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Autistic individuals often experience a wide range of barriers and challenges with employment across their lifetime. Despite their strengths and abilities to contribute to the workforce, many individuals experience unemployment, underemployment and malemployment. However, current supports and services are often inadequate to meet their needs. To allow autistic people to achieve vocational success, we explore four contributors to employment and expand upon the issues and potential solutions to each. These positions include the importance of family support and its consideration in the application of vocational support interventions, addressing transitional needs for autistic youth, building employer capacity, and conducting research that advises the development of meaningful programs and policies. By advocating for these positions, we aim to foster greater inclusivity and support for individuals with ASD in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Training parents to implement language and communication intervention strategies is an effective approach to promote language development for children with language delay. Aims: This study introduces an online parent training program conducted in Hubei province, China, which was designed to help parents of language‐delayed children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental language disorder (DLD) or global developmental delay (GDD) apply language intervention strategies into daily interactions and promote their children's language development at home. Methods & Procedures: The Bethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center Family Training for Early Communication & Language Development (Bethel Family Training Program, BFT) (Bethel HSTC, 2020) was designed to improve the language and communication skills for children with language delay in a naturalistic way. The caregivers (including parents, grandparents and other main caregivers) participated in an 8‐h online program, including lectures on milestones in child language development, common misunderstandings of child language development, and three basic family language intervention strategies ('Looking together, playing together, and talking together') incorporating active learning through video analysis and discussion. Tongji Hospital in Hubei then continued with 3 months of online home intervention monitoring to all the caregivers via weekly online Q&As led by BFT certified speech therapists' team. The Gesell Developmental Schedules (GDS) was carried out before the online parent training program and after the 3‐month online home intervention monitoring. Outcomes & Results: 146 families whose children aged 12–68 months with language delay participated in the online training program. The results of the GDS assessments conducted before and after the program showed that not only did the developmental quotient (DQ) of language improve, but so did the DQ of social behaviour and adaptive behaviour (p < 0.001). There is no between‐group difference in the application of three strategies between the ASD group and the DLD or GDD group (p > 0.05). Furthermore, both caregivers' ability to apply 'looking together, playing together, talking together' strategies and the effective interaction time played important roles in improving the child's language abilities. Conclusion & Implications: The online parent training focusing on improving daily interaction with children through speech–language stimulation strategies promoted the development of language skills. It is an economic and practical approach for children with language delay who have limited access to local language intervention programs. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Parent‐implemented language intervention is an effective approach at improving children's language development. Telepractice is an appropriate model of service delivery for audiologists and speech–language therapists and may be the primary mode of service delivery or may supplement in‐person services. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge: This paper explores the effectiveness of an online parent training program and provides new evidence that online training on language support strategies (looking together, playing together, talking together) followed by home intervention monitoring works for Mandarin‐speaking children and it is equally effective for children with ASD and non‐ASD diagnosis. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Developmental behavioural paediatricians and speech–language therapists in countries and areas that lack sufficient training resource for every child will have the option to deliver parent training and home intervention monitoring online, which will save time and cost considerably while offering convenience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social-emotional deficits in school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) greatly hinder these children from fully participating in various school activities in the inclusive education setting. Previous studies have demonstrated evidence regarding the effectiveness of using virtual reality (VR) for enhancing the children's affective expression and social reciprocity. However, considering the technical and logistical complexity of the enabling hardware and software systems, how such approaches can be effectively and sustainably delivered in the school setting remains underexplored. This paper presents a study that utilised VR headsets to enhance affective expression and social reciprocity for children with ASD and explored how the approach could be effectively and sustainably delivered at schools. A total of eight VR learning scenarios were designed based on Kolb's experiential learning framework. 176 children aged 6–12 with a clinical diagnosis of ASD participated in the study. The statistical analyses showed that the participants who received the intervention significantly improved in affective expression and social reciprocity, compared to those who were in the control group. Moreover, the approaches to enhance long-term sustainability have also been presented and discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Aims Methods Main Contribution Conclusion What this paper adds What is already known on the subject What this paper adds to existing knowledge What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The ability to understand the mental state of others (social cognition), as well as language, is crucial for children to have good social adaptation. Social cognition (SC) has been shown to be a hierarchical model of three factors (Cognitive, intermediate and affective SC) interrelated with linguistic processes. Children on the autism spectrum and children with developmental language disorder (DLD) or social communication disorder (SCD) manifest language and SC difficulties, albeit in different ways.This systematic review aims to find how language and SC interact with each other and identify linguistic and socio‐affective profiles in the target population.About 1593 articles were systematically reviewed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses