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Geraldine Dawson

William Cleland Distinguished Professor
Psychiatry, Child & Family Mental Health & Community Psychiatry
Box 3527 DUMC, Durham, NC 27710
2608 Erwin Road, Suite 300, Duke University Med Center, Durham, NC 27705

Selected Publications


Constrained Multivariate Functional Principal Components Analysis for Novel Outcomes in Eye-Tracking Experiments

Journal Article Statistics in Biosciences · December 1, 2024 Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to experience greater difficulties with social communication and sensory information processing. Of particular interest in ASD biomarker research is the study of visual attention, effectively quantified ... Full text Cite

Model selection to achieve reproducible associations between resting state EEG features and autism.

Journal Article Sci Rep · October 25, 2024 A concern in the field of autism electroencephalography (EEG) biomarker discovery is their lack of reproducibility. In the present study, we considered the problem of learning reproducible associations between multiple features of resting state (RS) neural ... Full text Link to item Cite

Digital Phenotyping based on a Mobile App Identifies Distinct and Overlapping Features in Children Diagnosed with Autism versus ADHD

Conference The 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology · October 13, 2024 Full text Cite

Factors Associated with Caregivers' Decisions to Pursue a Diagnostic Evaluation After a Positive Autism Screen in Primary Care.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 7, 2024 PURPOSE: We sought to understand whether a child's sex, age, race, ethnicity, caregiver education, family income, and/or number of endorsed autism signs are associated with a caregiver's decision to pursue an autism diagnostic evaluation after their child ... Full text Link to item Cite

Automated Video Tracking of Autistic Children's Movement During Caregiver-Child Interaction: An Exploratory Study.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2024 Objective, quantitative measures of caregiver-child interaction during play are needed to complement caregiver or examiner ratings for clinical assessment and tracking intervention responses. In this exploratory study, we examined the feasibility of using ... Full text Link to item Cite

Integrating tailored approaches in perioperative care strategies for neurodivergent individuals.

Journal Article EClinicalMedicine · October 2024 Neurodivergent (ND) individuals exhibit variations in communication, behaviors, and cognition, which present both opportunities and challenges in healthcare settings. Anesthesiologists can offer personalized and compassionate care to ND patients throughout ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Clinician-caregiver informant discrepancy is associated with sex, diagnosis age, and intervention use among autistic children.

Journal Article Autism · September 30, 2024 In some cases, a clinician's perceptions of a child's autism-related behaviors are not the same as the child's caregiver's perceptions. Identifying how these discrepancies relate to the characteristics of the child is critical for ensuring that diagnosis p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Behavioral characteristics of toddlers later identified with an autism diagnosis, ADHD symptoms, or combined autism and ADHD symptoms.

Journal Article J Child Psychol Psychiatry · September 3, 2024 BACKGROUND: Autism commonly co-occurs with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but less is known regarding how ADHD symptoms impact the early presentation of autism. This study examined early behavioral characteristics of a community sample of ... Full text Link to item Cite

Spatiotemporal Eye Movement Dynamics Reveal Altered Face Prioritization in Early Visual Processing Among Children With Autism.

Journal Article Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging · September 3, 2024 BACKGROUND: Reduced social attention-looking at faces-is one of the most common manifestations of social difficulty in autism that is central to social development. Although reduced social attention is well characterized in autism, qualitative differences ... Full text Link to item Cite

Adaptive Behavior in Young Autistic Children: Associations with Irritability and ADHD Symptoms.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · September 2024 Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms affect 40-60% of autistic children and have been linked to differences in adaptive behavior. It is unclear whether adaptive behavior in autistic youth is directly impacted by co-occurring ADHD sympto ... Full text Link to item Cite

Parsing evoked and induced gamma response differences in Autism: A visual evoked potential study.

Journal Article Clin Neurophysiol · September 2024 OBJECTIVE: Electroencephalography (EEG) measures of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) provide a targeted approach for investigating neural circuit dynamics. This study separately analyses phase-locked (evoked) and non-phase-locked (induced) gamma responses w ... Full text Link to item Cite

A conditional multi-label model to improve prediction of a rare outcome: An illustration predicting autism diagnosis.

Journal Article J Biomed Inform · September 2024 OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop a novel approach using routinely collected electronic health records (EHRs) data to improve the prediction of a rare event. We illustrated this using an example of improving early prediction of an autism diagnosis, gi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Proximity analysis of native proteomes reveals phenotypic modifiers in a mouse model of autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions.

Journal Article Nat Commun · August 9, 2024 One of the main drivers of autism spectrum disorder is risk alleles within hundreds of genes, which may interact within shared but unknown protein complexes. Here we develop a scalable genome-editing-mediated approach to target 14 high-confidence autism ri ... Full text Link to item Cite

Modeling intra-individual inter-trial EEG response variability in autism.

Journal Article Stat Med · July 30, 2024 Autism spectrum disorder (autism) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental condition characterized by early emerging impairments in social behavior and communication. EEG represents a powerful and non-invasive tool for examining functional brain differences in au ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief Report: Relationships Between Caregiver-Reported Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 12, 2024 PURPOSE: Early detection and intervention are associated with improved outcomes for autistic children. Thus, it is important to understand factors influencing early screening tools designed to detect autism. This study examined the relationship between car ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome in Young Autistic Children, Children with ADHD, and Autistic Children with ADHD.

Journal Article J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol · June 20, 2024 OBJECTIVE: Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome (CDS; previously called Sluggish Cognitive Tempo) refers to a constellation of cognitive and motor behaviors characterized by a predisposition toward mind wandering (cognitive subdomain) and slowed motor behavior ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computer Vision Analysis of Caregiver-Child Interactions in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Preliminary Report.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · June 2024 We report preliminary results of computer vision analysis of caregiver-child interactions during free play with children diagnosed with autism (N = 29, 41-91 months), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, N = 22, 48-100 months), or combined autis ... Full text Link to item Cite

Large-scale Validation of a Scalable and Portable Behavioral Digital Screening Tool for Autism at Home

Conference Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings · May 11, 2024 Autism, characterized by challenges in socialization and communication, benefits from early detection for prompt and timely intervention. Traditional autism screening questionnaires often exhibit reduced accuracy in primary care settings and significantly ... Full text Cite

Autistic Individuals Do Not Alter Visual Processing Strategy During Encoding Versus Recognition of Faces: A Hidden Markov Modeling Approach.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · March 2, 2024 PURPOSE: Visual face recognition-the ability to encode, discriminate, and recognize the faces of others-is fundamentally supported by eye movements and is a common source of difficulty for autistic individuals. We aimed to evaluate how visual processing st ... Full text Link to item Cite

Addressing the Gap in Research Training in Child Psychiatry and Neurodevelopment.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · February 2024 Psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions in children are common, often co-occur, and can be highly impairing. Moreover, psychiatric disorders that typically do not fully manifest until adulthood, such as schizophrenia, have their roots in early develo ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prevalence of bias against neurodivergence-related terms in artificial intelligence language models.

Journal Article Autism Res · February 2024 Given the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in many decision-making processes, we investigate the presence of AI bias towards terms related to a range of neurodivergent conditions, including autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism Caregiver Coaching in Africa (ACACIA): Protocol for a type 1-hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2024 BACKGROUND: While early autism intervention can significantly improve outcomes, gaps in implementation exist globally. These gaps are clearest in Africa, where forty percent of the world's children will live by 2050. Task-sharing early intervention to non- ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sex differences in the age of childhood autism diagnosis and the impact of co-occurring conditions.

Journal Article Autism Res · December 2023 Sex differences in the age of autism diagnosis during childhood have been documented consistently but remain poorly understood. In this study, we used electronic health records data from a diverse, academic medical center to quantify differences in the age ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prevalence and nature of prior developmental and medical concerns in toddlers who screen positive for autism in primary care.

Journal Article Autism · November 2023 The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all children be screened for autism at their 18- and 24-month well-child visit. For children who screen positive for autism, it is unknown whether this usually represents the first time a developmental con ... Full text Link to item Cite

Automated movement tracking of young autistic children during free play is correlated with clinical features associated with autism.

Journal Article Autism · November 2023 Play-based observations allow researchers to observe autistic children across a wide range of ages and skills. We recorded autistic children playing with toys in the center of a room and at a corner table while a caregiver remained seated off to the side a ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Selective Social Attention task in children with autism spectrum disorder: Results from the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials (ABC-CT) feasibility study.

Journal Article Autism Res · November 2023 The Selective Social Attention (SSA) task is a brief eye-tracking task involving experimental conditions varying along socio-communicative axes. Traditionally the SSA has been used to probe socially-specific attentional patterns in infants and toddlers who ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between executive function and attention abilities and language and social communication skills in young autistic children.

Journal Article Autism · October 2023 Executive functioning describes a set of cognitive processes that affect thinking and behavior. Past research has shown that autistic individuals often have delays in the acquisition of executive function abilities. Our study explored how differences in ex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early detection of autism using digital behavioral phenotyping.

Journal Article Nat Med · October 2023 Early detection of autism, a neurodevelopmental condition associated with challenges in social communication, ensures timely access to intervention. Autism screening questionnaires have been shown to have lower accuracy when used in real-world settings, su ... Full text Link to item Cite

6.12 Home Video Analysis of Affect and Attention at 12 Months in ASD and ADHD

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2023 Full text Cite

Autism Caregiver Coaching in Africa (ACACIA): Protocol for a type 1-hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial.

Journal Article medRxiv · September 11, 2023 BACKGROUND: While early autism intervention can significantly improve outcomes, gaps in implementation exist globally. These gaps are clearest in Africa, where forty percent of the world's children will live by 2050. Task-sharing early intervention to non- ... Full text Link to item Cite

Attention Allocation During Exploration of Visual Arrays in ASD: Results from the ABC-CT Feasibility Study.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · August 2023 Visual exploration paradigms involving object arrays have been used to examine salience of social stimuli such as faces in ASD. Recent work suggests performance on these paradigms may associate with clinical features of ASD. We evaluate metrics from a visu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enhancing early autism prediction based on electronic records using clinical narratives.

Journal Article J Biomed Inform · August 2023 Recent work has shown that predictive models can be applied to structured electronic health record (EHR) data to stratify autism likelihood from an early age (<1 year). Integrating clinical narratives (or notes) with structured data has been shown to impro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship between quantitative digital behavioral features and clinical profiles in young autistic children.

Journal Article Autism Res · July 2023 Early behavioral markers for autism include differences in social attention and orienting in response to one's name when called, and differences in body movements and motor abilities. More efficient, scalable, objective, and reliable measures of these beha ... Full text Link to item Cite

Blink rate and facial orientation reveal distinctive patterns of attentional engagement in autistic toddlers: a digital phenotyping approach.

Journal Article Sci Rep · May 3, 2023 Differences in social attention are well-documented in autistic individuals, representing one of the earliest signs of autism. Spontaneous blink rate has been used to index attentional engagement, with lower blink rates reflecting increased engagement. We ... Full text Link to item Cite

Concomitant medication use in children with autism spectrum disorder: Data from the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials.

Journal Article Autism · May 2023 Children with autism spectrum disorder are prescribed a variety of medications that affect the central nervous system (psychotropic medications) to address behavior and mood. In clinical trials, individuals taking concomitant psychotropic medications often ... Full text Link to item Cite

Eye-tracking measures of social versus nonsocial attention are related to level of social engagement during naturalistic caregiver-child interactions in autistic children.

Journal Article Autism Res · May 2023 Eye-tracking (ET) measures indexing social attention have been proposed as sensitive measures related to autism, but less is known about the relationship between social and nonsocial attention and naturalistic measures of social engagement and whether sex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evaluation of clinical assessments of social abilities for use in autism clinical trials by the autism biomarkers consortium for clinical trials.

Journal Article Autism Res · May 2023 Clinical trials in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often rely on clinician rating scales and parent surveys to measure autism-related features and social behaviors. To aid in the selection of these assessments for future clinical trials, the Autism Biomarke ... Full text Link to item Cite

A functional model for studying common trends across trial time in eye tracking experiments.

Journal Article Stat Biosci · April 2023 Eye tracking (ET) experiments commonly record the continuous trajectory of a subject's gaze on a two-dimensional screen throughout repeated presentations of stimuli (referred to as trials). Even though the continuous path of gaze is recorded during each tr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prediction of autism in infants: progress and challenges.

