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Research

Toward better characterization of restricted and unusual interests in youth with autism

Despite being highly prevalent among people with autism, restricted and unusual interests remain under-researched and poorly understood. This article confirms that restricted interests are very frequent and varied among children and adolescents with autism. It also further extends current knowledge in this area by characterizing the relationship between the presence, number, and type of restricted interests with chronological age, sex, cognitive functioning, and social and communication symptoms.

Research

A Parent-Mediated Intervention for Newborns at Familial Likelihood of Autism: Initial Feasibility Study in the General Population

Developmental theory and previous studies support the potential value of prodromal interventions for infants at elevated likelihood of developing autism. Past research has supported the efficacy of parent-mediated prodromal therapies with infants from as early as 7 months. We outline the rationale for implementing interventions following this model from even earlier in development and report on the feasibility of a novel intervention developed following this model of parent-mediated infant interventions.

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Changes to the Gut Microbiome in Young Children Showing Early Behavioral Signs of Autism

The human gut microbiome has increasingly been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a neurological developmental disorder, characterized by impairments to social interaction.

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Facial asymmetry in parents of children on the autism spectrum

Greater facial asymmetry has been consistently found in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relative to children without ASD. There is substantial evidence that both facial structure and the recurrence of ASD diagnosis are highly heritable within a nuclear family. Furthermore, sub-clinical levels of autistic-like behavioural characteristics have also been reported in first-degree relatives of individuals with ASD, commonly known as the 'broad autism phenotype'.

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Investigating associations between birth order and autism diagnostic phenotypes

Birth order effects have been linked to variability in intelligence, educational attainment and sexual orientation. First- and later-born children have been linked to an increased likelihood of an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis, with a smaller body of evidence implicating decreases in cognitive functioning with increased birth order.

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Brief social attention bias modification for children with autism spectrum disorder

Social attention can be acutely modified in children with ASD, with an increased tendency to orient attention toward faces after brief social attention training

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TOBY play-pad application to teach children with ASD-A pilot trial.

To investigate use patterns and learning outcomes associated with the use of Therapy Outcomes By You (TOBY. Playpad, an early intervention iPad application.

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Common variation near ROBO2 is associated with expressive vocabulary in infancy

In this paper we conduct a genome-wide screen and follow-up study of expressive vocabulary in toddlers of European descent from up to four studies of the...

Research

Maternal immune-related conditions during pregnancy may be a risk factor for neuropsychiatric problems in offspring throughout childhood and adolescence

Emerging research suggests that maternal immune activation (MIA) may be associated with an increased risk of adverse neurodevelopmental and mental health outcomes in offspring. Using data from the Raine Study, we investigated whether MIA during pregnancy was associated with increased behavioral and emotional problems in offspring longitudinally across development.

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Delayed cortical processing of auditory stimuli in children with autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis of electrophysiological studies

Several researchers have hypothesised that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show encoding delays in their obligatory event-related potentials (ERPs)/ event-related fields (ERFs) for low-level auditory information compared to neurotypical (NT) samples. However, empirical research has yielded varied findings, such as low-level auditory processing in ASD samples being unimpaired, superior, or impaired compared to NT samples. Diverse outcomes have also been reported for studies investigating ASD-NT differences in functional lateralisation of delays.