guide in November 2022, obtaining, through inclusion/exclusion criteria, a total of 38 articles for qualitative assessment. The majority of them were on autism (26) or DLD (14) and to a lesser extent SCD (3).Although SC is related to all components of language, SC is strongly related to narrative and morphosyntax and partially related to lexicon. Pragmatics shows a complex relation with SC due to greater sensitivity to other factors such as age or task, and prosody appears to be more related to emotional processes. Besides, autistic, SCD and DLD children showed differences in their language and socio‐affective performance. Mainstream DLD children have lower performance in general language, where autistic and SCD children have more linguistic variation and are lower in pragmatic and SC tasks, SCD children being more associated with language production difficulties and autistic children with both receptive and productive language.Each language component has a different interaction with SC. Likewise, different linguistic profiles are partially found for each disorder. These results are important for future lines of research focusing on specific components of interaction and socio‐emotional processes, as well as for clinical and educational treatment. The hierarchical model of Schurz et al. (2021), divide social cognition into three brain constructs: cognitive social cognition (CSC), affective social cognition (ASC) and intermediate social cognition (ISC). They observe a large relationship between language and ISC, a fact that has been corroborated with some other studies. Studies have also found lower linguistic and socio‐affective abilities in children with autism and language and communication disorders compared with children with neurotypical development, and large behavioural and neurocognitive overlaps between these disorders (Durrleman et al., 2019; Löytömäki et al., 2019). This is the first review that relates all linguistic components (narrative, lexicon, morphosyntax, pragmatic and prosody) with the three constructs of social cognition (Cognitive, intermediate and affective). Moreover, it is the first review that studies the socio‐linguistic factors comparing autism, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder with each other and with neurotypical development in children aged from 4 to 9 years. Understanding how language and social cognition interact with each other in autism spectrum disorder, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder allows us to trace socio‐linguistic profiles for each of the studied disorders, understand better children with these difficulties, and, with this, find specific potential intervention points to improve and prevent these difficulties.  [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it has been determined that approximately one in 36 children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children on the autism spectrum often seek inclusive recreational opportunities, particularly in sports. Golf can be a suitable activity for children on the autism spectrum because it can be played individually and has significant structure and rules. The purpose of this paper is to describe Newell's constraint model and then provide an overview of the design of an adapted golf program for children on the autism spectrum using this approach. This paper will also highlight the individual constraints that need to be considered in the instructional process, the types of manipulation of environmental constraints, and the kinds of developmentally appropriate golf tasks that will enhance children's learning of golf skills. The paper is tailored for physical education teachers incorporating or considering golf programs as a part of their curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To date, there is no evidence supporting the existence of an association between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and extremism in the general population. However, there is increasing recognition that several features of ASD may provide the context of vulnerability to engage in extremist behaviour. Aims: This paper sets out the case for a dedicated clinical approach to better integrate clinical risk appraisal processes with an assessment of ASD individuals' vulnerabilities within the Criminal Justice System. Methods and Results: In this paper the Framework for the Assessment of Risk & Protection in Offenders on the Autistic Spectrum (FARAS): A Guide for Risk Assessors Working with Offenders on the Autistic Spectrum is explored. In developing the FARAS, Al‐Attar proposed seven facets of ASD that 'may have different functional links with push and pull factors to terrorism' (p. 928), which include circumscribed interests; rich vivid fantasy and impaired social imagination; need for order, rules, rituals, routine and predictability; obsessionality, repetition and collecting; social interaction and communication difficulties; cognitive styles and Sensory processing. Discussion and Conclusion: We describe the FARAS within the context of the most widely used clinical risk appraisal 'aide memoire' instruments integral to the Structured Professional Judgement of risk process, namely the HCR20v3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with autism face challenges in areas like language and social skills, which hinder their ability to undergo regular fire training. Fire is one of the most common and dangerous disaster in real life, making it essential to provide children with appropriate prevention and response education. Virtual humans can offer diverse presentation forms and interact with children with autism, thus better stimulating their willingness to participate. To train the fire safety skills of children with autism, this paper proposes the application of highly realistic virtual humans in a fire education system, aiming to improve their fire safety skills. The results show that this approach effectively enhances the fire safety skills of children with autism. To enhance the realism of virtual humans in the fire education system, this paper improves the 3D pose estimation method and proposes a multi-physical factor pose estimation algorithm. By evaluating the Mean Penetration Error (MPE) and the Percentage Not Penetrated (PNP) it was shown that the pose estimation algorithm achieved higher accuracy with only 6.4% foot penetration. We counted the number of movements and the number of movements captured by the system for all participants in the fire training and showed that the system’s motion capture accuracy was over 90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the typically developing population, social touch experiences are influenced by several factors, including the biological sex of toucher and receiver, the body area wherein the touch is delivered and the social context in which the tactile exchange occurs. However, it is currently unexplored how social touch experiences of autistic adults are modulated by these factors. We sought to address this by utilizing a self-report body-painting task. Our main results show that autistic, compared with non-autistic, adults reported lower levels of pleasantness, erogeneity and