Journal Article Lancet Neurol · March 2023 Autism spectrum disorder (henceforth autism) is a neurodevelopmental condition that can be reliably diagnosed in children by age 18-24 months. Prospective longitudinal studies of infants aged 1 year and younger who are later diagnosed with autism are eluci ... Full text Link to item Cite

A tablet-based game for the assessment of visual motor skills in autistic children.

Journal Article NPJ Digit Med · February 3, 2023 Increasing evidence suggests that early motor impairments are a common feature of autism. Thus, scalable, quantitative methods for measuring motor behavior in young autistic children are needed. This work presents an engaging and scalable assessment of vis ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Predictive Value of Early Autism Detection Models Based on Electronic Health Record Data Collected Before Age 1 Year.

Journal Article JAMA Netw Open · February 1, 2023 IMPORTANCE: Autism detection early in childhood is critical to ensure that autistic children and their families have access to early behavioral support. Early correlates of autism documented in electronic health records (EHRs) during routine care could all ... Full text Link to item Cite

Exploring Complexity of Facial Dynamics in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article IEEE Trans Affect Comput · 2023 Atypical facial expression is one of the early symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) characterized by reduced regularity and lack of coordination of facial movements. Automatic quantification of these behaviors can offer novel biomarkers for screening ... Full text Link to item Cite

Complexity analysis of head movements in autistic toddlers.

Journal Article Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · January 2023 BackgroundEarly differences in sensorimotor functioning have been documented in young autistic children and infants who are later diagnosed with autism. Previous research has demonstrated that autistic toddlers exhibit more frequent head movement ... Full text Cite

The Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials: Initial Evaluation of a Battery of Candidate EEG Biomarkers.

Journal Article Am J Psychiatry · January 1, 2023 OBJECTIVE: Numerous candidate EEG biomarkers have been put forward for use in clinical research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but biomarker development has been hindered by limited attention to the psychometric properties of derived variables, inconsi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neurodiversity and Early Autism-Reply.

Journal Article JAMA Pediatr · December 1, 2022 Full text Link to item Cite

3.40 Eye-Tracking Biomarkers of Social Attention Are Related to Naturalistic Social Interactions in Children With ASD

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2022 Full text Cite

3.36 The Prevalence and Nature of Developmental Concerns Evident Prior to Receiving a Positive ASD Screening in Primary Care

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2022 Full text Cite

Multilevel hybrid principal components analysis for region-referenced functional electroencephalography data.

Journal Article Stat Med · August 30, 2022 Electroencephalography experiments produce region-referenced functional data representing brain signals in the time or the frequency domain collected across the scalp. The data typically also have a multilevel structure with high-dimensional observations c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Shorter average look durations to dynamic social stimuli are associated with higher levels of autism symptoms in young autistic children.

Journal Article Autism · August 2022 Many studies of autism look at the differences in how autistic research participants look at certain types of images. These studies often focus on where research participants are looking within the image, but that does not tell us everything about how much ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Early Start Denver Model Intervention and Mu Rhythm Attenuation in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2022 We examined the relationship between the Early start Denver model (ESDM) intervention and mu rhythm attenuation, an EEG paradigm reflecting neural processes associated with action perception and social information processing. Children were assigned to eith ... Full text Link to item Cite

Patterns of Intervention Utilization Among School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Findings from a Multi-Site Research Consortium.

Journal Article Res Autism Spectr Disord · June 2022 When designing and interpreting results from clinical trials evaluating treatments for children on the autism spectrum, a complicating factor is that most children receive a range of concurrent treatments. Thus, it is important to better understand the typ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence in Otolaryngology and the Communication Sciences.

Journal Article J Assoc Res Otolaryngol · June 2022 Use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a burgeoning field in otolaryngology and the communication sciences. A virtual symposium on the topic was convened from Duke University on October 26, 2020, and was attended by more than 170 participants worldwide. Th ... Full text Link to item Cite

The autism biomarkers consortium for clinical trials: evaluation of a battery of candidate eye-tracking biomarkers for use in autism clinical trials.

Journal Article Mol Autism · March 21, 2022 BACKGROUND: Eye tracking (ET) is a powerful methodology for studying attentional processes through quantification of eye movements. The precision, usability, and cost-effectiveness of ET render it a promising platform for developing biomarkers for use in c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pragmatic adaptations of telehealth-delivered caregiver coaching for children with autism in the context of COVID-19: Perspectives from the United States and South Africa.

Journal Article Autism : the international journal of research and practice · January 2022 Lay abstractCOVID-19 caused many autism spectrum disorder caregiver-coaching studies to move to telehealth. Telehealth can increase the diversity of people who take part in research. This matters because most autism spectrum disorder studies have ... Full text Cite

Identifying Age Based Maturation in the ERP Response to Faces in Children With Autism: Implications for Developing Biomarkers for Use in Clinical Trials.

Journal Article Front Psychiatry · 2022 Recent proposals have suggested the potential for neural biomarkers to improve clinical trial processes in neurodevelopmental conditions; however, few efforts have identified whether chronological age-based adjustments will be necessary (as used in standar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Changes in the geometry and robustness of diffusion tensor imaging networks: Secondary analysis from a randomized controlled trial of young autistic children receiving an umbilical cord blood infusion.

Journal Article Front Psychiatry · 2022 Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been used as an outcome measure in clinical trials for several psychiatric disorders but has rarely been explored in autism clinical trials. This is despite a large body of research suggesting altered white matter structu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Distance from Typical Scan Path When Viewing Complex Stimuli in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and its Association with Behavior.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2021 Eye-tracking is often used to study attention in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous research has identified multiple atypical patterns of attention in children with ASD based on areas-of-interest analysis. Fewer studies have investigate ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Patterns of Health Services Use Before Age 1 in Children Later Diagnosed With ADHD.

Journal Article J Atten Disord · October 2021 Background: Children with ADHD have 2 to 3 times increased health care utilization and annual costs once diagnosed, but little is known about utilization patterns early in life, prior to diagnosis. Quantifying early health services use among children later ... Full text Link to item Cite

A scalable computational approach to assessing response to name in toddlers with autism.

Journal Article J Child Psychol Psychiatry · September 2021 BACKGROUND: This study is part of a larger research program focused on developing objective, scalable tools for digital behavioral phenotyping. We evaluated whether a digital app delivered on a smartphone or tablet using computer vision analysis (CVA) can ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computational Methods to Measure Patterns of Gaze in Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article JAMA Pediatr · August 1, 2021 IMPORTANCE: Atypical eye gaze is an early-emerging symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and holds promise for autism screening. Current eye-tracking methods are expensive and require special equipment and calibration. There is a need for scalable, fea ... Full text Link to item Cite

Visual Preference for Biological Motion in Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2021 Participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (n = 121, mean [SD] age: 14.6 [8.0] years) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 40, 16.4 [13.3] years) were presented with a series of videos representing biological motion on one side of a computer m ... Full text Link to item Cite

Drug development for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Progress, challenges, and future directions.

Journal Article Eur Neuropsychopharmacol · July 2021 In 2017, facing lack of progress and failures encountered in targeted drug development for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and related neurodevelopmental disorders, the ISCTM with the ECNP created the ASD Working Group charged to identify barriers to progre ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Effects of Intervention Intensity and Intervention Style on Outcomes for Young Children With Autism.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · June 2021 OBJECTIVE: This randomized, multisite, intent-to-treat study tested the effects of 2 levels of treatment intensity (number of hours) and 2 treatment styles on the progress of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We predicted that initial sev ... Full text Link to item Cite

Promoting social communication in young children with ASD

Chapter · June 2021 "The new edition of this practical accessible text introduces preservice SLPs to 12 evidence-based interventions that improve the communication and social skills of people with autism spectrum disorder"-- ... Cite

Digital Behavioral Phenotyping Detects Atypical Pattern of Facial Expression in Toddlers with Autism.

Journal Article Autism Res · March 2021 Commonly used screening tools for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) generally rely on subjective caregiver questionnaires. While behavioral observation is more objective, it is also expensive, time-consuming, and requires significant expertise to perform. As ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reply.

Journal Article J Pediatr · March 2021 Full text Link to item Cite

Gastrointestinal problems are associated with increased repetitive behaviors but not social communication difficulties in young children with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Autism · February 2021 Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are more likely than typically developing individuals to experience a range of gastrointestinal abnormalities, including chronic diarrhea, constipation, food sensitivities, and abdominal pain. These gastrointestina ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computer Vision Analysis for Quantification of Autism Risk Behaviors.

Journal Article IEEE Trans Affect Comput · 2021 Observational behavior analysis plays a key role for the discovery and evaluation of risk markers for many neurodevelopmental disorders. Research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggests that behavioral risk markers can be observed at 12 months of age or ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Scalable Off-the-Shelf Framework for Measuring Patterns of Attention in Young Children and its Application in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article IEEE Trans Affect Comput · 2021 Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with deficits in the processing of social information and difficulties in social interaction, and individuals with ASD exhibit atypical attention and gaze. Traditionally, gaze studies have relied upon precise an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sleep Problems and Trajectories of Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · November 2020 Sleep problems are prevalent in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and are associated with the expression of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs). Children (n = 57) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 38) or developmental delay (DD, n  ... Full text Link to item Cite

Health system utilization before age 1 among children later diagnosed with autism or ADHD.

Journal Article Sci Rep · October 19, 2020 Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have 2-3 times increased healthcare utilization and annual costs once diagnosed, but little is known about their utilization patterns early in life. Quantifying ... Full text Link to item Cite

Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age.

Journal Article Mol Autism · October 19, 2020 BACKGROUND: Diminished visual monitoring of faces and activities of others is an early feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is uncertain whether deficits in activity monitoring, identified using a homogeneous set of stimuli, persist throughout the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of a digital Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers-Revised on likelihood and age of autism diagnosis and referral for developmental evaluation.

Journal Article Autism · October 2020 This was a project in primary care for young children (1-2 years old). We tested a parent questionnaire on a tablet. This tablet questionnaire asked questions to see whether the child may have autism. We compared the paper and pencil version of the questio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Infusion of human umbilical cord tissue mesenchymal stromal cells in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Stem Cells Transl Med · October 2020 Ongoing neuroinflammation may contribute to symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in at least a portion of affected individuals. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have demonstrated the capacity to modulate neuroinflammation, but safety and feasibility ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

An Investigation of a Classroom-Based Specialized Music Therapy Model for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Voices Together Using the VOICSSâ„¢ Method

Journal Article Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities · September 1, 2020 Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have marked deficits in social communication skills, which can challenge their ability to participate in academic and social activities. Music therapy is a popular intervention for children with ASD, and althoug ... Full text Cite

A Six-Minute Measure of Vocalizations in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article Autism Res · August 2020 To improve early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we need objective, reliable, and accessible measures. To that end, a previous study demonstrated that a tablet-based application (app) that assessed several autism risk behaviors distinguis ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Infant EEG theta modulation predicts childhood intelligence.

Journal Article Sci Rep · July 8, 2020 Intellectual functioning is a critical determinant of economic and personal productivity. Identifying early neural predictors of cognitive function in infancy will allow us to map the neurodevelopmental pathways that underpin individual differences in inte ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring robustness of brain networks in autism spectrum disorder with Ricci curvature.

Journal Article Sci Rep · July 2, 2020 Ollivier-Ricci curvature is a method for measuring the robustness of connections in a network. In this work, we use curvature to measure changes in robustness of brain networks in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In an open label clinical tria ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The influence of background auditory noise on P50 and N100 suppression elicited by the paired-click paradigm

Journal Article Journal of Psychophysiology · July 1, 2020 Auditory sensory gating is commonly assessed using the Paired-Click Paradigm (PCP), an electroencephalography (EEG) task in which two identical sounds are presented sequentially and the brain's inhibitory response to the second sound is measured. Many clin ... Full text Cite

Social impairments in alternating hemiplegia of childhood.

