectrum disorders influence how people perceive multiple dimensions of their health. Physical activity is a tool for improving perceptions of the multiple dimensions of health for individuals with and without autism spectrum disorders.
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8. Ipsen C, Chambless C, Kurth N, McCormick S, Goe R, Hall J. {{Underrepresentation of adolescents with respiratory, mental health, and developmental disabilities using American Community Survey (ACS) questions}}. {Disabil Health J};2017 (Nov 29)
BACKGROUND: Disability prevalence estimates are used to identify populations, establish priorities and allocate funding for a broad range of federal, state, and local initiatives. Increasingly, these estimates are based on a set of six questions developed and tested for use in the American Community Survey (ACS). A key assumption about the ACS disability screeners is that they sufficiently capture the entire population of people with disabilities, but some studies indicate that certain disability groups are underrepresented. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to explore potential underrepresentation of certain disability groups identified by the ACS disability questions. METHODS: We compared disability prevalence rates from two data sources for adolescents with disabilities, aged 14 to 16, who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI, n = 2051). The Social Security Administration (SSA) provided disability determination data for each adolescent, and adolescents (or proxy-rater) provided baseline self-report data about functional limitation based on the six ACS disability questions. RESULTS: Approximately 17% of the sample did not endorse any ACS questions. Excluding SSA categories with cell counts less than 10, the top five conditions not captured by ACS questions included respiratory conditions (38%), mood disorders (28%), other mental disorders (27%), schizophrenic and other psychotic disorders (27%) and developmental disorders (20%). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that people with mental health and developmental disabilities and those with respiratory conditions are among those groups under-represented by the ACS disability questions. Changes or additions to ACS questions should be considered to ensure that all disability groups are addressed in public health planning.
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9. Kaluzna-Czaplinska J, Zurawicz E, Jozwik-Pruska J. {{Focus on the Social Aspect of Autism}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) describes a set of neurodevelopmental disorders. Despite extensive ASD research lasting more than 60 years, its causes are still unknown. Without indicating the etiology, its development cannot be stopped. Over the years, both the definition and diagnostic criteria have developed. The number of ASD incidence is rising. The economical aspect should also be highlighted. This disorder presents particular challenges to affected children, their parents and physicians. The research of ASD, physician activities, policy making and raising the level of awareness must be coordinated. Special attention should be paid to the problem among adults with ASD.
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10. Macari SL, Wu GC, Powell KK, Fontenelle St, Macris DM, Chawarska K. {{Do Parents and Clinicians Agree on Ratings of Autism-Related Behaviors at 12 Months of Age? A Study of Infants at High and Low Risk for ASD}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 27)
Given the emphasis on early screening for ASD, it is crucial to examine the concordance between parent report and clinician observation of autism-related behaviors. Similar items were compared from the First Year Inventory (Baranek et al. First-Year Inventory (FYI) 2.0. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2003), a parent screener for ASD, and the ADOS-2 Toddler Module (Lord et al. 2013), a standardized ASD diagnostic tool. Measures were administered concurrently to 12-month-olds at high and low risk for ASD. Results suggest that clinicians and parents rated behaviors similarly. In addition, both informants rated high-risk infants as more impaired in several social-communication behaviors. Furthermore, the format of questions impacted agreement across observers. These findings have implications for the development of a new generation of screening instruments for ASD.
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11. Maurer C, Chambon V, Bourgeois-Gironde S, Leboyer M, Zalla T. {{The influence of prior reputation and reciprocity on dynamic trust-building in adults with and without autism spectrum disorder}}. {Cognition};2017 (Nov 29);172:1-10.
