Posts tagged ASD
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Early Intervention Improves Social Skills and Brain Activity in Preschoolers with Autism
The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), a comprehensive behavioral early intervention program that is appropriate for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as young as 12 months, has been found to be effective in improving social skills and brain responses to social cues in a randomized controlled study published online today in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
“So much of a toddler’s learning involves social interaction, and early intervention that promotes attention to people and social cues may pay dividends in promoting the normal development of the brain and behavior,” said Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Autism Speaks chief science officer and the study’s lead author. This is the first controlled study of an intensive early intervention that demonstrates both improvement of social skills and brain responses to social stimuli resulting from intensive early intervention. Given that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all 18- and 24-month-old children be screened for autism, “it is vital that we have effective therapies available for young children as soon as they are diagnosed,” continued Dr. Dawson.
“This may be the first demonstration that a behavioral intervention for autism is associated with changes in brain function as well as positive changes in behavior,” said Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “By studying changes in the neural response to faces, Dawson and her colleagues have identified a new target and a potential biomarker that can guide treatment development.”
ESDM, which combines applied behavioral analysis (ABA) teaching methods with developmental ‘relationship-based’ approaches, was previously demonstrated to achieve significant gains in cognitive, language and daily living skills compared to children with ASD who received commonly available community interventions. On average, the preschoolers receiving ESDM for two years improved 17.5 standard score points compared to 7.0 points in the community intervention comparison group.
Are Schizophrenia and Autism Close Relations?
TAU researcher discovers that family history of schizophrenia is a risk factor for autism
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), a category that includes autism, Asperger Syndrome, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, are characterized by difficulty with social interaction and communication, or repetitive behaviors. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Management says that one in 88 children in the US is somewhere on the Autism spectrum — an alarming ten-fold increase in the last four decades.
New research by Dr. Mark Weiser of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center has revealed that ASD appears share a root cause with other mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. At first glance, schizophrenia and autism may look like completely different illnesses, he says. But closer inspection reveals many common traits, including social and cognitive dysfunction and a decreased ability to lead normal lives and function in the real world.
Studying extensive databases in Israel and Sweden, the researchers discovered that the two illnesses had a genetic link, representing a heightened risk within families. They found that people who have a schizophrenic sibling are 12 times more likely to have autism than those with no schizophrenia in the family. The presence of bipolar disorder in a sibling showed a similar pattern of association, but to a lesser degree.
A scientific leap forward, this study sheds new light on the genetics of these disorders. The results will help scientists better understand the genetics of mental illness, says Dr. Weiser, and may prove to be a fruitful direction for future research. The findings have been published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
All in the family
Researchers used three data sets, one in Israel and two in Sweden, to determine the familial connection between schizophrenia and autism. The Israeli database alone, used under the auspices of the ethics committees of both the Sheba Medical Center and the Israeli Defense Forces, included anonymous information about more than a million soldiers, including patients with schizophrenia and ASD.
"We found the same results in all three data sets," he says, noting that the ability to replicate the findings across these extensive databases is what makes this study so significant.Understanding this genetic connection could be a missing link, Dr. Weiser says, and provides a fresh direction for study. The researchers are now taking this research in a clinical direction. For now, though, the findings shouldn’t influence the way that doctors treat patients with either illness, he adds.
(Source: aftau.org)
New Definition of Autism in Updated Psychiatric Clinical Manual Will Not Exclude Most Children with Autism
Parents should not worry that proposed changes to the medical criteria redefining a diagnosis of autism will leave their children excluded and deemed ineligible for psychiatric and medical care, says a team of researchers led by psychologists at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Their new study, published in the October 1 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, is the largest to date that has tried to unpack the differences between the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and the proposed revision in the fifth edition (DSM-5), which is expected to be published in May 2013. These manuals provide diagnostic criteria for people seeking mental-health-related medical services.
"I know that parents worry, but I don’t believe there is any substantial reason to fear that children who need to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, and provided with vital services, will not be included in the new criteria in this updated manual," says the study’s senior investigator, Dr. Catherine Lord, director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s Westchester campus, along with its affiliated medical schools Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
At issue is whether DSM-5 will “capture” the same individuals diagnosed with different forms of autism by the DSM-IV. The DSM-5 proposal redefines autism as a single category — autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — whereas DSM-IV had multiple categories and included Autistic Disorder, Asperger’s Disorder, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS).