Journal Article Dev Med Child Neurol · July 2020 AIM: To evaluate presence and severity of social impairments in alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC) and determine factors that are associated with social impairments. METHOD: This was a retrospective analysis of 34 consecutive patients with AHC (19 f ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Phase II Randomized Clinical Trial of the Safety and Efficacy of Intravenous Umbilical Cord Blood Infusion for Treatment of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Pediatr · July 2020 OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether umbilical cord blood (CB) infusion is safe and associated with improved social and communication abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). STUDY DESIGN: This prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, doubl ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM)

Chapter · June 23, 2020 Topics featured in this book include: Autism screening tools and interdisciplinary coordination of the processes. Dell Children’s (S)TAAR Model of Early Autism Assessment. The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM). ... Cite

Clinical Validation of the Autism Behavior Inventory: Caregiver-Rated Assessment of Core and Associated Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · June 2020 There is a need for measures to track symptom change in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We conducted a validation study on a revised version of the Autism Behavior Inventory (ABI), and a short form (ABI-S). Caregivers of individuals (6-54 years) with confi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Publisher Correction: ASPI: a public-private partnership to develop treatments for autism.

Journal Article Nat Rev Drug Discov · June 2020 An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Automated recognition of spontaneous facial expression in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: parsing response variability.

Journal Article Mol Autism · May 11, 2020 BACKGROUND: Reduction or differences in facial expression are a core diagnostic feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet evidence regarding the extent of this discrepancy is limited and inconsistent. Use of automated facial expression detection techn ... Full text Link to item Cite

Practice guideline: Treatment for insomnia and disrupted sleep behavior in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: Report of the Guideline Development, Dissemination, and Implementation Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology.

Journal Article Neurology · March 3, 2020 OBJECTIVE: To review pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic strategies for treating sleep disturbances in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to develop recommendations for addressing sleep disturbance in this population. METHODS: ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relative Average Look Duration and its Association with Neurophysiological Activity in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article Sci Rep · February 5, 2020 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by early attentional differences that often precede the hallmark symptoms of social communication impairments. Development of novel measures of attentional behaviors may lead to earlier identification of chil ... Full text Link to item Cite

Author Correction: Atypical postural control can be detected via computer vision analysis in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Sci Rep · January 14, 2020 An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship Between Sleep and Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring the Impact of Sleep Variability.

Journal Article Front Neurosci · 2020 OBJECTIVE: The relationship between sleep (caregiver-reported and actigraphy-measured) and other caregiver-reported behaviors in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was examined, including the use of machine learning to identify sleep v ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials (ABC-CT): Scientific Context, Study Design, and Progress Toward Biomarker Qualification.

Journal Article Front Integr Neurosci · 2020 Clinical research in neurodevelopmental disorders remains reliant upon clinician and caregiver measures. Limitations of these approaches indicate a need for objective, quantitative, and reliable biomarkers to advance clinical research. Extant research sugg ... Full text Link to item Cite

Day-to-Day Test-Retest Reliability of EEG Profiles in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development.

Journal Article Front Integr Neurosci · 2020 Biomarker development is currently a high priority in neurodevelopmental disorder research. For many types of biomarkers (particularly biomarkers of diagnosis), reliability over short periods is critically important. In the field of autism spectrum disorde ... Full text Link to item Cite

The early start denver model (ESDM)

Chapter · January 1, 2020 The Early Start DenverModel (ESDM; Rogers and Dawson in The Early Start Denver Model for Young Children with Autism: Promoting Language, Learning, and Engagement. Guilford Press, New York, 2010) is an evidence-based early intervention designed to promote d ... Full text Cite

1.14 GRAPH CURVATURE AS A METHOD FOR DISCERNING ROBUSTNESS IN BRAIN NETWORKS IN ASD

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2019 Full text Cite

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SENSORY PROCESSING DIFFERENCES AND CLINICAL FEATURES OF CHILDREN WITH ASD

Conference JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY · October 1, 2019 Full text Link to item Cite

A Multisite Randomized Controlled Two-Phase Trial of the Early Start Denver Model Compared to Treatment as Usual.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · September 2019 OBJECTIVE: This single-blind, randomized, multisite, intent-to-treat study was designed to replicate and extend Dawson et al.'s (Pediatrics. 2010;125: e17-e23) randomized controlled trial testing the effects of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), an inten ... Full text Link to item Cite

Methodological considerations in the use of Noldus EthoVision XT video tracking of children with autism in multi-site studies.

Journal Article Biol Psychol · September 2019 Animal models of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) contribute to understanding of the role of genetics and the biological mechanisms underlying behavioral phenotypes and inform the development of potential treatments. Translational biomarkers are needed that ... Full text Link to item Cite

A novel method for measuring learning opportunities provided by parents to young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Autism · August 2019 The aim of this study was to develop a measurement approach to assess the learning opportunities provided by parents to their young children with autism spectrum disorder during a free play task and to examine the relationship between learning opportunitie ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sensory Over-Responsivity: An Early Risk Factor for Anxiety and Behavioral Challenges in Young Children.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · June 2019 Anxiety disorders are prevalent and significantly impact young children and their families. One hypothesized risk factor for anxiety is heightened responses to sensory input. Few studies have explored this hypothesis prospectively. This study had two goals ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computer vision analysis captures atypical attention in toddlers with autism.

Journal Article Autism · April 2019 To demonstrate the capability of computer vision analysis to detect atypical orienting and attention behaviors in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder. One hundered and four toddlers of 16-31 months old (mean = 22) participated in this study. Twenty-two ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief Report: Pilot Study of a Novel Interactive Digital Treatment to Improve Cognitive Control in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Co-occurring ADHD Symptoms.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · April 2019 The presence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with worse cognitive control. Children with ASD and ADHD often respond poorly to medications, thus we need alternative tr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inappropriate Use of the Term Autism as Analogy.

Journal Article JAMA Pediatr · April 1, 2019 Full text Link to item Cite

On Target Shift in Adversarial Domain Adaptation.

Journal Article Proc Mach Learn Res · April 2019 Discrepancy between training and testing domains is a fundamental problem in the generalization of machine learning techniques. Recently, several approaches have been proposed to learn domain invariant feature representations through adversarial deep learn ... Link to item Cite

Caregiver Daily Reporting of Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Observational Study Using Web and Mobile Apps.

Journal Article JMIR Ment Health · March 26, 2019 BACKGROUND: Currently, no medications are approved to treat core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One barrier to ASD medication development is the lack of validated outcome measures able to detect symptom change. Current ASD interventions are of ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computer vision and behavioral phenotyping: an autism case study.

Journal Article Curr Opin Biomed Eng · March 2019 Despite significant recent advances in molecular genetics and neuroscience, behavioral ratings based on clinical observations are still the gold standard for screening, diagnosing, and assessing outcomes in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism sp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enhancing Low-Intensity Coaching in Parent Implemented Early Start Denver Model Intervention for Early Autism: A Randomized Comparison Treatment Trial.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 2019 Short-term low intensity parent implemented intervention studies for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have found it difficult to demonstrate significantly improved developmental scores or autism severity compared to community treatment. We cond ... Full text Link to item Cite

White Matter Tract Changes Associated with Clinical Improvement in an Open-Label Trial Assessing Autologous Umbilical Cord Blood for Treatment of Young Children with Autism.

Journal Article Stem Cells Transl Med · February 2019 Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication deficits and the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. We have previously reported significant improvements in behavior ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Automatic Recognition of Posed Facial Expression of Emotion in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · January 2019 Facial expression is impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but rarely systematically studied. We focus on the ability of individuals with ASD to produce facial expressions of emotions in response to a verbal prompt. We used the Janssen Autism Knowled ... Full text Link to item Cite

An Observational Study With the Janssen Autism Knowledge Engine (JAKE®) in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article Front Neurosci · 2019 Objective: The Janssen Autism Knowledge Engine (JAKE®) is a clinical research outcomes assessment system developed to more sensitively measure treatment outcomes and identify subpopulations in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we describe JAKE and prese ... Full text Link to item Cite

On Target Shift in Adversarial Domain Adaptation

Conference International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics · 2019 Cite

Biomarker Acquisition and Quality Control for Multi-Site Studies: The Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials.

Journal Article Front Integr Neurosci · 2019 The objective of the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials (ABC-CT) is to evaluate a set of lab-based behavioral video tracking (VT), electroencephalography (EEG), and eye tracking (ET) measures for use in clinical trials with children with auti ... Full text Link to item Cite

Extracting Relationships by Multi-Domain Matching.

Journal Article Adv Neural Inf Process Syst · December 2018 In many biological and medical contexts, we construct a large labeled corpus by aggregating many sources to use in target prediction tasks. Unfortunately, many of the sources may be irrelevant to our target task, so ignoring the structure of the dataset is ... Link to item Cite

Atypical postural control can be detected via computer vision analysis in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Sci Rep · November 19, 2018 Evidence suggests that differences in motor function are an early feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One aspect of motor ability that develops during childhood is postural control, reflected in the ability to maintain a steady head and body positio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief Report: A Survey of Autism Research Priorities Across a Diverse Community of Stakeholders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · November 2018 Inclusion of stakeholder voices in the allocation of research funding can increase the relevance of results and improve community engagement in research. We describe the results of an online survey that gathered input from community stakeholders regarding ... Full text Link to item Cite

Electrophysiological Biomarkers Predict Clinical Improvement in an Open-Label Trial Assessing Efficacy of Autologous Umbilical Cord Blood for Treatment of Autism.

Journal Article Stem Cells Transl Med · November 2018 This study was a phase I, single-center, and open-label trial of a single intravenous infusion of autologous umbilical cord blood in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty-five children between the ages of 2 and 6 with a confirmed diagn ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Visual Exploration in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring Age Differences and Dynamic Features Using Recurrence Quantification Analysis.

Journal Article Autism Res · November 2018 Eye-tracking studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder sometimes show differences in attention and gaze patterns. This includes preference for certain nonsocial objects, heightened attention to detail, and more difficulty wit ... Full text Link to item Cite

23.1 Autism and Beyond: Lessons From an Iphone Study of Young Children

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2018 Full text Cite

5.18 A Scalable Off-the-Shelf Framework for Measuring Children’s Direction of Attention in ASD

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2018 Full text Cite

Caregiver Daily Reporting of Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Observational Study Using Web and Mobile Apps (Preprint)

Journal Article · June 28, 2018 BACKGROUNDCurrently, no medications are approved to treat core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One barrier to ASD medication development is the lack of validated outcome measu ... Full text Cite

Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain.

Journal Article Science · June 22, 2018 Disorders of the brain can exhibit considerable epidemiological comorbidity and often share symptoms, provoking debate about their etiologic overlap. We quantified the genetic sharing of 25 brain disorders from genome-wide association studies of 265,218 pa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sensory hypersensitivity predicts enhanced attention capture by faces in the early development of ASD.

Journal Article Dev Cogn Neurosci · January 2018 Sensory sensitivity is prevalent among young children with ASD, but its relation to social communication impairment is unclear. Recently, increased sensory hypersensitivity has been linked to greater activity of the neural salience network (Green et al., 2 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief Report: Executive Function as a Predictor of Academic Achievement in School-Aged Children with ASD.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · January 2018 The contributions of Executive Function (EF) to academic achievement in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are not well understood. Academic achievement and its association with EF is described in 32, 9-year-old children with ASD. EF at age 6 and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Validation of eye-tracking measures of social attention as a potential biomarker for autism clinical trials.

Journal Article Autism Res · January 2018 UNLABELLED: 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 propose ... Full text Link to item Cite

Automatic emotion and attention analysis of young children at home: a ResearchKit autism feasibility study.

Journal Article NPJ Digit Med · 2018 Current tools for objectively measuring young children's observed behaviors are expensive, time-consuming, and require extensive training and professional administration. The lack of scalable, reliable, and validated tools impacts access to evidence-based ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Extracting relationships by multi-domain matching

Conference Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems · 2018 Cite

Autism Behavior Inventory: A Novel Tool for Assessing Core and Associated Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol · November 2017 OBJECTIVE: Autism Behavior Inventory (ABI) is a new measure for assessing changes in core and associated symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in participants (ages: 3 years-adulthood) diagnosed with ASD. It is a web-based tool with five domains (two ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prospective, observational cohort study of JAKEâ„¢, an autism knowledge

Conference European Neuropsychopharmacology · October 2017 Full text Cite

5.24 Associations Between Behavioral Comorbidities in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Parenting Stress

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2017 Full text Cite

4.13 Validity of Automated Methods for Assessing Child Communication Abilities (LENA) in an Autism Clinical Trial

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2017 Full text Cite

3.31 Building Predictive Models for Autism Spectrum Disorder Based on Biosensor Data

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2017 Full text Cite

Cost Offset Associated With Early Start Denver Model for Children With Autism.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · September 2017 OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) for treatment of young children with autism on health care service use and costs. METHOD: We used data from a randomized trial that tested the efficacy of the ESDM, which is based on ... Full text Link to item Cite

Polygenic transmission disequilibrium confirms that common and rare variation act additively to create risk for autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Nat Genet · July 2017 Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk is influenced by common polygenic and de novo variation. We aimed to clarify the influence of polygenic risk for ASD and to identify subgroups of ASD cases, including those with strongly acting de novo variants, in which ... Full text Link to item Cite

Parent-delivered early intervention in infants at risk for ASD: Effects on electrophysiological and habituation measures of social attention.