appropriateness, specifically in intimate and friendly social contexts and in body areas typically touched in these situations. Importantly, sex played a major role in group differences. For instance, although autistic females reported, across social contexts, less pleasantness than both non-autistic females and autistic males, they experienced similar levels of appropriateness in the professional social context, usually deemed as touch-appropriate. Our findings provide new support to the hypothesis that social touch is experienced and possibly conceptualized differently by autistic compared with non-autistic adults. Moreover, by identifying the factors that influence social touch processing in autistic adults, our results might aid the development of support for autistic individuals seeking help in the spheres of social and intimate touch. What is already known about the topic? At least in neurotypical individuals, social touch represents an important channel for emotional communication associated with social bonding and pain/anxiety modulation. Autistic adults report to avoid social touch more and to have different tactile sensitivity than their non-autistic comparisons. What this paper adds? Few studies specifically investigated social touch in autistic individuals, and none of them examined the role of participants' sex, social context in which social touch occurs, and specific body areas being touched. In our study, adult participants reported how pleasant, erogenous and appropriate they would consider touches delivered by another person over their entire body in intimate (date), friendly (dance class) and professional (physiotherapy-massage session) social contexts. Autistic adults reported social touch to be less pleasant, erogenous and appropriate specifically in intimate and friendly social contexts and in body areas typically touched in these situations. Importantly, autistic females seem more at risk to experience unpleasant social touch as, although they considered it more unpleasant than non-autistic females and autistic males, they did consider it similarly appropriate in professional social contexts where touch is normed to be socially appropriate. Implications for practice, research or policy Our results might improve awareness and understanding about autistic adults' different, and often more discomforting, experience of social touch and thus help consider and respect it during everyday social interactions. Our results might also benefit future research investigating, for instance, the neural underpinnings of social touch differences in autism or aiming at developing support for autistic individuals seeking help in the diverse spheres of social touch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overview of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the Middle East was published by Kelly and colleagues in 2016. The focus of the review was to explore clinical services, educational opportunities, and published research in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, namely the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The objective of the current paper was to provide an update on the current status of ABA and ASD in the Gulf region, with a focus on successes, challenges, and recommendations for future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary What is known on the subject? What does the paper add to existing knowledge? What are the implications for practice? Introduction Aim Methods Results Conclusions Taking care of an autistic child at home can be tough for parents. They struggle to balance caring for their child and other tasks. This can affect their emotional well‐being and cause guilt and other psychological problems. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing with finger movements can reduce guilt in parents of autistic children. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing with Elite mobile health software movements can reduce guilt in parents of autistic children. The bilateral eye stimulation method using finger movements has a more sustained impact than the Elite app's bilateral stimulation method. Healthcare providers are encouraged to learn Eye Movements Desensitization and Reprocessing. Healthcare providers are encouraged to use these methods to help with psychological issues in children with autism. Psychiatric nurses are encouraged to utilize this treatment approach for parents of children with autism, as well as to help alleviate feelings of guilt more broadly. Caring for an autistic child at home can be challenging for parents, as it can make it difficult to balance their responsibilities. This imbalance can negatively affect the emotional well‐being of the caregiver and lead to feelings of guilt. While this is a known issue, there may be gaps in knowledge specific to Iran. In this study, a new method was introduced to address this issue.This study aimed to examine the impact of desensitization with eye movements and reprocessing (EMDR) on reducing parental guilt among autistic children's families. We aim to examine the effectiveness of two different treatment methods.This study involved 90 parents (60 mothers, 30 fathers) of autistic children randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. The two experimental groups received a 45‐min intervention session once a week for 3 weeks, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data on feelings of guilt was collected using a questionnaire. After 30 days, both groups took a follow‐up test. The data were analysed using statistical software.This study found that there were significant differences in guilt feelings among different groups of EMDR therapy and a control group. Specifically, no significant differences were observed in the mean guilt scores between the experimental and control groups at the pre‐intervention stage (p > .05). However, the experimental groups exhibited significantly lower mean guilt scores immediately after the intervention and 1 month later than the control group (p < .05). Immediately after the intervention and 1 month later, no significant differences were observed between the two experimental groups (p > .05).The findings of this study demonstrate the efficacy of desensitization treatment using eye movements and reprocessing in reducing feelings of guilt among autistic children's parents. In the follow‐up phase, it seems that the two‐way stimulation method with finger movements is more effective than Elite software in terms of the continuity of the effect. Healthcare providers are encouraged to learn and use these methods to help prevent and treat psychological issues in autistic children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Methods Consumer and Community Involvement Results Conclusion While the adoption of strengths‐based approaches to supporting autistic adolescents is growing in popularity, the application of this approach to a digital arts mentoring program has yet to be explored. This study reports on the core elements contributing to the success of a community digital arts mentoring program for autistic adolescents from the mentors' perspective. This paper presents an in‐depth exploration of