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Research

Little is known about parent preferences regarding delivery methods of early interventions. This research examined, through parent report, the current and preferred delivery methods of seven common educational early interventions accessed by New Zealand children with autism spectrum disorder.

News & Events

Australia’s first draft national guideline for autism diagnosis has today been released for public consultation.

News & Events

Professor Andrew Whitehouse awarded the most prestigious award in the country for young researchers – the 3M Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in Science.

News & Events

PACT is a communication therapy at CliniKids

News & Events

Chloe recently decided to bake cupcakes to sell to her school friends and teachers and it was all for a cause very close to her heart - autism research.

News & Events

CliniKids is excited to welcome Dr Kandice Varcin to the team as part of a new partnership between The Kids Research Institute Australia and Griffith University.

News & Events

CliniKids’ new clinic in the Joondalup area is coming along nicely and is on track to open around the middle of the year.

Research

The broad autism phenotype commonly refers to sub-clinical levels of autistic-like behaviour and cognition presented in biological relatives of autistic people. In a recent study, we reported findings suggesting that the broad autism phenotype may also be expressed in facial morphology, specifically increased facial masculinity.

Research

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient. However, the eye avoidance hypothesis proposes the opposite-that amygdala hyperactivity causes eye avoidance. This review evaluated studies that measured the relationship between eye gaze and activity in the 'social brain' when viewing facial stimuli.

Research

The study of temperament in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has the potential to provide insight regarding variability in the onset, nature, and course of both core and co-morbid symptoms. The aim of this systematic review was to integrate existing findings concerning temperament in the context of ASD. Searches of Medline, PsychInfo and Scopus databases identified 64 relevant studies. As a group, children and adolescents with ASD appear to be temperamentally different from both typically developing and other clinical non-ASD groups, characterized by higher negative affectivity, lower surgency, and lower effortful control at a higher-order level.