Journal Article Autism Res · May 2017 Prospective longitudinal studies of infants with older siblings with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have indicated that differences in the neurocognitive systems underlying social attention may emerge prior to the child meeting ASD diagnostic criteria. Thu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autologous Cord Blood Infusions Are Safe and Feasible in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results of a Single-Center Phase I Open-Label Trial.

Journal Article Stem Cells Transl Med · May 2017 Despite advances in early diagnosis and behavioral therapies, more effective treatments for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are needed. We hypothesized that umbilical cord blood-derived cell therapies may have potential in alleviating ASD symp ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Use of a Digital Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers - Revised with Follow-up to Improve Quality of Screening for Autism.

Journal Article J Pediatr · April 2017 OBJECTIVES: To assess changes in quality of care for children at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) due to process improvement and implementation of a digital screening form. STUDY DESIGN: The process of screening for ASD was studied in an academic p ... Full text Link to item Cite

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR AUTISM RESEARCH NEWS

Journal Article Autism Research · March 1, 2017 Full text Cite

Meta-analysis of GWAS of over 16,000 individuals with autism spectrum disorder highlights a novel locus at 10q24.32 and a significant overlap with schizophrenia.

Journal Article Mol Autism · 2017 BACKGROUND: Over the past decade genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been applied to aid in the understanding of the biology of traits. The success of this approach is governed by the underlying effect sizes carried by the true risk variants and th ... Full text Link to item Cite

JAKE® Multimodal Data Capture System: Insights from an Observational Study of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article Front Neurosci · 2017 Objective: To test usability and optimize the Janssen Autism Knowledge Engine (JAKE®) system's components, biosensors, and procedures used for objective measurement of core and associated symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in clinical trials. Metho ... Full text Link to item Cite

Targeting EEG/LFP Synchrony with Neural Nets

Journal Article Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems · 2017 Cite

Targeting EEG/LFP synchrony with neural nets

Conference Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems · January 1, 2017 We consider the analysis of Electroencephalography (EEG) and Local Field Potential (LFP) datasets, which are "big" in terms of the size of recorded data but rarely have sufficient labels required to train complex models (e.g., conventional deep learning me ... Cite

Executive function predicts the development of play skills for verbal preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Autism Res · December 2016 Executive function and play skills develop in early childhood and are linked to cognitive and language ability. The present study examined these abilities longitudinally in two groups with autism spectrum disorder-a group with higher initial language (n =  ... Full text Link to item Cite

1.23 THE UTILITY OF OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION DEFICITS IN YOUNG CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

Conference Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · October 2016 Full text Cite

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR AUTISM RESEARCH NEWS

Journal Article Autism Research · August 1, 2016 Full text Cite

The Relationship Between Early Neural Responses to Emotional Faces at Age 3 and Later Autism and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescents with Autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2016 Both autism spectrum (ASD) and anxiety disorders are associated with atypical neural and attentional responses to emotional faces, differing in affective face processing from typically developing peers. Within a longitudinal study of children with ASD (23 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early event-related potentials to emotional faces differ for adults with autism spectrum disorder and by serotonin transporter genotype.

Journal Article Clin Neurophysiol · June 2016 OBJECTIVE: To test differences in neural sensitivity to facial expressions, including expressions with open versus closed mouths, exhibited by (1) adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical adults, and by (2) short versus long sero ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prospective Longitudinal Studies of Infant Siblings of Children With Autism: Lessons Learned and Future Directions.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · March 2016 OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this review are to highlight the impact of the first decade of high-risk (HR) infant sibling work in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to identify potential areas of translational focus for the next decade of research. METHOD: ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transcranial magnetic stimulation in autism spectrum disorder: Challenges, promise, and roadmap for future research.

Journal Article Autism Res · February 2016 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a behaviorally defined complex neurodevelopmental syndrome characterized by impairments in social communication, by the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors, interests and activities, and by abnormalities in sen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Altered Dynamics of the fMRI Response to Faces in Individuals with Autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · January 2016 Abnormal fMRI habituation in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been proposed as a critical component in social impairment. This study investigated habituation to fearful faces and houses in ASD and whether fMRI measures of brain activity discriminate be ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced engagement with social stimuli in 6-month-old infants with later autism spectrum disorder: a longitudinal prospective study of infants at high familial risk.

Journal Article J Neurodev Disord · 2016 BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects more than 1 % of the population and close to 20 % of prospectively studied infants with an older sibling with ASD. Although significant progress has been made in chara ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Preliminary Investigation of a Specialized Music Therapy Model for Children with Disabilities Delivered in a Classroom Setting.

Journal Article Autism Res Treat · 2016 Music therapy is gaining popularity as an intervention strategy for children with developmental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study was a pilot investigation of a classroom-based music-based intervention, Voices Together®, fo ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Chapter · January 1, 2016 Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by atypical social communication and rigid, repetitive behavior patterns, or sensory interests. In this article, we highlight several specific topical content areas in ... Full text Cite

Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions: Empirically Validated Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal Article Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · August 27, 2015 Earlier autism diagnosis, the importance of early intervention, and development of specific interventions for young children have contributed to the emergence of similar, empirically supported, autism interventions that represent the merging of applied beh ... Full text Cite

Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions: Empirically Validated Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · August 2015 Earlier autism diagnosis, the importance of early intervention, and development of specific interventions for young children have contributed to the emergence of similar, empirically supported, autism interventions that represent the merging of applied beh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring social communication behaviors as a treatment endpoint in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Autism · July 2015 Social communication impairments are a core deficit in autism spectrum disorder. Social communication deficit is also an early indicator of autism spectrum disorder and a factor in long-term outcomes. Thus, this symptom domain represents a critical treatme ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-Term Outcomes of Early Intervention in 6-Year-Old Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · July 2015 OBJECTIVE: We prospectively examined evidence for the sustained effects of early intervention based on a follow-up study of 39 children with ASD who began participation in a randomized clinical trial testing the effectiveness of the Early Start Denver Mode ... Full text Link to item Cite

Joint analysis of psychiatric disorders increases accuracy of risk prediction for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder.

Journal Article Am J Hum Genet · February 5, 2015 Genetic risk prediction has several potential applications in medical research and clinical practice and could be used, for example, to stratify a heterogeneous population of patients by their predicted genetic risk. However, for polygenic traits, such as ... Full text Link to item Cite

Psychiatric genome-wide association study analyses implicate neuronal, immune and histone pathways.

Journal Article Nat Neurosci · February 2015 Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders have identified multiple genetic associations with such disorders, but better methods are needed to derive the underlying biological mechanisms that these signals indicate. We sought to identi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced delay of gratification and effortful control among young children with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Autism · January 2015 We explored internal control of behavior using direct observation and parent report. Previous research has found that both the delay of gratification task and parent-reported effortful control predict later social ability and more positive outcomes in typi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring repetitive behaviors as a treatment endpoint in youth with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Autism · January 2015 Restricted interests and repetitive behaviors vary widely in type, frequency, and intensity among children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. They can be stigmatizing and interfere with more constructive activities. Accordingly, restricted inte ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism as a disorder of biological and behavioral rhythms: toward new therapeutic perspectives.

Journal Article Front Pediatr · 2015 There is a growing interest in the role of biological and behavioral rhythms in typical and atypical development. Recent studies in cognitive and developmental psychology have highlighted the importance of rhythmicity and synchrony of motor, emotional, and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Behavioral, cognitive, and adaptive development in infants with autism spectrum disorder in the first 2 years of life.

Journal Article J Neurodev Disord · 2015 BACKGROUND: To delineate the early progression of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, this study investigated developmental characteristics of infants at high familial risk for ASD (HR), and infants at low risk (LR). METHODS: Participants included 210 ... Full text Link to item Cite

A scalable app for measuring autism risk behaviors in young children: A technical validity and feasibility study

Journal Article Proceedings of the 5th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare · 2015 Link to item Cite

Synaptic, transcriptional and chromatin genes disrupted in autism.

Journal Article Nature · November 13, 2014 The genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorder involves the interplay of common and rare variants and their impact on hundreds of genes. Using exome sequencing, here we show that analysis of rare coding variation in 3,871 autism cases and 9,937 ances ... Full text Link to item Cite

Potential neural mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Res Dev Disabil · November 2014 Although evidence supports the efficacy of early intervention for improving outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness remain poorly understood. This paper reviews the research literature on the ... Full text Link to item Cite

The impact of the metabotropic glutamate receptor and other gene family interaction networks on autism.

Journal Article Nat Commun · June 13, 2014 Although multiple reports show that defective genetic networks underlie the aetiology of autism, few have translated into pharmacotherapeutic opportunities. Since drugs compete with endogenous small molecules for protein binding, many successful drugs targ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Convergence of genes and cellular pathways dysregulated in autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Am J Hum Genet · May 1, 2014 Rare copy-number variation (CNV) is an important source of risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We analyzed 2,446 ASD-affected families and confirmed an excess of genic deletions and duplications in affected versus control groups (1.41-fold, p = 1.0  ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring anxiety as a treatment endpoint in youth with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · May 2014 Despite the high rate of anxiety in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), measuring anxiety in ASD is fraught with uncertainty. This is due, in part, to incomplete consensus on the manifestations of anxiety in this population. Autism Speaks asse ... Full text Link to item Cite

Approaches to enhancing the early detection of autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review of the literature.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · February 2014 BACKGROUND: A reliable diagnosis of autism can be made as early as 24 months, yet in many children diagnoses are made much later. A delay in diagnosis translates into a missed opportunity to provide early intervention services and to improve outcomes. The ... Full text Link to item Cite

The motivation for very early intervention for infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Int J Speech Lang Pathol · February 2014 The first Autism Research Matrix (IACC, 2003) listed the identification of behavioural and biological markers of risk for autism as a top priority. This emphasis was based on the hypothesis that intervention with infants at-risk, at an early age when the b ... Full text Link to item Cite

The impact of parent-delivered intervention on parents of very young children with autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 2014 This study investigated the impact of a parent-coaching intervention based on the Early Start Denver Model (P-ESDM) on parenting-related stress and sense of competence. This was part of a multisite, randomized trial comparing P-ESDM (n = 49) with community ... Full text Link to item Cite

Performance on the dimensional change card sort and backward digit span by young children with autism without intellectual disability.

Journal Article Child Neuropsychol · 2014 The early development of executive function (EF) and its relation to autism symptom expression is of considerable theoretical interest, particularly in children without general cognitive delay. Executive function was tested in 23 children with autism spect ... Full text Link to item Cite

A scoring strategy combining statistics and functional genomics supports a possible role for common polygenic variation in autism.

Journal Article Front Genet · 2014 Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are highly heritable complex neurodevelopmental disorders with a 4:1 male: female ratio. Common genetic variation could explain 40-60% of the variance in liability to autism. Because of their small effect, genome-wide associ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Computer vision tools for low-cost and noninvasive measurement of autism-related behaviors in infants.

Journal Article Autism Res Treat · 2014 The early detection of developmental disorders is key to child outcome, allowing interventions to be initiated which promote development and improve prognosis. Research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggests that behavioral signs can be observed late i ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

EEG hyper-connectivity in high-risk infants is associated with later autism.

Journal Article J Neurodev Disord · 2014 BACKGROUND: It has been previously reported that structural and functional brain connectivity in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is atypical and may vary with age. However, to date, no measures of functional connectivity measured within th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reward-based decision making and electrodermal responding by young children with autism spectrum disorders during a gambling task.