mentors' experiences, comprising a component of a broader line of research investigating a digital arts mentoring program for autistic adolescents emphasising positive youth development.The digital arts mentoring program spanned 20 weeks across two Australian school terms and was attended by two groups of autistic adolescents (N = 18) aged between 11 and 17 years. A qualitative approach was utilised in exploring the perspective of their mentors (N = 6). Qualitative data were collected at the end of each school term for each group with the mentors using an interpretive phenomenological approach and Colaizzi's seven‐step analysis method. Thirteen individual interviews were conducted with six mentors.This research was conducted with a disability arts provider to provide a digital arts mentoring program to autistic adolescents. The mentors employed have lived experience with disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety.Five primary themes emerged from the data: positive connections, mentor knowledge and experience, mentoring approaches, autism education, program organisation, resources and environment. Subthemes underpinned the primary themes related to positive connections (three subthemes), mentoring approaches (four subthemes) and program organisation, resources and environment (three subthemes).The findings suggest that prior experience, sufficient training, a supportive environment and a flexible and adaptable approach were essential for success. Understanding the core elements of a strengths‐based digital arts program in occupational therapy provides a comprehensive framework for utilising clients' inherent strengths and creativity as therapeutic tool, creating an empowering environment, fostering meaningful outcomes for clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental illness characterized by impaired social interaction and restricted repetitive behaviors or interests. The rising prevalence of ASD diagnosis has triggered a surge in research into investigating the underlying neuropathological processes and finding new therapeutic approaches. ASD is characterized by neuroinflammation and dysregulation of neuro-immune cross-talk, which suggests that stem cell treatment might be a potential therapeutic approach. The beneficial and restorative effects of stem cells are mainly due to their paracrine activity, in which stem cells generate and release extracellular vesicles such as exosomes and distinct secreted non-vesicle soluble proteins, including, growth factors, chemokines, cytokines, and immunomodulatory molecules referred to as the Secretome. In this paper, we reviewed the existing research exploring the therapeutic potential of stem cell secretome focusing on their role in addressing ASD pathology. Furthermore, we proposed a comprehensive mechanism of action for stem cell secretions, encompassing the broader secretome as well as the specific contribution of exosomes, in alleviating ASD neuropathology. Across the reviewed studies, exosomes and secreted soluble factors of the transplanted stem cell demonstrate a potential efficacy in ameliorating autistic-like behaviors. The proposed mechanism of action involves the modulation of signaling pathways implicated in neuroinflammation, angiogenesis, cellular apoptosis, and immunomodulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality (VR) technology has shown great potential on intervention of social skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This review aimed to review the application of VR in current social skills intervention targeting autistic children and evaluate its effect. After searching and screening three databases, we found 20 papers on interventions for children with ASD using VR technology, including three studies of social communication, six studies about social–emotional reciprocity, nine studies on social interaction, and eight studies of on social cognition. First, concerning the age of the children involved in the interventions, we found that VR devices were more suitable for children with ASD who were older. Second, regarding VR devices, we recommend laptop VR devices based on the cost, non-invasiveness, and effectiveness of their use in interventions. The VR application form of game is more advisable. More importantly, for the design of the VR intervention, based on the adoption article, we found that using a single participant worked better. This research presents the overall effects and limitations of this literature as well as implications for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of diagnosed cases of autism has increased rapidly, which has raised interest in studying the variables related to the well-being of these families. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent literature on other variables related to family well-being, such as parenting styles. We conducted a systematic review using the PRISMA check list and bias assessment with the aim of analyzing if the concepts of autism, well-being and parenting style are related. We screened 755 references from relevant databases like Scopus, Pubmed, PscyInfo EBSCO, Web of Science and Dialnet, updated on May 2024. Sixteen full text articles and abstracts were read. It was identified that the authoritative parenting style, as well as those based on warmth, establishing relationships and emotional bonding, and low expressed emotion were positively related to family well-being. On the other hand, authoritarian, permissive and overprotective styles, as well as critical, punishing and training-based, were negatively associated with well-being and quality of family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite unclear evidence to support the long-term use of antipsychotics to treat challenging (problem) behaviours in people with autism in the absence of a psychiatric disorder, this practice is common. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) involving antipsychotics for people with autism of all ages, irrespective of the outcomes assessed. We searched seven databases and hand-searched ten relevant journals. Two authors independently screened titles, abstracts and full papers and extracted data using the Cochrane Handbook template. We conducted meta-analyses of outcomes and the rate of adverse events. Results: We included 39 papers based on 21 primary RCTs that recruited 1482 people with autism. No RCT assessed any psychiatric disorder outcome, such as psychoses or bipolar disorder. A meta-analysis of ten placebo-controlled RCTs showed a significantly improved Aberrant Behaviour Checklist-Irritability score in the antipsychotic group with an effect size of −6.45 [95% confidence interval (CI) −8.13 to −4.77] (low certainty). Pooled Clinical Global Impression data on 11 placebo-controlled RCTs showed an overall effect size of 0.84 (95% CI 0.48 to 1.21) (moderate certainty). There was a significantly higher risk of overall adverse effects (p = 0.003) and also weight gain (p < 0.00001), sedation (p < 0.00001) and increased appetite (p = 0.001) in the antipsychotic group. Conclusions: There is some evidence for risperidone and preliminary evidence for aripiprazole to significantly improve scores on some outcome measures