Critics have particularly worried that among the excluded will be children now diagnosed with PPD-NOS and Asperger’s disorder. That isn’t the case, says Dr. Lord, who is also a DeWitt Wallace Senior Scholar at Weill Cornell and an attending psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The study, the largest to date and arguably, the most rigorous, finds that when relying on parent report, 91 percent of the 4,453 children in the sample currently diagnosed with a DSM-IV autism spectrum disorder would be diagnosed with ASD using DSM-V.
Many of the remaining nine percent would likely be reincluded once a clinician can offer input, says Dr. Lord, who is also a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 Neurodevelopmental Disorders Work Group.
The study researchers also concluded that DSM-5 has higher specificity than DSM-IV—in their study, DSM-5 criteria resulted in fewer misclassifications.
(Source: weill.cornell.edu)
University of Miami researchers find that babies’ non-verbal communication skills can help predict outcomes in children at high risk of developing Autism
Approximately 19 percent of children with a sibling diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will develop Autism due to shared genetic and environmental vulnerabilities, according to previous studies. For that reason, University of Miami (UM) psychologists are developing ways to predict the occurrence of ASD in high-risk children, early in life, in hopes that early intervention will lead to better outcomes in the future. Their findings are published in the journal Infancy.
The study is one of the first to show that measures of non-verbal communication in children, as young as eight months of age, predict autism symptoms that become evident by the third year of life. The results suggest that identifying children, who are having difficulties early enough, can enhance the effects of interventions.
A team of Australian researchers, led by University of Melbourne has developed a genetic test that is able to predict the risk of developing Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD.
Lead researcher Professor Stan Skafidas, Director of the Centre for Neural Engineering at the University of Melbourne said the test could be used to assess the risk for developing the disorder. “This test could assist in the early detection of the condition in babies and children and help in the early management of those who become diagnosed,” he said. “It would be particularly relevant for families who have a history of Autism or related conditions such as Asperger’s Syndrome,” he said.
Autism affects around one in 150 births and is characterized by abnormal social interaction, impaired communication and repetitive behaviours. The test correctly predicted ASD with more than 70 per cent accuracy in people of central European descent. Ongoing validation tests are continuing including the development of accurate testing for other ethnic groups.
Can Videogaming Benefit Young People with Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Individuals with ASD have difficulty with communication and social interaction, but they often have particularly good visual perceptual skills and respond well to visual stimuli. Videogames offer opportunities for successful learning, motivation to improve skills such as planning, organization, and self-monitoring, and reinforcement of desired behaviors without the need for direct human-to-human interaction.
Autism is a growing area of interest for the gamification community, and Games for Health Journal continues to explore various aspects of how videogame technology can be beneficial in treating this complex spectrum of disorders.
Vanderbilt University researchers studying interventions for adolescents and young adults with autism are reporting that there is insufficient evidence to support findings, good or bad, for the therapies currently used.
The researchers systematically screened more than 4,500 studies and reviewed the 32 studies published from January 1980 to December 2011 on therapies for people ages 13 to 30 with autism spectrum disorders. They focused on the outcomes, including harms and adverse effects, of interventions, including medical, behavioral, educational and vocational.
• Some evidence revealed that treatments could improve social skills and educational outcomes such as vocabulary or reading, but the studies were generally small and had limited follow-up.
• Limited evidence supports the use of medical interventions in adolescents and young adults with autism. The most consistent findings were identified for the effects of antipsychotic medications on reducing problem behaviors that tend to occur with autism, such as irritability and aggression. Harms associated with medications included sedation and weight gain.
• Only five articles tested vocational interventions, all of which suggested that certain vocational interventions may be effective for certain individuals, but each study had significant flaws that limited the researchers’ confidence in their conclusions.
A Systematic Review of Vocational Interventions for Young Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders
New University of Otago research into two sex hormones released by the testes of male fetuses and boys may help solve the enduring mystery of why autism is much more common in boys than girls.
The researchers studied blood samples from 82 boys with ASD and 16 control boys, all aged between 4.4 to 8.9 years. Measuring the levels of the two hormones, the researchers found that these were highly variable from boy to boy, but no different on average between the two groups of boys.
Professor McLennan says the findings indicate that male hormones are important for autism, but not because autistic boys have abnormal levels.