Journal Article Autism Res · December 2013 In this study, we explore reward-based decision making and electrodermal responding (EDR) among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during a children's gambling task. In addition, we examine whether individual behavioral and EDR responses predict ... Full text Link to item Cite

A quarter century of progress on the early detection and treatment of autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · November 2013 The last 25 years have witnessed tremendous changes in our ability to detect autism very early in life and provide interventions that can significantly influence children's outcomes. It was once questioned whether autism could be recognized before children ... Full text Link to item Cite

Priorities for autism spectrum disorder risk communication and ethics.

Journal Article Autism · November 2013 Autism spectrum disorders are an issue of increasing public health significance. The incidence of autism spectrum disorders has been increasing in recent years, and they are associated with significant personal and financial impacts for affected persons an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Fear-potentiated startle response is unrelated to social or emotional functioning in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Autism Res · October 2013 It has been suggested that atypical amygdala function contributes to the social impairments characteristic of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Previous research has demonstrated that adolescents and adults with ASD generate normal response during a fear-p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Atypical developmental patterns of brain chemistry in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article JAMA Psychiatry · September 2013 IMPORTANCE: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with symptoms emerging during early childhood. The pathophysiology underlying the disorder remains incompletely understood. OBJECTIVE: To examine cross-sectional and longitudinal p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Genetic relationship between five psychiatric disorders estimated from genome-wide SNPs.

Journal Article Nat Genet · September 2013 Most psychiatric disorders are moderately to highly heritable. The degree to which genetic variation is unique to individual disorders or shared across disorders is unclear. To examine shared genetic etiology, we use genome-wide genotype data from the Psyc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Detection of clinically relevant genetic variants in autism spectrum disorder by whole-genome sequencing.

Journal Article Am J Hum Genet · August 8, 2013 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrates high heritability and familial clustering, yet the genetic causes remain only partially understood as a result of extensive clinical and genomic heterogeneity. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) shows promise as a too ... Full text Link to item Cite

Disengagement of visual attention in infancy is associated with emerging autism in toddlerhood.

Journal Article Biol Psychiatry · August 1, 2013 BACKGROUND: Early emerging characteristics of visual orienting have been associated with a wide range of typical and atypical developmental outcomes. In the current study, we examined the development of visual disengagement in infants at risk for autism. M ... Full text Link to item Cite

The broader autism phenotype in simplex and multiplex families.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2013 Mothers, fathers, and siblings from 87 multiplex (M-mothers, M-fathers, and M-siblings) and 41 simplex (S-mothers, S-fathers, and S-siblings) Autism spectrum disorder families were assessed using the Broader Phenotype Autism Symptom Scale. S-mothers, S-fat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Parenting-related stress and psychological distress in mothers of toddlers with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Brain Dev · February 2013 BACKGROUND: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are at risk for higher stress levels than parents of children with other developmental disabilities and typical development. Recent advances in early diagnosis have resulted in younger c ... Full text Link to item Cite

A novel method for assessing the development of speech motor function in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Front Integr Neurosci · 2013 There is increasing evidence to show that indicators other than socio-cognitive abilities might predict communicative function in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A potential area of research is the development of speech motor function in toddlers. Utilizi ... Full text Link to item Cite

The gift of voice.

Journal Article Narrat Inq Bioeth · 2013 Initial writings and moral distress research focused on nursing, however, it soon became clear that others in healthcare also experienced moral distress. The narratives discussed in this commentary show this variation not only in the authors' multiplicity ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brain responses to words in 2-year-olds with autism predict developmental outcomes at age 6.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2013 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects social behavior and language acquisition. ASD exhibits great variability in outcomes, with some individuals remaining nonverbal and others exhibiting average or above average functio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Rule learning in autism: the role of reward type and social context.

Journal Article Dev Neuropsychol · 2013 Learning abstract rules is central to social and cognitive development. Across two experiments, we used Delayed Non-Matching to Sample tasks to characterize the longitudinal development and nature of rule-learning impairments in children with Autism Spectr ... Full text Link to item Cite

The screening and diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders

Chapter · January 1, 2013 The Child Neurology Society and American Academy of Neurology recently proposed to formulate Practice Parameters for the Diagnosis and Evaluation of Autism for their memberships. This endeavor was expanded to include representatives from nine professional ... Cite

Measuring Anxiety as a Treatment Endpoint in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal Article Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · 2013 Cite

Face Processing in Autism

Journal Article · November 21, 2012 Face processing and its role in the social phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has gained a significant amount of attention in the past decade. The components involved in the processing and use of information from the face represent a network of s ... Full text Cite

Early behavioral intervention is associated with normalized brain activity in young children with autism.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · November 2012 OBJECTIVE: A previously published randomized clinical trial indicated that a developmental behavioral intervention, the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), resulted in gains in IQ, language, and adaptive behavior of children with autism spectrum disorder. Thi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Hum Mol Genet · November 1, 2012 While it is apparent that rare variation can play an important role in the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), the contribution of common variation to the risk of developing ASD is less clear. To produce a more comprehensive picture, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effects of a brief Early Start Denver model (ESDM)-based parent intervention on toddlers at risk for autism spectrum disorders: a randomized controlled trial.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · October 2012 OBJECTIVE: This study was carried out to examine the efficacy of a 12-week, low-intensity (1-hour/wk of therapist contact), parent-delivered intervention for toddlers at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) aged 14 to 24 months and their families. METH ... Full text Link to item Cite

ERP responses differentiate inverted but not upright face processing in adults with ASD.

Journal Article Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci · June 2012 Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have documented deficits in face processing, face memory and abnormal activation of the neural circuitry that supports these functions. To examine speed of processing of faces in ASD, high density event-rela ... Full text Link to item Cite

A global public health strategy for autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Autism Res · June 2012 In recent years, there has been increasing awareness about autism spectrum disorders (ASD) around the world, including in low and middle income countries. Unlike countries in Western Europe and North America where infrastructure and capacity are available ... Full text Link to item Cite

Differences in white matter fiber tract development present from 6 to 24 months in infants with autism.

Journal Article Am J Psychiatry · June 2012 OBJECTIVE: Evidence from prospective studies of high-risk infants suggests that early symptoms of autism usually emerge late in the first or early in the second year of life after a period of relatively typical development. The authors prospectively examin ... Full text Link to item Cite

Social attention: a possible early indicator of efficacy in autism clinical trials.

Journal Article J Neurodev Disord · May 17, 2012 For decades, researchers have sought to clarify the nature of the social communication impairments in autism, highlighting impaired or atypical 'social attention' as a key measurable construct that helps to define the core impairment of social communicatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

A novel approach of homozygous haplotype sharing identifies candidate genes in autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Hum Genet · April 2012 Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable disorder of complex and heterogeneous aetiology. It is primarily characterized by altered cognitive ability including impaired language and communication skills and fundamental deficits in social recipro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Understanding Impairments in Social Engagement in Autism

Journal Article · March 22, 2012 This study aims to examine the core early social impairments that affect the social engagement of individuals with autism, i.e. impairments in social orienting, emotion perception, joint attention, affective sharing, and imitation; some contemporary hypoth ... Full text Cite

Evidence for broader autism phenotype characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families.

Journal Article Autism Res · February 2012 The broader autism phenotype (BAP) was assessed in parents who have two or more children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (multiplex (MPX) autism), parents who have no more than one child with ASD (simplex autism), parents who have a child with developm ... Full text Link to item Cite

The effects of face expertise training on the behavioral performance and brain activity of adults with high functioning autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 2012 The effect of expertise training with faces was studied in adults with ASD who showed initial impairment in face recognition. Participants were randomly assigned to a computerized training program involving either faces or houses. Pre- and post-testing inc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evidence for involvement of GNB1L in autism.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet · January 2012 Structural variations in the chromosome 22q11.2 region mediated by nonallelic homologous recombination result in 22q11.2 deletion (del22q11.2) and 22q11.2 duplication (dup22q11.2) syndromes. The majority of del22q11.2 cases have facial and cardiac malforma ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sensory processing, problem behavior, adaptive behavior, and cognition in preschool children with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Am J Occup Ther · 2012 OBJECTIVE. This retrospective study explored sensory processing characteristics in preschool-age children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); the relationships between sensory processing and problem behavior, adaptive behavior, and cognitive function; an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Behavioral interventions in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a review of recent findings.

Journal Article Curr Opin Pediatr · December 2011 PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The study provides an overview of recent studies on behavioral interventions for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). RECENT FINDINGS: Recent reviews of the effectiveness of early intensive behavioral interventio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism risk assessment in siblings of affected children using sex-specific genetic scores.

Journal Article Mol Autism · October 21, 2011 BACKGROUND: The inheritance pattern in most cases of autism is complex. The risk of autism is increased in siblings of children with autism and previous studies have indicated that the level of risk can be further identified by the accumulation of multiple ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gene-ontology enrichment analysis in two independent family-based samples highlights biologically plausible processes for autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Eur J Hum Genet · October 2011 Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have implicated a range of genes from discrete biological pathways in the aetiology of autism. However, despite the strong influence of genetic factors, association studies have yet to identify statistically ro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Coming closer to describing the variable onset patterns in autism.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · August 2011 Full text Link to item Cite

Discrepancies between academic achievement and intellectual ability in higher-functioning school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · August 2011 Academic achievement patterns and their relationships with intellectual ability, social abilities, and problem behavior are described in a sample of 30 higher-functioning, 9-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both social abilities and p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Mortality in individuals with autism, with and without epilepsy.

Journal Article J Child Neurol · August 2011 Previous studies show higher mortality rates among individuals with autism than the general population. Comorbidity with epilepsy is an assumed, often ill-defined factor in the increased mortality rates of individuals with autism. Data from the Autism Tiss ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk factors for autism: translating genomic discoveries into diagnostics.

Journal Article Hum Genet · July 2011 Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of conditions characterized by impairments in communication and reciprocal social interaction, and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors. The spectrum of autistic features is variable, with severit ... Full text Link to item Cite

Basal ganglia morphometry and repetitive behavior in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Autism Res · June 2011 We investigated repetitive and stereotyped behavior (RSB) and its relationship to morphometric measures of the basal ganglia and thalami in 3- to 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 77) and developmental delay without autism (DD; n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Mutations in the TSGA14 gene in families with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet · April 2011 Linkage to 7q has been the most robust genetic finding in familial autism. A previous scan of multiplex families with autism spectrum disorders found a linkage signal of genome-wide significance at D7S530 on 7q32. We searched a candidate imprinted region a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Patterns of visual attention to faces and objects in autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 2011 This study used eye-tracking to examine visual attention to faces and objects in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typical peers. Point of gaze was recorded during passive viewing of images of human faces, inverted human faces, monkey fac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Developmental change in the ERP responses to familiar faces in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders versus typical development.

Journal Article Child Dev · 2011 Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show differences in face processing abilities from early in development. To examine whether these differences reflect an atypical versus delayed developmental trajectory, neural responses to familiar and unfa ... Full text Link to item Cite

fMRI evidence of neural abnormalities in the subcortical face processing system in ASD.

Journal Article Neuroimage · January 1, 2011 Recent evidence suggests that a rapid, automatic face detection system is supported by subcortical structures including the amygdala, pulvinar, and superior colliculus. Early-emerging abnormalities in these structures may be related to reduced social orien ... Full text Link to item Cite

Genome-scan for IQ discrepancy in autism: evidence for loci on chromosomes 10 and 16.

Journal Article Hum Genet · January 2011 Performance IQ (PIQ) greater than verbal IQ (VIQ) is often observed in studies of the cognitive abilities of autistic individuals. This characteristic is correlated with social and communication impairments, key parts of the autism diagnosis. We present th ... Full text Link to item Cite

A genome-wide scan for common alleles affecting risk for autism.

Journal Article Hum Mol Genet · October 15, 2010 Although autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have a substantial genetic basis, most of the known genetic risk has been traced to rare variants, principally copy number variants (CNVs). To identify common risk variation, the Autism Genome Project (AGP) Consort ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association between amygdala response to emotional faces and social anxiety in autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Neuropsychologia · October 2010 Difficulty interpreting facial expressions has been reported in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and is thought to be associated with amygdala abnormalities. To further explore the neural basis of abnormal emotional face processing in ASD, we conducted an f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Disruption at the PTCHD1 Locus on Xp22.11 in Autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · September 15, 2010 Autism is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a complex mode of inheritance. It is one of the most highly heritable of the complex disorders, although the underlying genetic factors remain largely unknown. Here, we report mutations in the X-chromosom ... Full text Link to item Cite

High-density SNP association study and copy number variation analysis of the AUTS1 and AUTS5 loci implicate the IMMP2L-DOCK4 gene region in autism susceptibility.