among children with autism but not adults or for any other antipsychotics. There is a definite increased risk of antipsychotic-related different adverse effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comprehensively reviews motor impairments in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to: (1) determine the prevalence of motor problems in children with ASD; (2) understand the nature of motor difficulties in ASD and whether they are consistent with developmental coordination disorder (DCD); and (3) determine if the term DCD was used as a co-occurring diagnosis in children with ASD after publication of the DSM-5 in 2013. The following databases were systematically searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO from 2010 to December 2021. Articles were included if they: (1) were peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal; (2) included children with ASD who were between 5 and 12 years; (3) used motor or function measures to assess motor abilities in children with ASD. Studies that included children with intellectual disabilities were excluded. Two independent reviewers reviewed titles, abstracts, and full-text articles for inclusion. Twenty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed for quality by two independent reviewers using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies. The majority of articles (92.5%) indicated that 50–88% of children with ASD had significant motor impairments on standardized motor assessments and/or functional questionnaires. The nature of motor and function problems in ASD were consistent with DCD; however, only three out of 20 papers (15%) that were published from 2014 described the motor problems as DCD. One study reported that 15.1% of children with ASD with motor impairments had a co-occurring diagnosis of DCD, suggesting that DCD is under-recognized in this clinical population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progress in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can make a real difference in the quality-of-life of persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by acting on several aspects, from customized software for communication, to emotion recognition, to social behavior and also to provide systems for the observation of the wide spectrum of manifestations, to ease the diagnosis, to support the therapy, and to monitor the improvement and the growth of children with ASD. This has been achieved by the introduction of a large number of innovative technologies, spanning from Internet of Things, to robotics, virtual and augmented reality, etc. Differently from other surveys on the same research area, we focus this survey on innovative technologies used in this field, and we organize a classification of the papers based on three different but strictly crossed axis, namely the triad of impairment (either communication, social interaction, or social behaviors), research purpose (either diagnosis or therapy), and system activity (either monitoring or intervention). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is defined by distinctive socio-cognitive behaviors that deviate from typical patterns. Notably, social imitation skills appear to be particularly impacted, manifesting early on in development. This paper compared the behavior and inter-brain dynamics of dyads made up of two typically developing (TD) participants with mixed dyads made up of ASD and TD participants during social imitation tasks. By combining kinematics and EEG-hyperscanning, we show that individuals with ASD exhibited a preference for the follower rather than the lead role in imitating scenarios. Moreover, the study revealed inter-brain synchrony differences, with low-alpha inter-brain synchrony differentiating control and mixed dyads. The study's findings suggest the importance of studying interpersonal phenomena in dynamic and ecological settings and using hyperscanning methods to capture inter-brain dynamics during actual social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the literature on language acquisition in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), highlighting rapid changes in the field. Researchers in psycholinguistics are exploring language acquisition theories due to ASD's significant differences across language, social, and cognitive domains. The study highlights areas where knowledge is lacking and explores potential future directions. While pragmatic deficits are commonly associated with ASD, clinicians and researchers should consider phonological, morph syntactic differences and rehabilitation to change the condition of phonological errors, which impact language comprehension and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disorders, which is very difficult to diagnose at early stages of life, and is a complex spectrum disorder, involving many persistent challenges with lack of social interactions, eye contact and facial expressions. Facial features of children having ASD are different from typically developing (TD) children, which is a major clue for early detection of autism using demographics of facial features. In this paper, a novel framework for early detection of autism has been developed, using a semi-supervised approach that consists ConvNeXt-T model and clustering of image embedding vectors. State-of-the-art ConvNeXt-T model is trained for autism dataset, and after that, image embedding clusters are created based on cosine similarity threshold. By doing this, model's classification layer and embedding generation layers are trained for the subject data. The proposed framework provides embeddings and autism classifier from the trained model, where cluster embeddings can be used in semi-supervised classification. Hence, after training process, inference architecture has two modes: (i) classification using ConvNeXt-T and (ii) classification using embedding clusters. The classification accuracy of framework using ConvNeXt-T is 89.5%, where clustering accuracy using cosine similarity of image embedding is 93%. Most of the other techniques in this area focus only on classification using deep neural networks. The proposed framework is also providing classification based on embedding clusters and can work on unlabelled dataset. Moreover, the proposed framework is based on server–client architecture, which allows easy usability and integration without multi acceleration devices and extra resource consumption. A single image of child is required to detect autism using the proposed framework in real-life scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of applied behaviour analysis is to increase behaviours that are positive and helpful and decrease behaviours that affect learning negatively or are harmful. Behaviour analysis has been studied and used for decades and it has been shown that its methods can help many kinds of learners gain different skills. Therapists have been using applied behaviour analysis to help children with autism spectrum disorder and other related developmental disorders for a long time. Applied behaviour analysis can be adapted to meet the needs of each child and also be provided in different environments like school, home, and