While it has been previously suggested that exposure in the womb to excessive levels of testosterone might be creating an ‘extreme male brain’, this does not explain why some females have autism, or why males with autism do not exhibit an extreme male physical form.
"Our data suggest that the still-elusive primary initiating cause of ASD is common to both males and females, with the condition being more frequent in males because normal levels of male hormones exacerbates the pathology,” he says.
The researchers say that their hypothesis now needs further testing through longitudinal studies of at-risk male babies to determine whether their levels of AMH and InhB early in development can predict the breadth of autistic traits later in life.
(Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/ktaylorg)
Questionnaire Completed by Parents May Help Identify One-Year-Olds at Risk for Autism
ScienceDaily (July 13, 2012) — A new study by University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers found that 31 percent of children identified as at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) at 12 months received a confirmed diagnosis of ASD by age 3 years.
In addition, 85 percent of the children found to be at risk for ASD based on results from the First Year Inventory (FYI), a 63-item questionnaire filled out by their parents, had some other developmental disability or concern by age three, said Grace Baranek, PhD, senior author of the study and an autism researcher with the Program for Early Autism, Research, Leadership and Service (PEARLS) in the Department of Allied Health Sciences at the UNC School of Medicine.
"These results indicate that an overwhelming majority of children who screen positive on the FYI indeed experience some delay in development by age three that may warrant early intervention," she said.
Lead author of the study, Lauren Turner-Brown, PhD, also a researcher with PEARLS and the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities said, “Identification of children at risk for ASD at 12 months could provide a substantial number of children and their families with access to intervention services months or years before they would otherwise receive a traditional diagnosis.”
The First Year Inventory was developed by Grace Baranek, PhD, Linda Watson, EdD, Elizabeth Crais, PhD and J. Steven Reznick, PhD, who are all researchers with PEARLS. All are also co-authors of the study with Turner-Brown, published online ahead of print on July 10, 2012 by Autism: The International Journal of Research & Practice.
In the study, parents of 699 children who had completed the FYI when their child was 12 months old completed additional screening questionnaires when their child reached age 3. In addition, children who were found to be at risk for ASD based on these measures were invited for in-person diagnostic evaluations.
"These findings are encouraging and suggest promise in the approach of using parent report of infant behaviors as a tool for identifying 12-month-olds who are at risk for an eventual diagnosis of ASD," Turner-Brown said.
Source: Science Daily
Saliva and Pupil Size Differences in Autism Show System in Overdrive
ScienceDaily (July 12, 2012) — University of Kansas researchers have found larger resting pupil size and lower levels of a salivary enzyme associated with the neurotransmitter norepinephrine in children with autism spectrum disorder.
However, even though the levels of the enzyme, salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), were lower than those of typically-developing children in samples taken in the afternoon in the lab, samples taken at home throughout the day showed that sAA levels were higher in general across the day and much less variable for children with ASD.
"What this says is that the autonomic system of children with ASD is always on the same level," Christa Anderson, assistant research professor, said. "They are in overdrive."
The sAA levels of typically-developing children gradually rise and fall over the day, said Anderson, who co-directed the study with John Colombo, professor of psychology.
Norepinephrine (NE) has been found in the blood plasma levels of individuals with ASD but some researchers have questioned whether these levels were just related to the stress from blood draws.
The KU study addressed this by collecting salivary measures by simply placing a highly absorbent sponge swab under the child’s tongue and confirmed that this method of collection did not stress the children by assessing their stress levels through cortisol, another hormone.
Collecting sAA levels has the potential for physicians to screen children for ASD much earlier, noninvasively and relatively inexpensively, said Anderson.
But Anderson and Colombo also see pupil size and sAA levels as biomarkers that could be the physiological signatures of a possible dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system.
"Many theories of autism propose that the disorder is due to deficits in higher-order brain areas," said Colombo. "Our findings, however, suggest that the core deficits may lie in areas of the brain typically associated with more fundamental, vital functions."
The study, published online in the May 29, 2012 Developmental Psychobiology compared children between the ages of 20 and 72 months of age diagnosed with ASD to a group of typically developing children and a third group of children with Down Syndrome.
Both findings address the Centers for Disease Control’s urgent public health priority goals for ASD: to find biological indicators that can both help screen children earlier and lead to better understanding of how the nervous system develops and functions in the disorder.
Source: Science Daily