Journal Article Mol Psychiatry · September 2010 Autism spectrum disorders are a group of highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorders with a complex genetic etiology. The International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium previously identified linkage loci on chromosomes 7 and 2, termed AUTS1 a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Response to familiar faces, newly familiar faces, and novel faces as assessed by ERPs is intact in adults with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Int J Psychophysiol · August 2010 Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have pervasive impairments in social functioning, which may include problems with processing and remembering faces. In this study, we examined whether posterior ERP components associated with identity proces ... Full text Link to item Cite

Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Nature · July 15, 2010 The autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of conditions characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and communication, and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviours. Individuals with an ASD vary greatly in cognitive deve ... Full text Link to item Cite

Current Opinion in Neurology: Editorial introductions

Journal Article Current Opinion in Neurology · April 1, 2010 Full text Cite

Assessing the impact of a combined analysis of four common low-risk genetic variants on autism risk.

Journal Article Mol Autism · February 22, 2010 BACKGROUND: Autism is a complex disorder characterized by deficits involving communication, social interaction, and repetitive and restrictive patterns of behavior. Twin studies have shown that autism is strongly heritable, suggesting a strong genetic comp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Toddlers with elevated autism symptoms show slowed habituation to faces.

Journal Article Child Neuropsychol · 2010 We explored social information processing and its relation to social and communicative symptoms in toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their siblings. Toddlers with more severe symptoms of autism showed slower habituation to faces than compari ... Full text Link to item Cite

Randomized, controlled trial of an intervention for toddlers with autism: the Early Start Denver Model.

Journal Article Pediatrics · January 2010 OBJECTIVE: To conduct a randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), a comprehensive developmental behavioral intervention, for improving outcomes of toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). M ... Full text Link to item Cite

A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism.

Journal Article Nature · October 8, 2009 Although autism is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, attempts to identify specific susceptibility genes have thus far met with limited success. Genome-wide association studies using half a million or more markers, particularly those with very ... Full text Link to item Cite

An investigation of the relationship between fMRI and ERP source localized measurements of brain activity during face processing.

Journal Article Brain Topogr · September 2009 Brain activity patterns during face processing have been extensively explored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs). ERP source localization adds a spatial dimension to the ERP time series recordings, which a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief report: biochemical correlates of clinical impairment in high functioning autism and Asperger's disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2009 Amygdala dysfunction has been proposed as a critical contributor to social impairment in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The current study investigated biochemical abnormalities in the amygdala in 20 high functioning adults with autistic disorder or Asper ... Full text Link to item Cite

Parenting stress and psychological functioning among mothers of preschool children with autism and developmental delay.

Journal Article Autism · July 2009 Parents of children with developmental disabilities, particularly autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), are at risk for high levels of distress. The factors contributing to this are unclear. This study investigated how child characteristics influence maternal ... Full text Link to item Cite

Genome-wide analyses of exonic copy number variants in a family-based study point to novel autism susceptibility genes.

Journal Article PLoS Genet · June 2009 The genetics underlying the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is complex and remains poorly understood. Previous work has demonstrated an important role for structural variation in a subset of cases, but has lacked the resolution necessary to move beyond de ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Autism genome-wide copy number variation reveals ubiquitin and neuronal genes.

Journal Article Nature · May 28, 2009 Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are childhood neurodevelopmental disorders with complex genetic origins. Previous studies focusing on candidate genes or genomic regions have identified several copy number variations (CNVs) that are associated with an incr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Common genetic variants on 5p14.1 associate with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Nature · May 28, 2009 Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) represent a group of childhood neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by deficits in verbal communication, impairment of social interaction, and restricted and repetitive patterns of interests and b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical assessment and management of toddlers with suspected autism spectrum disorder: insights from studies of high-risk infants.

Journal Article Pediatrics · May 2009 With increased public awareness of the early signs and recent American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that all 18- and 24-month-olds be screened for autism spectrum disorders, there is an increasing need for diagnostic assessment of very young child ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cerebellar vermal volumes and behavioral correlates in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Psychiatry Res · April 30, 2009 Cerebellar histopathological abnormalities have been well documented in autism, although findings of structural differences, as determined by magnetic resonance imaging, have been less consistent. This report explores specific cerebellar vermal structures ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced neural habituation in the amygdala and social impairments in autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Am J Psychiatry · April 2009 OBJECTIVE: Amygdala dysfunction has been proposed as a critical component in social impairment in autism spectrum disorders. This study was designed to investigate whether abnormal habituation characterizes amygdala dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brief report: face configuration accuracy and processing speed among adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · March 2009 The present study investigates the accuracy and speed of face processing employed by high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Two behavioral experiments measured sensitivity to distances between features and face recognition when perf ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism

Journal Article · January 1, 2009 Autism is characterized by impaired social behavior and a language, and a restricted range of activities. Genome scans for linkage have been conducted with coincident signal for a few specific regions. Several promising candidate genes are being investigat ... Full text Cite

Evidence for latent classes of IQ in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Am J Ment Retard · November 2008 Autism is currently viewed as a spectrum condition that includes strikingly different severity levels; IQ is consistently described as one of the primary aspects of the heterogeneity in autism. To investigate the possibility of more than one distinct subty ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neurocognitive predictors of social and communicative developmental trajectories in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article J Int Neuropsychol Soc · November 2008 Currently, the heterogeneity in the developmental trajectories of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is poorly understood. Preschool children with ASD participating in a longitudinal study received a battery of neurocognitive tasks that measured the learning ... Full text Link to item Cite

The role of face familiarity in eye tracking of faces by individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2008 It has been shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate normal activation in the fusiform gyrus when viewing familiar, but not unfamiliar faces. The current study utilized eye tracking to investigate patterns of attention underl ... Full text Link to item Cite

Characteristics associated with presence of depressive symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2008 Evidence suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibit associated psychiatric symptoms, particularly related to depression. The current study investigated whether individual characteristics, specifically, severity of ASD symp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Head circumference as an early predictor of autism symptoms in younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · July 2008 Siblings of children with autism have an increased risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). As children with autism often exhibit an atypical trajectory of head circumference (HC) growth, HC may be an indicator of vulnerability to autism. This study inves ... Full text Link to item Cite

Memory and response inhibition in young children with single-suture craniosynostosis.

Journal Article Child Neuropsychol · July 2008 Using two versions of the A-not-B task, memory and response inhibition were assessed in 17- to 24-month-old children with surgically corrected single-suture craniosynostosis (cases) and unaffected children (controls). Children's development and language we ... Full text Link to item Cite

A replication of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) revised algorithms.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · June 2008 OBJECTIVE: To replicate the factor structure and predictive validity of revised Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule algorithms in an independent dataset (N = 1,282). METHOD: Algorithm revisions were replicated using data from children ages 18 months to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Abnormal functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorders during face processing.

Journal Article Brain · April 2008 Abnormalities in the interactions between functionally linked brain regions have been suggested to be associated with the clinical impairments observed in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We investigated functional connectivity within the limbic system dur ... Full text Link to item Cite

Heterogeneous association between engrailed-2 and autism in the CPEA network.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet · March 5, 2008 Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by an early onset of abnormal social, communicative, and repetitive behavior. Engrailed-2 (EN2) was identified as an autism candidate gene because its influence on cerebellar development in mice paralle ... Full text Link to item Cite

Letter from autism speaks.

Journal Article Autism Res · February 2008 Full text Link to item Cite

Becoming a face expert: a computerized face-training program for high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Journal Article Dev Neuropsychol · 2008 Typically developing individuals process faces using strategies that differ from those used for processing objects, and which tend to be holistic and based on configural information. Behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that individuals with autism ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early behavioral intervention, brain plasticity, and the prevention of autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2008 Advances in the fields of cognitive and affective developmental neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, neurobiology, genetics, and applied behavior analysis have contributed to a more optimistic outcome for individuals with autism spectrum disorder ( ... Full text Link to item Cite

Trajectories of maternal depression over 7 years: relations with child psychophysiology and behavior and role of contextual risks.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2008 This study examines the relation between the longitudinal course of maternal depression during the child's early life and children's psychophysiology and behavior at age 6.5 years. One hundred fifty-nine children of depressed and nondepressed mothers were ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism Spectrum Disorders

Chapter · January 1, 2008 Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social, communication, and language functioning, and a restricted range of behaviors and interests. Individuals with autism vary in terms of severity and symptom expression in each of the d ... Full text Cite

Autism Spectrum Disorders

Chapter · January 1, 2008 Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social, communication, and language functioning, and a restricted range of behaviors and interests. Individuals with autism vary in terms of severity and symptom expression in each of the d ... Full text Cite

Level of intellectual functioning predicts patterns of associated symptoms in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Am J Ment Retard · November 2007 The relation between level of intellectual functioning and risk for associated symptoms in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was investigated. Cognitive ability and associated symptoms were assessed directly and/or via parent report in 74 childr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Rate of head circumference growth as a function of autism diagnosis and history of autistic regression.

Journal Article J Child Neurol · October 2007 Several reports indicate that autism spectrum disorder is associated with increased rate of head growth in early childhood. Increased rate of growth may index aberrant processes during early development, may precede the onset of symptoms, and may predict s ... Full text Link to item Cite

EEG mu rhythm and imitation impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Brain Cogn · August 2007 Imitation ability has consistently been shown to be impaired in individuals with autism. A dysfunctional execution/observation matching system has been proposed to account for this impairment. The EEG mu rhythm is believed to reflect an underlying executio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resting state cortical connectivity reflected in EEG coherence in individuals with autism.

Journal Article Biol Psychiatry · August 1, 2007 BACKGROUND: Theoretical conceptions of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and experimental studies of cerebral blood flow suggest abnormalities in connections among distributed neural systems in ASD. METHODS: Functional connectivity was assessed with electroen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increased amygdala activation to neutral faces is associated with better face memory performance.

Journal Article Neuroreport · July 2, 2007 Recent evidence suggests that the role of the amygdala may extend beyond threat detection to include processing socially relevant stimuli in general. Thus, we investigated perception and memory for neutral faces; a stimulus-type that lacks emotional valenc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cerebral cortical gray matter overgrowth and functional variation of the serotonin transporter gene in autism.

Journal Article Arch Gen Psychiatry · June 2007 CONTEXT: Autism is a heritable neurodevelopmental disorder characterized biologically by enlargement of the head and brain and abnormalities of serotonin neurotransmission. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether 5-HTTLPR, a functional promoter polymorphism of the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Shape mapping of the hippocampus in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article AJNR Am J Neuroradiol · April 2007 BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We hypothesized the occurrence of characteristic hippocampal-shape alterations in young children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) who also exhibit deficits on neuropsychologic tests of medial temporal lobe (MTL) function. MATER ... Link to item Cite

Quantitative assessment of autism symptom-related traits in probands and parents: Broader Phenotype Autism Symptom Scale.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · March 2007 Autism susceptibility genes likely have effects on continuously distributed autism-related traits, yet few measures of such traits exist. The Broader Phenotype Autism Symptom Scale (BPASS), developed for use with affected children and family members, measu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Mapping autism risk loci using genetic linkage and chromosomal rearrangements.

Journal Article Nat Genet · March 2007 Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are common, heritable neurodevelopmental conditions. The genetic architecture of ASDs is complex, requiring large samples to overcome heterogeneity. Here we broaden coverage and sample size relative to other studies of ASDs ... Full text Link to item Cite

Rate of head growth decelerates and symptoms worsen in the second year of life in autism.