community. It can involve one-to-one teaching or group instruction and is effective at teaching skills useful in everyday life. In this paper, firstly approaches and strategies used to implement applied behaviour analysis on children with autism spectrum disorder are presented. Then, challenges related to these and emerging opportunities and software applications serving for applied behaviour analysis are reviewed. Finally, future research directions are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to the design, description and validation of the Android application TEAtreves, which focuses on structured arithmetic problem-solving for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The application contains multiple adaptations to make it suitable for users with ASD. Validation was carried out with five students with ASD, obtaining positive results which confirm the strength of TEAtreves app for users with ASD. Results and future lines of work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that white–gray contrast (WGC) of either cortical or subcortical gray matter provides for accurate predictions of age in typically developing (TD) children, and that, at least for the cortex, it changes differently with age in subjects with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to their TD peers. Our previous study showed different patterns of contrast change between ASD and TD in sensorimotor and association cortices. While that study was confined to the cortex, we hypothesized that subcortical structures, particularly the thalamus, were involved in the observed cortical dichotomy between lower and higher processing. The current paper investigates that hypothesis using the WGC measures from the thalamus in addition to those from the cortex. We compared age‐related WGC changes in the thalamus to those in the cortex. To capture the simultaneity of this change across the two structures, we devised a metric capturing the co‐development of the thalamus and cortex (CoDevTC), proportional to the magnitude of cortical and thalamic age‐related WGC change. We calculated this metric for each of the subjects in a large homogeneous sample taken from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) (N = 434). We used structural MRI data from the largest high‐quality cross‐sectional sample (NYU) as well as two other large high‐quality sites, GU and OHSU, all three using Siemens 3T scanners. We observed that the co‐development features in ASD and TD exhibit contrasting patterns; specifically, some higher‐order thalamic nuclei, such as the lateral dorsal nucleus, exhibited reduction in codevelopment with most of the cortex in ASD compared to TD. Moreover, this difference in the CoDevTC pattern correlates with a number of behavioral measures across multiple cognitive and physiological domains. The results support previous notions of altered connectivity in autism, but add more specific evidence about the heterogeneity in thalamocortical development that elucidates the mechanisms underlying the clinical features of ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alterations in sensory processing, a key component of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have recently attracted increasing attention as they result in peculiar responses to sensory stimuli, possibly representing a risk factor for the development of somatic symptom disorder (SSD). Contextually, other features also associated with ASD, such as alexithymia, camouflaging and altered verbal, and non-verbal communication, have been suggested to represent risk factors for the occurrence and worsening of somatic symptomatology. The aim of this work was to review the available literature about the association between SSD and the autism spectrum. The results highlighted not only a higher prevalence of autistic features in patients suffering from SSD and a higher prevalence of reported somatic symptomatology in subjects with ASD but also how ASD subjects with co-occurrent somatic symptoms exhibit more severe autism-linked symptomatology. From the paper reviewed also emerged many shared features between the two conditions, such as alexithymia, altered sensitivity to sensory stimuli, cognitive inflexibility, intolerance of uncertainty, and an increased risk of experiencing stressful life events, which may provide an explanation for the correlation reported. Even though studies on the topic are still scant, the evidence reported suggests the importance of further assessing the correlation between the two disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitochondria are commonly perceived as "cellular power plants". Intriguingly, power conversion is not their only function. In the first part of this paper, we review the role of mitochondria in the evolution of eukaryotic organisms and in the regulation of the human body, specifically focusing on cancer and autism in relation to mitochondrial dysfunction. In the second part, we overview our previous works, revealing the physical principles of operation for proton-pumping complexes in the inner mitochondrial membrane. Our proposed simple models reveal the physical mechanisms of energy exchange. They can be further expanded to answer open questions about mitochondrial functions and the medical treatment of diseases associated with mitochondrial disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show the effects of actions focused on supporting the development of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Conducted with an eclectic approach, these actions sought techniques tailored to the individual person and their problems. Children aged 5–7 years underwent a two-stage diagnostic procedure (preliminary and final) using Schopler's Psychoeducational Profile (the PEP-R test). Between these two measurement points, they participated in a year long development support program using sensory integration stimulation techniques, fine motor skills stimulation, and dog therapy/animal-assisted therapy. The results obtained in each case attest to the applied proposals' effectiveness yet do not allow for general conclusions to be reached. However, they can be a prerequisite for conducting a broader research project and developing personalised early intervention programs for children with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural polyphenols have been found to have some protective effects against neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, which are attributed to a variety of biological properties, particularly antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory effects. Autism spectrum disorder is a complex neurological and neurodevelopmental disorder with no currently effective clinical treatment for its core symptoms. Regarding the management of autism spectrum disorder core symptoms, a number of experimental and clinical studies have been made using well-known dietary polyphenols with different effects and molecular mechanisms. The aim of this paper is to present the most effective natural polyphenols with the relevant molecular mechanisms in preclinical and clinical autism spectrum disorder studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generative