The present study was designed to investigate the effects of reputational priors and direct reciprocity on the dynamics of trust building in adults with (N=17) and without (N=25) autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a multi-round Trust Game (MTG). On each round, participants, who played as investors, were required to maximize their benefits by updating their prior expectations (the partner’s positive or negative reputation), based on the partner’s directed reciprocity, and adjusting their own investment decisions accordingly. Results showed that reputational priors strongly oriented the initial decision to trust, operationalized as the amount of investment the investor shares with the counterpart. However, while typically developed participants were mainly affected by the direct reciprocity, and rapidly adopted the optimal Tit-for-Tat strategy, participants with ASD continued to rely on reputational priors throughout the game, even when experience of the counterpart’s actual behavior contradicted their prior-based expectations. In participants with ASD, the effect of the reputational prior never disappeared, and affected judgments of trustworthiness and reciprocity of the partner even after completion of the game. Moreover, the weight of prior reputation positively correlated with the severity of the ASD participant’s social impairments while the reciprocity score negatively correlated with the severity of repetitive and stereotyped behaviors, as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). In line with Bayesian theoretical accounts, the present findings indicate that individuals with ASD have difficulties encoding incoming social information and using it to revise and flexibly update prior social expectations, and that this deficit might severely hinder social learning and everyday life interactions.
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12. Mayes SD, Lockridge R. {{Brief Report: How Accurate is Teacher Report of Autism Symptoms Compared to Parent Report?}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
The Checklist for Autism Spectrum Disorder (CASD) completed by a psychologist (following standardized procedures integrating parent interview data, teacher report, and clinical observations) was compared with the CASD completed independently by mothers and teachers in 168 children with ASD and 40 with ADHD (1-12 years). The 30 CASD autism symptoms are scored as present or absent. Using mother scores 36% of children with ASD scored below the autism diagnostic cutoff, and 75% scored below the cutoff based on teacher scores. Many symptoms deemed present by the psychologist were not reported on the mother and teacher CASD. Mother-teacher correlations indicated little correspondence. Mother and teacher CASD scores should never be used alone. Diagnostic instruments must be administered following standardized procedures.
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13. McConachie H, Mason D, Parr JR, Garland D, Wilson C, Rodgers J. {{Enhancing the Validity of a Quality of Life Measure for Autistic People}}. {J Autism Dev Disord};2017 (Nov 29)
Accurate measurement of quality of life (QoL) is important for evaluation of autism services and trials of interventions. We undertook psychometric validation of the World Health Organisation measure-WHOQoL-BREF, examined construct validity of the WHO Disabilities module and developed nine additional autism-specific items (ASQoL) from extensive consultation with the autism community. The sample of 309 autistic people was recruited from the Adult Autism Spectrum Cohort-UK. The WHOQoL-BREF had good psychometric properties, including criterion, convergent, divergent and discriminant validity. The WHO Disabilities module showed adequate construct validity and reliability. The ASQoL items form a unitary factor of QoL, with one global item. Future studies can use the WHO measures alongside the ASQoL items to measure QoL of autistic people.
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14. Murias M, Major S, Davlantis K, Franz L, Harris A, Rardin B, Sabatos-DeVito M, Dawson G. {{Validation of eye-tracking measures of social attention as a potential biomarker for autism clinical trials}}. {Autism Res};2017 (Nov 29)
Social communication impairments are a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and this class of symptoms is a target for treatments for the disorder. Measures of social attention, assessed via eye-gaze tracking (EGT), have been proposed as an early efficacy biomarker for clinical trials targeting social communication skills. EGT measures have been shown to differentiate children with ASD from typical children; however, there is less known about their relationships with social communication outcome measures that are typically used in ASD clinical trials. In the present study, an EGT task involving viewing a videotape of an actor making bids for a child’s attention was evaluated in 25 children with ASD aged 24-72 months. Children’s attention to the actor during the dyadic bid condition measured via EGT was found to be strongly associated with five well-validated caregiver-reported outcome measures that are commonly used to assess social communication in clinical trials. These results highlight the convergent validity of EGT measures of social attention in relation to caregiver-reported clinical measures. EGT holds promise as a non-invasive, quantitative, and objective biomarker that is associated with social communication abilities in children with ASD. Autism Res 2017,. (c) 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Lay Summary: Eye-gaze tracking (EGT), an automated tool that tracks eye-gaze patterns, might help measure outcomes in clinical trials investigating interventions to treat autism spectrum disorders. In this study, an EGT task was evaluated in children with ASD, who watched a video with an actor talking directly to them. Patterns of eye-gaze were associated with caregiver-reported measures of social communication that are used in clinical trials. We show EGT may be a promising objective tool measuring outcomes.