Journal Article Biol Psychiatry · February 15, 2007 BACKGROUND: Longitudinal studies of head circumference growth in infants later diagnosed with autism are needed to understand the accelerated head growth in this disorder. METHODS: We analyzed longitudinal head circumference data from birth to 3 years in 2 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Designing research studies on psychosocial interventions in autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 2007 To address methodological challenges in research on psychosocial interventions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a model was developed for systematically validating and disseminating interventions in a sequence of steps. First, initial efficacy studies a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early social, imitation, play, and language abilities of young non-autistic siblings of children with autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · January 2007 Studies are needed to better understand the broad autism phenotype in young siblings of children with autism. Cognitive, adaptive, social, imitation, play, and language abilities were examined in 42 non-autistic siblings and 20 toddlers with no family hist ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evidence for genetic linkage of autism to chromosomes 7 and 4

Journal Article Molecular Psychiatry · November 27, 2006 Full text Cite

Early predictors of communication development in young children with autism spectrum disorder: joint attention, imitation, and toy play.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · November 2006 This study investigated the unique contributions of joint attention, imitation, and toy play to language ability and rate of development of communication skills in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Sixty preschool-aged children with ASD w ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evidence for multiple loci from a genome scan of autism kindreds.

Journal Article Mol Psychiatry · November 2006 We performed a genome-wide linkage scan using highly polymorphic microsatellite markers. To minimize genetic heterogeneity, we focused on sibpairs meeting the strict diagnosis of autism. In our primary analyses, we observed a strong linkage signal (P=0.000 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Head circumference and height in autism: a study by the Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet A · November 1, 2006 Data from 10 sites of the NICHD/NIDCD Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism were combined to study the distribution of head circumference and relationship to demographic and clinical variables. Three hundred thirty-eight probands with autism-spect ... Full text Link to item Cite

ERP evidence of atypical face processing in young children with autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2006 Autism involves a basic impairment in social cognition. This study investigated early stage face processing in young children with autism by examining the face-sensitive early negative event-related brain potential component in 3-4 year old children with a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gray matter abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder revealed by T2 relaxation.

Journal Article Neurology · August 22, 2006 OBJECTIVE: To perform quantitative T2 relaxation measurements to evaluate cerebral water content in children with autism. METHODS: Sixty 2- to 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 16 age-matched children with idiopathic developmental de ... Full text Link to item Cite

Corpus callosum morphometrics in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · August 2006 This study assessed midsagittal corpus callosum cross sectional areas in 3-4 year olds with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to typically developing (TD) and developmentally delayed (DD) children. Though not different in absolute size compared to TD ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gray and white matter brain chemistry in young children with autism.

Journal Article Arch Gen Psychiatry · July 2006 CONTEXT: The brain pathophysiological abnormalities underlying autism remain unclear. Neuroimaging and histological studies suggest cellular abnormalities early in the course of the disease. OBJECTIVE: To measure the in vivo chemical profile of gray and wh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Amygdalar volume and behavioral development in autism.

Journal Article Arch Gen Psychiatry · June 2006 CONTEXT: The amygdala is associated with socioemotional function and has been implicated in the pathophysiology of autism. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between amygdalar volume at ages 3 and 4 years and severity of clinical course and outcome at ... Full text Link to item Cite

Familial autoimmune thyroid disease as a risk factor for regression in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a CPEA Study.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · April 2006 A multicenter study of 308 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was conducted through the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism (CPEA), sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, to compare the family histor ... Full text Link to item Cite

Is there a 'regressive phenotype' of Autism Spectrum Disorder associated with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine? A CPEA Study.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · April 2006 A multi-site study of 351 children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and 31 typically developing children used caregiver interviews to describe the children's early acquisition and loss of social-communication milestones. For the majority of children wi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Event-related potential (ERP) indices of infants' recognition of familiar and unfamiliar objects in two and three dimensions.

Journal Article Dev Sci · January 2006 We measured infants' recognition of familiar and unfamiliar 3-D objects and their 2-D representations using event-related potentials (ERPs). Infants differentiated familiar from unfamiliar objects when viewing them in both two and three dimensions. However ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autism Spectrum Disorders

Chapter · January 1, 2006 Autism Spectrum Disorder is the term that is currently used to describe the broad range of pervasive developmental disorders. These disorders include Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Rett's Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and Pervasive ... Full text Cite

Autism and the serotonin transporter: the long and short of it.

Journal Article Mol Psychiatry · December 2005 Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder manifesting early in childhood. Some symptoms of autism are alleviated by treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are known to interact with the serotonin transporter. Moreover, variation in the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Challenges in evaluating psychosocial interventions for Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 2005 In 2002, the National Institutes of Health sponsored a meeting concerning methodological challenges of research in psychosocial interventions in Autism Spectrum Disorders. This paper provides a summary of the presentations and the discussions that occurred ... Full text Link to item Cite

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder show normal responses to a fear potential startle paradigm.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2005 The present study utilized a fear potentiated startle paradigm to examine amygdala function in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Two competing hypotheses regarding amygdala dysfunction in autism have been proposed: (1) The amygdala is under-respon ... Full text Link to item Cite

Propofol sedation for longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging research.

Journal Article J Neurosurg Anesthesiol · October 2005 There is disagreement about allowing propofol sedation for research magnetic resonance imaging/spectroscopy (MRI/MRS) in children. Our study is the first to provide relevant safety and efficacy data. With institutional approval, 108 research MRI/MRS proced ... Full text Link to item Cite

Validation of the phenomenon of autistic regression using home videotapes.

Journal Article Arch Gen Psychiatry · August 2005 CONTEXT: To date, there has been no objective validation of the phenomenon of autistic regression early in life. OBJECTIVE: To validate parental report of autistic regression using behavioral data coded from home videotapes of children with autism spectrum ... Full text Link to item Cite

Variation in early developmental course in autism and its relation with behavioral outcome at 3-4 years of age.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · June 2005 The aims of the present study were to describe variations in the early course of development in autism by utilizing an in-depth parent interview that incorporated techniques to improve accuracy of parent recall, and to examine the relation between variatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early regression in social communication in autism spectrum disorders: a CPEA Study.

Journal Article Dev Neuropsychol · 2005 In a multisite study of 351 children with autism spectrum disorders, 21 children with developmental delays, and 31 children with typical development, this study used caregiver interviews (i.e., the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised) at the time of entry ... Full text Link to item Cite

Genetic investigation of quantitative traits related to autism: use of multivariate polygenic models with ascertainment adjustment.

Journal Article Am J Hum Genet · January 2005 Autism is a severe developmental disorder of unknown etiology but with evidence for genetic influences. Here, we provide evidence for a genetic basis of several quantitative traits that are related to autism. These traits, from the Broader Phenotype Autism ... Full text Link to item Cite

Links between social and linguistic processing of speech in preschool children with autism: behavioral and electrophysiological measures.

Journal Article Dev Sci · January 2005 Data on typically developing children suggest a link between social interaction and language learning, a finding of interest both to theories of language and theories of autism. In this study, we examined social and linguistic processing of speech in presc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2005 Neuroimaging and behavioral studies have shown that children and adults with autism have impaired face recognition. Individuals with autism also exhibit atypical event-related brain potentials to faces, characterized by a failure to show a negative compone ... Full text Link to item Cite

Understanding the nature of face processing impairment in autism: insights from behavioral and electrophysiological studies.

Journal Article Dev Neuropsychol · 2005 This article reviews behavioral and electrophysiological studies of face processing and discusses hypotheses for understanding the nature of face processing impairments in autism. Based on results of behavioral studies, this study demonstrates that individ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Single-suture craniosynostosis: a review of neurobehavioral research and theory.

Journal Article J Pediatr Psychol · December 2004 OBJECTIVE: To review research and theory regarding the neurobehavioral correlates and outcomes of single-suture, or isolated, craniosynostosis in children. METHODS: A critical review of 17 studies of the hypothesized association between isolated craniosyno ... Full text Link to item Cite

Event-related brain potentials reveal anomalies in temporal processing of faces in autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article J Child Psychol Psychiatry · October 2004 BACKGROUND: Individuals with autism exhibit impairments in face recognition, and neuroimaging studies have shown that individuals with autism exhibit abnormal patterns of brain activity during face processing. The current study examined the temporal charac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Young children with autism show atypical brain responses to fearful versus neutral facial expressions of emotion.

Journal Article Dev Sci · June 2004 Evidence suggests that autism is associated with impaired emotion perception, but it is unknown how early such impairments are evident. Furthermore, most studies that have assessed emotion perception in children with autism have required verbal responses, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Alleles of a reelin CGG repeat do not convey liability to autism in a sample from the CPEA network.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet · April 1, 2004 A recent study by Persico et al. [2001: Mol Psychiatry 6:150-159] suggests alleles of a CGG polymorphism, just 5' of the reelin gene (RELN) initiator codon, confer liability for autism, especially alleles bearing 11 or more CGG repeats (long alleles). The ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inflammatory bowel disease susceptibility loci defined by genome scan meta-analysis of 1952 affected relative pairs.

Journal Article Hum Mol Genet · April 1, 2004 Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (the inflammatory bowel diseases) have a strong genetic component. Although over 20 putative susceptibility loci have been identified by individual genome scans, the majority of these loci have not been replicated. Ma ... Full text Link to item Cite

Performance on Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery subtests sensitive to frontal lobe function in people with autistic disorder: evidence from the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism network.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · April 2004 Recent structural and functional imaging work, as well as neuropathology and neuropsychology studies, provide strong empirical support for the involvement of frontal cortex in autism. The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) is a co ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early social attention impairments in autism: social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress.

Journal Article Dev Psychol · March 2004 This study investigated social attention impairments in autism (social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress) and their relations to language ability. Three- to four-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 72), 3 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Age-related differences in neural correlates of face recognition during the toddler and preschool years.

Journal Article Dev Psychobiol · March 2003 Research on the development of face recognition in infancy has shown that infants respond to faces as if they are special and recognize familiar faces early in development. Infants also show recognition and differential attachment to familiar people very e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Regional brain chemical alterations in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Neurology · January 14, 2003 OBJECTIVE: The authors evaluated regional brain chemistry for evidence of increased neuronal packing density in autism. METHODS: Forty-five 3- to 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 13 children with typical development (TD), and 15 chi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early intervention and brain plasticity in autism.

Journal Article Novartis Found Symp · 2003 Autism is associated with impairments in brain systems that come on line very early in life. One such system supports the development of face processing. Dawson and colleagues found that 3 year old children with autism failed to show differential event-rel ... Link to item Cite

Preschool outcomes of children of depressed mothers: role of maternal behavior, contextual risk, and children's brain activity.

Journal Article Child Dev · 2003 Children of depressed mothers are at risk for behavioral and emotional problems. Infants of depressed mothers exhibit behavioral disturbances and atypical frontal brain activity. The mechanisms by which children develop such vulnerabilities are not clear. ... Full text Link to item Cite

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of porcine versus synthetic secretin for reducing symptoms of autism.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · November 2002 OBJECTIVE: To compare the effects of a single dose of biologic and synthetic porcine secretin to placebo on a variety of autism symptoms. METHOD: Eighty-five children with autism without other medical conditions and not taking other psychotropic medication ... Full text Link to item Cite

No evidence for linkage of liability to autism to HOXA1 in a sample from the CPEA network.

Journal Article Am J Med Genet · August 8, 2002 A recent study by Ingram et al. [2000b: Teratology 62:393-405] suggests a (His)73(Arg) polymorphism (A:G) in HOXA1 contributes substantially to a liability for autism. Using 68 individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders, they found a significant ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identification of a novel gene on chromosome 7q11.2 interrupted by a translocation breakpoint in a pair of autistic twins.

Journal Article Genomics · August 2002 We report here the identification and characterization of a novel gene (AUTS2) that spans the 7q11.2 breakpoint in a monozygotic twin pair concordant for autism and a t(7;20) (q11.2; p11.2) translocation. AUTS2 is 1.2 Mb and has 19 exons. The predicted pro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Brain structural abnormalities in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal Article Neurology · July 23, 2002 OBJECTIVE: To explore the specific gross neuroanatomic substrates of this brain developmental disorder, the authors examine brain morphometric features in a large sample of carefully diagnosed 3- to 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Presence of large deletions in kindreds with autism.

Journal Article Am J Hum Genet · July 2002 Autism is caused, in part, by inheritance of multiple interacting susceptibility alleles. To identify these inherited factors, linkage analysis of multiplex families is being performed on a sample of 105 families with two or more affected sibs. Segregation ... Full text Link to item Cite

Fluorine magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurement of brain fluvoxamine and fluoxetine in pediatric patients treated for pervasive developmental disorders.

