Scholars@Duke
Jill E. Howard

Jill E. Howard

Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Psychiatry, Child & Family Mental Health & Community Psychiatry
jill.lorenzi@duke.edu
DUMC 3527, Durham, NC 27710
2608 Erwin Road, Suite 300, Durham, NC 27705

Scholarly Works - Journal articles

Assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Young Autistic Children.

Journal article J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol · 2026 OBJECTIVE: Co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is present for many autistic children and is associated with increased impairments, unique treatment needs, and decreased response to autism-specific interventions. Diagnosing ADHD in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Attentional and electrophysiological associations with executive function ability in young autistic children.

Journal article Sci Rep · July 10, 2025 Difficulties in executive functioning (EF) have been consistently reported in autistic individuals, but less is known about the attentional and neural mechanisms driving these difficulties. We explored the associations between EF abilities and sustained at ... Full text Link to item 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

Validation of a Mobile App for Remote Autism Screening in Toddlers.

Journal article NEJM AI · October 2024 Early detection of autism is important for timely access to diagnostic evaluation and early intervention services, which improve children's outcomes. Despite the ability of clinicians to reliably diagnose autism in toddlers, diagnosis is often delayed. Sen ... 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

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 Open Access 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

Inequities in Receipt of the North Carolina Medicaid Waiver Among Individuals with Intellectual Disability or Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal article J Dev Behav Pediatr · September 1, 2022 OBJECTIVE: We examined characteristics associated with receiving the North Carolina Home and Community-Based Services Waiver for intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DDs) and its association with emergency department (ED) utilization. METHOD: Thr ... 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 · January 2022 COVID-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 included people who h ... 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

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

Educational classifications of autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability among school-aged children in North Carolina: Associations with race, rurality, and resource availability.

Journal article Autism Res · May 2021 Disparities exist in the recognition of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) in racial/ethnic minorities in the United States. This study examined whether rurality, race/ethnicity, and low resource availability are associated wit ... 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

Brief Report: Classifying Rates of Students with Autism and Intellectual Disability in North Carolina: Roles of Race and Economic Disadvantage.

Journal article J Autism Dev Disord · January 2021 We examined special education classifications among students aged 3-21 in North Carolina public schools, highlighting autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID). Results revealed variability by county in ASD and ID prevalence, and in c ... Full text Open Access 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

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

A review on measuring treatment response in parent-mediated autism early interventions

Journal article Pediatric Medicine · July 1, 2019 This review describes and evaluates measures aimed at assessing treatment response in parent-mediated early interventions targeting autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In order to be able to evaluate the relative utility of different interventions, it is criti ... Full text Cite

Evaluating response to group CBT in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Journal article Cognitive Behaviour Therapist · January 1, 2019 Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit difficulties with negative affect. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been successfully adapted for individuals with ASD to treat these difficulties. In a wait-list control study, for example, ... Full text Cite

Depression mediates the relationship between social performance impairment and hostility

Journal article Personality and Individual Differences · October 2015 Full text Cite

A Review of Parent Training in Child Interventions: Applications to Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy for Children with High-Functioning Autism

Journal article Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · March 1, 2015 The number of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) diagnoses is increasing rapidly, indicating a need for multi-faceted interventions. The addition of a parent training component to cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) has been effectively used t ... Full text Cite

Broad implications for respiratory sinus arrhythmia development: Associations with childhood symptoms of psychopathology in a community sample

Journal article Developmental Psychobiology · January 2015 ABSTRACTReplicating the group‐based developmental trajectory methodology from our prior study (Patriquin, Lorenzi, Scarpa, & Bell. 2014. Developmental Psychobiology, 56, ... Full text Cite

Developmental trajectories of respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Associations with social responsiveness

Journal article Developmental Psychobiology · April 2014 AbstractThe present longitudinal study examined relations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) development and social responsiveness characteristics associated with autism spectrum disorders. Gr ... Full text Cite

The modified checklist for autism in toddlers: reliability in a diverse rural American sample.

Journal article J Autism Dev Disord · October 2013 This study investigated the psychometric properties of the modified checklist for autism in toddlers (M-CHAT) in a diverse rural American low-socioeconomic status (SES) sample. Four hundred and forty-seven English (n = 335) and Spanish (n = 112) speaking c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Differential Associations Between Sensory Response Patterns and Language, Social, and Communication Measures in Children With Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities

Journal article Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research · December 2011 PurposeTo examine patterns of sensory responsiveness (i.e., hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, and sensory seeking) as factors that may account for variability in social-communicative symptoms of autism and ... Full text Cite

Gender and Conduct Problems Predict Peer Functioning Among Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Journal article Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology · September 2011 Full text Cite