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Mothers with asthma or atopy have a higher likelihood of having autistic children, with maternal immune activation in pregnancy implicated as a mechanism. This study aimed to determine, in a prospective cohort of mothers with asthma and their infants, whether inflammatory gene expression in pregnancy is associated with likelihood of future autism.
Access to behavioural sleep intervention is beneficial for autistic children, yet many families face barriers to access associated with location and time. Preliminary evidence supports telehealth-delivered sleep intervention. However, no studies have evaluated brief telehealth sleep intervention.
Andrew Videos Whitehouse Watch and listen to Andrew PhD Deputy Director (Research); Angela Wright Bennett Professor of Autism Research at The Kids
There is emerging evidence that LEGO® therapy is an effective way of supporting younger autistic children develop their communication and social skills. LEGO® robotics therapy - which uses the principles of LEGO® therapy applied to LEGO® robotics - may be an age-appropriate intervention to reduce anxiety and increase social skills in autistic adolescents.
Parent-child interactions (PCI) in infants with an elevated likelihood (EL) of autism start to diverge from other infants toward the end of the first year. This divergence is often attributed to emerging features of autism impacting infant social interactions in ways that become increasingly amplified. The aim was to identify which, if any, 12-month autism features were associated with later PCI qualities.
While parenting self-efficacy and broader autism phenotype (BAP) have been linked to caregiver depression, anxiety and stress at specific points in time, their influence on longer-term mental health trajectories remains unknown, especially for caregivers who participate in support programs for their infants with very-early autistic features.
Early life nutrition is associated with child behaviour; however, the interplay with genetic vulnerability is understudied. We hypothesised that psychiatric genetic risk interacted with early nutrition to predict behavioural problems in childhood and adolescence.
Autistic adolescents are vulnerable to sleep difficulties, with up to 80 % experiencing sleep problems, most commonly insomnia. Little is known about how autistic adolescents are involved in their own sleep treatment, and their depth of knowledge about their sleep difficulties. The aims of this study were to investigate autistic adolescent and parent perspectives of experiencing and managing insomnia, and what factors influence the development of these perspectives on insomnia and treatment.
A comprehensive understanding of specific factors contributing to variability in responsiveness of children with autism to interventions is paramount for making evidence-based clinical and policy decisions. This meta-analysis examined child and family characteristics, as well as intervention design factors, associated with outcomes of behavioral interventions for children with autism.
Emerging evidence suggests that observers tend to form less favorable first impressions toward autistic people than toward non-autistic people. These negative impressions may be associated with immediate behavioral responses, as well as long-lasting attitudes toward those being observed that may negatively impact their psychosocial wellbeing.