Journal Article Am J Psychiatry · May 2002 OBJECTIVE: Pediatric populations, including those with autistic disorder or other pervasive developmental disorders, increasingly are being prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Little is known about the age-related brain pharmacokine ... Full text Link to item Cite

Defining the broader phenotype of autism: genetic, brain, and behavioral perspectives.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2002 Achieving progress in understanding the cause, nature, and treatment of autism requires an integration of concepts, approaches, and empirical findings from genetic, cognitive neuroscience, animal, and clinical studies. The need for such integration has bee ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early recognition of 1-year-old infants with autism spectrum disorder versus mental retardation.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2002 Previous work based on observations of home videotapes indicates that differences can be detected between infants with autism spectrum disorder and infants with typical development at 1 year of age. The present study addresses the question of whether autis ... Full text Link to item Cite

Multiple levels of analysis.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2002 Full text Link to item Cite

Neural correlates of face and object recognition in young children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, and typical development.

Journal Article Child Dev · 2002 This study utilized electroencephalographic recordings to examine whether young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have impaired face recognition ability. High-density brain event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to photos of the child's m ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neurocognitive function and joint attention ability in young children with autism spectrum disorder versus developmental delay.

Journal Article Child Dev · 2002 Studies have shown that young children with autism are not impaired on prefrontal tasks relative to what would be expected for their mental age, raising questions about the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism. These studies did not include ventromed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stress hormone levels of children of depressed mothers.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2002 Research suggests that disruptions in early caretaking can have long-term effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which mediates the stress response. Children of depressed mothers are at increased risk for developing internalizing problem ... Full text Link to item Cite

Autonomic and brain electrical activity in securely- and insecurely-attached infants of depressed mothers

Journal Article Infant Behavior and Development · February 1, 2001 The present study examined the combined influences of maternal depression and attachment security on infants' brain activity and autonomic activity. Brain electrical activity, heart rate, and vagal tone were recorded from 159 13-15 month old infants of dep ... Full text Cite

Prototype formation in autism.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2001 Individuals with autism have difficulty integrating information and generalizing previously learned concepts to new situations. It was hypothesized that these problems result from an underlying impairment in category formation. Persons with autism may not ... Full text Link to item Cite

Interventions to facilitate auditory, visual, and motor integration in autism: a review of the evidence.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2000 Evidence is reviewed on the prevalence of sensory and motor abnormalities in autism and the effectiveness of three interventions designed to address such abnormalities--sensory integration therapy, traditional occupational therapy, and auditory integration ... Full text Link to item Cite

Practice parameter: screening and diagnosis of autism: report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Child Neurology Society.

Journal Article Neurology · August 22, 2000 Autism is a common disorder of childhood, affecting 1 in 500 children. Yet, it often remains unrecognized and undiagnosed until or after late preschool age because appropriate tools for routine developmental screening and screening specifically for autism ... Full text Link to item Cite

Case Study of the Development of an Infant with Autism from Birth to Two Years of Age.

Journal Article J Appl Dev Psychol · May 1, 2000 This report describes a case study of the development of an infant with autism who was observed closely by professionals from birth and to whom a comprehensive psychological evaluation was administered at approximately 1 and 2 years of age. During the firs ... Full text Link to item Cite

Editorial preface

Journal Article Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · January 1, 2000 Full text Cite

The role of early experience in shaping behavioral and brain development and its implications for social policy.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 2000 This article provides a targeted review of the scientific literature on the effects of experience on early brain and behavioral development and later outcome as it pertains to risk for some forms of child psychopathology. It is argued that ample evidence e ... Full text Link to item Cite

The screening and diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 1999 The Child Neurology Society and American Academy of Neurology recently proposed to formulate Practice Parameters for the Diagnosis and Evaluation of Autism for their memberships. This endeavor was expanded to include representatives from nine professional ... Full text Link to item Cite

Journal of autism and developmental disorders: Editorial preface

Journal Article Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · March 17, 1999 Full text Cite

Autism or a related developmental disability.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · February 1999 Full text Link to item Cite

Frontal brain electrical activity in infants of depressed and nondepressed mothers: relation to variations in infant behavior.

Journal Article Dev Psychopathol · 1999 In previous studies, infants of depressed mothers have been found to exhibit reduced left frontal brain electrical activity (EEG). The left frontal region has been hypothesized to mediate social approach behaviors and positive affective expression. These f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Infants of depressed mothers exhibit atypical frontal electrical brain activity during interactions with mother and with a familiar, nondepressed adult.

Journal Article Child Dev · 1999 Previous studies have shown that infants of depressed mothers exhibit atypical frontal brain electrical activity when they are interacting with their mothers. Whereas typically developing infants exhibit greater left versus right frontal brain activity, in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Children with autism fail to orient to naturally occurring social stimuli.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 1998 Children with autism were compared to developmentally matched children with Down syndrome or typical development in terms of their ability to visually orient to two social stimuli (name called, hands clapping) and two nonsocial stimuli (rattle, musical jac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neuropsychological correlates of early symptoms of autism.

Journal Article Child Dev · October 1998 Both the medial temporal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex have been implicated in autism. In the present study, performance on two neuropsychological tasks--one tapping the medial temporal lobe and related limbic structures, and another tapping the ... Link to item Cite

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales: supplementary norms for individuals with autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · August 1998 Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Special Population norms are presented for four groups of individuals with autism: (a) mute children under 10 years of age; (b) children with at least some verbal skills under 10 years of age; (c) mute individuals who are ... Full text Link to item Cite

Infants of depressed and nondepressed mothers exhibit differences in frontal brain electrical activity during the expression of negative emotions.

Journal Article Dev Psychol · July 1997 Studies have shown that infants of depressed mothers express negative emotions more frequently than infants of nondepressed mothers. The present study examined electrical brain activity during expression of negative and positive emotions in infants of depr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Infants of depressed mothers exhibit atypical frontal brain activity: a replication and extension of previous findings.

Journal Article J Child Psychol Psychiatry · February 1997 The left frontal brain region is specialized for expression of positive emotions (e.g. joy) whereas the right frontal region is specialized for negative emotions (e.g. sadness). Depressed adults have been found to exhibit reduced left frontal electroenceph ... Full text Link to item Cite

Subgroups of autistic children based on social behavior display distinct patterns of brain activity.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · October 1995 Two questions were addressed in the present study: (1) Do autistic and normally developing children exhibit regionally specific differences in electroencephalographic (EEG) activity? (2) Do subgroups of autistic children classified according to Wing and Go ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early recognition of children with autism: a study of first birthday home videotapes.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · June 1994 Coded home videotapes of 11 autistic and 11 normally developing children's first year birthday parties for social, affective, joint attention, and communicative behaviors and for specific autistic symptoms. Autistic children displayed significantly fewer s ... Full text Link to item Cite

Frontal electroencephalographic correlates of individual differences in emotion expression in infants: a brain systems perspective on emotion.

Journal Article Monogr Soc Res Child Dev · 1994 Emotion expressions can be characterized by both the type of emotion displayed and the intensity with which the emotion is expressed. Individual differences in these two aspects of emotion appear to vary independently and may perhaps account for distinct d ... Link to item Cite

Social influences on early developing biological and behavioral systems related to risk for affective disorder

Journal Article Development and Psychopathology · January 1, 1994 Dramatic changes take place in the neural physiology and emotional behavior of the human infant during the first 2 years of life. Evidence suggests that certain variations in the infant's early social environment, such as disturbances in mother-infant inte ... Full text Cite

Subclassification of children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder: a questionnaire based on Wing's subgrouping scheme.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · June 1993 A questionnaire (the Wing Subgroups Questionnaire, or WSQ) for subclassifying children with autism into one of Wing's three hypothesized subgroups was developed, and the validity of this measure was assessed. Forty parents of children with autism or pervas ... Full text Link to item Cite

Social stimulation and joint attention in young autistic children.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · December 1992 The present study was designed to examine the effects of social stimulation on the joint attention behavior of 20 autistic children under 6 years of age, 20 receptive language-matched Down syndrome children, and 20 receptive language matched-normally-devel ... Full text Link to item Cite

The role of frontal lobe functioning in the development of infant self-regulatory behavior.

Journal Article Brain Cogn · September 1992 In the last two decades, there has been tremendous growth in two fields of study related to human infant development: (1) the development of neural processes during the early postnatal years and (2) the development of self-regulatory behavior. In an attemp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Frontal lobe activity and affective behavior of infants of mothers with depressive symptoms.

Journal Article Child Dev · June 1992 Studies of adults and infants indicate that the left frontal brain region is specialized for approach emotions, such as joy, whereas the right frontal region is specialized for withdrawal emotions, such as distress. Furthermore, depressed adults have been ... Link to item Cite

Infants of mothers with depressive symptoms: Electroencephalographic and behavioral findings related to attachment status

Journal Article Development and Psychopathology · January 1, 1992 Evidence suggests that the left frontal region is specialized for the expression of positive emotions, such as joy, whereas the right frontal region is specialized for certain negative emotions, such as distress. We previously reported that infants of moth ... Full text Cite

Affective exchanges between young autistic children and their mothers

Journal Article Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology · February 1, 1991 Full text Cite

Affective exchanges between young autistic children and their mothers.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · June 1990 This study examined autistic children's social behavior, affect, and use of gaze during naturalistic interactions with their mothers. Sixteen autistic children, 30 to 70 months of age, and 16 normal children, matched on receptive language, participated. Ch ... Full text Link to item Cite

Mothers' use of imitative play for facilitating social responsiveness and toy play in young autistic children

Journal Article Development and Psychopathology · January 1, 1990 The effectiveness of imitating an autistic child's actions as a means for promoting social responsiveness and creative toy play was explored. Fifteen autistic children between the ages of 2 and 6 years and their mothers were assessed before and after a 2-w ... Full text Cite

A comparison of hemispheric asymmetries in speech-related brain potentials of autistic and dysphasic children.

Journal Article Brain Lang · July 1989 In a previous study (G. Dawson, C. Finley, S. Phillips, & L. Galpert, 1986, Child Development, 57, 1440-1453) it was found that measures of hemispheric asymmetry during speech processing were predictive of level of language ability in autistic children. Th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced P3 amplitude of the event-related brain potential: its relationship to language ability in autism.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 1988 Several studies have found that P3 amplitude of the auditory event-related potential is smaller in autistic than in normal children. The present study investigated whether this characteristic bears any relationship to the degree of language impairment and/ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Perspective-taking ability and its relationship to the social behavior of autistic children.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 1987 A study was undertaken to assess the relationship between perspective-taking ability and the quality of social behavior in autistic children. Sixteen autistic children ranging from 6 to 14 years of age were administered three types of perspective-taking ta ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hemispheric specialization and the language abilities of autistic children.

Journal Article Child Dev · December 1986 The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between patterns of hemispheric specialization for speech processing and language ability in autistic children. 17 male autistic children, 6-18 years of age, and 17 normal children, match ... Link to item Cite

Relation of lead and social factors to IQ of low-SES children: a partial replication.

Journal Article Am J Ment Defic · September 1986 An independent replication of a previous study (Schroeder et al., 1985) of the effects of interactive social environmental factors on the relationship of lead and Stanford-Binet IQ was performed on 75 of 80 low-SES black children screened by county health ... Link to item Cite

Self-recognition in autistic children.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · December 1984 The hypothesis that the autistic child's impairment in social relatedness stems in part from underlying deficits in self-recognition was explored. Fifteen autistic children ranging from 4 to 6 years of age were assessed for visual self-recognition ability, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Imitation and social responsiveness in autistic children.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · June 1984 Fifteen autistic children, ages 4-6 years, participated in the present study. Imitation and object permanence skills were assessed. Language and social behaviors were observed during free play. Children were also exposed to three interactive procedures tha ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hemisphere functioning and motor imitation in autistic persons.

Journal Article Brain Cogn · October 1983 Previous research has found that a high proportion of autistic individuals exhibit an atypical pattern of hemispheric specialization suggestive of impaired left hemisphere functioning: namely, right hemisphere dominance for both verbal and visual-spatial p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lateralized brain dysfunction in autism: evidence from the Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery.

Journal Article J Autism Dev Disord · September 1983 Selected tests from the Halstead-Reitan neuropsychological battery were administered to 10 male individuals who had been diagnosed as autistic in early childhood. Results from the battery obtained from the autistic group were compared with a group of retar ... Full text Link to item Cite