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15. Okuda PMM, Klaiman C, Bradshaw J, Reid M, Cogo-Moreira H. {{Assessing Risk of Bias in Randomized Controlled Trials for Autism Spectrum Disorder}}. {Front Psychiatry};2017;8:265.
Aim: To determine construct validity and reliability indicators of the Cochrane risk of bias (RoB) tool in the context of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate a unidimensional model consisting of 9 RoB categorical indicators evaluated across 94 RCTs addressing interventions for ASD. Results: Only five of the nine original RoB items returned good fit indices and so were retained in the analysis. Only one of this five had very high factor loadings. The remaining four indicators had more measurement error than common variance with the RoB latent factor. Together, the five indicators showed poor reliability (omega = 0.687; 95% CI: 0.613-0.761). Conclusion: Although the Cochrane model of RoB for ASD exhibited good fit indices, the majorities of the items have more residual variance than common variance and, therefore, did not adequately capture the RoB in ASD intervention trials.
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16. Spencer M, Takahashi N, Chakraborty S, Miles J, Shyu CR. {{Heritable genotype contrast mining reveals novel gene associations specific to autism subgroups}}. {J Biomed Inform};2017 (Nov 29)
Though the genetic etiology of autism is complex, our understanding can be improved by identifying genes and gene-gene interactions that contribute to the development of specific autism subtypes. Identifying such gene groupings will allow individuals to be diagnosed and treated according to their precise characteristics. To this end, we developed a method to associate gene combinations with groups with shared autism traits, targeting genetic elements that distinguish patient populations with opposing phenotypes. Our computational method prioritizes genetic variants for genome-wide association, then utilizes Frequent Pattern Mining to highlight potential interactions between variants. We introduce a novel genotype assessment metric, the Unique Inherited Combination support, which accounts for inheritance patterns observed in the nuclear family while estimating the impact of genetic variation on phenotype manifestation at the individual level. High-contrast variant combinations are tested for significant subgroup associations. We apply this method by contrasting autism subgroups defined by severe or mild manifestations of a phenotype. Significant associations connected 286 genes to the subgroups, including 193 novel autism candidates. 71 pairs of genes have joint associations with subgroups, presenting opportunities to investigate interacting functions. This study analyzed 12 autism subgroups, but our informatics method can explore other meaningful divisions of autism patients, and can further be applied to reveal precise genetic associations within other phenotypically heterogeneous disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
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17. Trevisan DA, Roberts N, Lin C, Birmingham E. {{How do adults and teens with self-declared Autism Spectrum Disorder experience eye contact? A qualitative analysis of first-hand accounts}}. {PLoS One};2017;12(11):e0188446.
A tendency to avoid eye contact is an early indicator of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and difficulties with eye contact often persist throughout the lifespan. Eye contact difficulties may underlie social cognitive deficits in ASD, and can create significant social and occupational barriers. Thus, this topic has received substantial research and clinical attention. In this study, we used qualitative methods to analyze self-reported experiences with eye contact as described by teens and adults with self-declared ASD. Results suggest people with a self- declared ASD diagnosis experience adverse emotional and physiological reactions, feelings of being invaded, and sensory overload while making eye contact, in addition to difficulties understanding social nuances, and difficulties receiving and sending nonverbal information. Some data support existing mindblindness frameworks, and hyperarousal or hypoarousal theories of eye contact, but we also present novel findings unaccounted for by existing frameworks. Additionally, we highlight innovative strategies people with self-declared ASD have devised to overcome or cope with their eye contact difficulties.