models, such as Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), are increasingly employed for atypical pattern detection in brain imaging. During training, these models learn to capture the underlying patterns within "normal" brain images and generate new samples from those patterns. Neurodivergent states can be observed by measuring the dissimilarity between the generated/reconstructed images and the input images. This paper leverages VAEs to conduct Functional Connectivity (FC) analysis from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), aiming to uncover atypical interconnectivity between brain regions. In the first part of our study, we compare multiple VAE architectures—Conditional VAE, Recurrent VAE, and a hybrid of CNN parallel with RNN VAE—aiming to establish the effectiveness of VAEs in application FC analysis. Given the nature of the disorder, ASD exhibits a higher prevalence among males than females. Therefore, in the second part of this paper, we investigate if introducing phenotypic data could improve the performance of VAEs and, consequently, FC analysis. We compare our results with the findings from previous studies in the literature. The results showed that CNN-based VAE architecture is more effective for this application than the other models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have traditionally been considered separate disorders, although some similarities and overlaps in certain aspects of language have been detected. In this paper, we compare the deficits in receptive grammar in these two disorders. We analyse the proportion of grammatical errors in relation to semantic complexity in 84 children divided into four groups: children with autism language impairment (ALI), with autism language normal (ALN), with DLD, and with typical development (TD), all groups with the same age of receptive vocabulary. The results show significant differences in the comprehension of grammatical structures, both simple (canonical and non-reversible) and complex (non-canonical and reversible). Children with ASD and DLD show different language profiles depending on the syntactic complexity. In the simplest structures, no differences are found between the groups, starting at an equivalent vocabulary age of 7:8 years. However, there are differences between the ALI and DLD groups with respect to the TD group in the more complex structures, starting at an equivalent vocabulary age of 3 years. Therefore, both groups ALI and DLD present the greatest difficulties compared to ALN and TD. The paper discusses the importance of attending to these differences, since the repercussion of comprehension difficulties increases as children grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite increasing knowledge of social communication skills of autistic peole, the interrelatedness of different skills such as non‐linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills is not much known about. A better understanding of the complex interplay between different domains of social communication helps us to develop assessment protocols for individuals with social communication difficulties. Aims: To compare the performances of autistic young adults, young adults with autistic traits identified in childhood and control young adults in social communication tasks measuring non‐linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills. In addition, to examine associations between the different social communication measures. Methods & Procedures: Autistic young adults (n = 34), young adults with autistic traits (n = 19) and control young adults (n = 36) completed the extra‐ and paralinguistic scales of the Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo), the Faux Pas Recognition Test, Social–Pragmatic Questions (SoPra) and the Empathy Quotient (EQ). Outcomes & Results: Group differences were found in the performance in the ABaCo, SoPra and EQ scores. Compared with the control young adults, autistic young adults scored lower. The performance of the young adults in the autistic traits group fell in between the other two groups. There were no group differences in the Faux Pas Recognition Test. The variability within the groups was large in all measurements. In the control group, there was a significant correlation between EQ and SoPra scores and between the Faux Pas and SoPra scores. In the autistic group, a significant correlation was found between Faux Pas and SoPra scores. Also, other patterns were observed but these were not statistically significant. Conclusions & Implications: The young adults with autistic traits fell in between the control and autistic young adults, highlighting the presence of the continuum in the terms of features of social communication. The results support other current research that suggests that theory of mind and other social communication skills may not be universally or widely impaired in all autistic individuals without cognitive deficits. Although all tasks examined social communication skills, only a small number of significant correlations were found between test scores. This highlights that clinical conclusions about a person's social communication should be based on the outcomes of different types of methods measuring different aspects of social communication. It is clear that the interrelatedness of different social communication skills needs further research. What This Paper Adds: What is already known on this subject: For successful communication, the ability to infer others' emotions, intentions and mental states is crucial. Autistic people have difficulty with many aspects of social communication. However, the associations between different aspects of social communication need to be better understood. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: The unique contribution of this study is to compare the performance of autistic people not only with that of a control group but also with people with childhood autistic traits. This provides an understanding of the interrelatedness of different social communication skills in people with varying degrees of autistic traits. This study used four assessment methods focusing on three different social communication elements (non‐linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills). These elements have complex relationships to one another, some being closely overlapping, some more distally related and some reflect more complex multifactorial elements. This study shows that although groups differ from each other in most of the assessments, the performance of different groups overlapped showing that many autistic young adults can perform well in non‐linguistic and social inference tasks in structured assessment contexts. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Our findings suggest that in the assessment of social communication, self‐reports and clinical assessments can be used effectively together. They can complement each other, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of a person, leading to more personalized therapeutic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand how teachers' attitudes are contributing to or hindering the educational inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Implicit and explicit measurement of the attitudes of fifty pre-service teachers towards ASD before and after a short-term training on Autism is presented. The explicit measure used was a Likert-type questionnaire, while the implicit measure was a Single Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT). After statistical analysis of the data, it was found that prospective teachers' explicit attitudes were positive before the short-term training, and they were significantly better after it. Conversely, participants' implicit attitudes were neutral before the short-term training, and no significant difference was found after it. Additionally, no statistically significant relation was obtained between explicit and implicit attitudes, either before or after training, which suggests that the used instruments measure different attitudinal constructs. According to the remaining findings, it is concluded that explicit attitudes may be more prone to social desirability bias than implicit ones, implying that future attitudes research regarding sensitive topics such as the educational inclusion of students with Autism should combine both measures. Moreover, implicit attitudes seem more difficult to change than explicit ones. Some implications for pre-service teacher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, virtual reality technology, which is able to simulate real-life environments, has been widely used in the field of intervention for individuals with autism and has demonstrated distinct advantages. This review aimed to evaluate the impact of virtual reality technology on safety skills intervention for individuals with autism. After searching and screening three databases, a total of 20 pertinent articles were included. There were six articles dedicated to the VR training of street-crossing skills for individuals with autism, nine articles focusing on the training of driving skills for individuals with ASD, and three studies examining the training of bus riding for individuals with ASD. Furthermore, there were two studies on the training of air travel skills for individuals with ASD. First, we found that training in some complex skills (e.g., driving skills) should be selected for older, high-functioning individuals with ASD, to determine their capacity to participate in the training using scales or questionnaires before the intervention; VR devices with higher levels of immersion are not suitable for younger individuals with ASD. Second, VR is effective in training safety skills for ASD, but there is not enough evidence to determine the relationship between the level of VR immersion and intervention effects. Although the degree of virtual reality involvement has an impact on the ability of ASD to be generalized to the real world, it is important to ensure that future virtual reality settings are realistic and lifelike. Again, adaptive models that provide personalized training to individuals with ASD in VR environments are very promising, and future research should continue in this direction. This paper also discusses the limitations of these studies, as well as potential future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Suicide is a complex issue that must be considered within an interdisciplinary context, regarding the role of sociocultural factors such as support, values, beliefs, economic status, upbringing, and stigma. The objective of this article is to review and raise awareness of current evidence-based data regarding suicidality among people with ASD, by analysing the latest academic papers. It is noted that people with ASD are at elevated risk of suicidal behaviour. Materials and methods: The search for relevant materials was conducted using the PubMed, Medline, and Embase databases. Articles were chosen according to their significance, with a focus on the risk factors and management of suicidality among people with autism spectrum disorder. Results: The article identified risk factors of suicide behaviours among people with ASD such as co-occurring mental health conditions, difficulty in expressing emotions, social isolation, bullying and victimisation, lack of access to mental health care, and difficulty in adapting to change. To prevent suicide in individuals with ASD, it is essential to identify and address these risk factors and provide appropriate support and interventions. Conclusions: The review of published literature provides insights into manifestations of ASD and the common features associated with the disorder. Evidence-based treatments and interventions for ASD are evolving over time, and there is a great demand for randomised controlled trials to investigate their effectiveness. Clinicians’ knowledge and attitudes play a crucial role in suicide prevention for individuals with ASD, and there is a need for reliable, adapted risk-assessment tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We recently read the interesting and informative paper entitled "Empathic accuracy and cognitive and affective empathy in young adults with and without autism spectrum disorder" (McKenzie et al. in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 52: 1–15, 2021). This paper expands recent findings from our lab (Ben-David in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 50: 741-756, 2020a; International Journal of Audiology 60: 319–321, 2020b) and a recent theoretical framework (Icht et al. in Autism Research 14: 1948–1964, 2021) that may suggest a new purview for McKenzie et al.'s results. Namely, these papers suggest that young adults with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability can successfully recruit their cognitive abilities to distinguish between different simple spoken emotions, but may still face difficulties processing complex, subtle emotions. McKenzie et al. (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 52: 1–15, 2021) extended these findings to the processing of emotions in video clips, with both visual and auditory information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide an update on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including epidemiology, etiopathogenesis, clinical presentation, instrumental investigations, early signs, onset patterns, neuropsychological hypotheses, treatments, and long-term outcome. The prevalence of this condition has increased enormously over the last few decades. This increase prompted a search for possible environmental factors whose effects would add up to a genetic predisposition leading to the development of autism. But the genetic and environmental variables involved are extremely numerous, and conclusive data regarding the etiopathogenesis are still far away. Assuming that a well-defined etiology is still found today only in a minority of cases, numerous pathogenetic mechanisms have been hypothesized. Among these, we mention oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, alteration of the intestinal microbiota, immune dysregulation, and neuroinflammation. These pathogenetic mechanisms could alter epigenetic status and gene expression, finally leading to ASD. Inherent in the term spectrum is the great clinical heterogeneity of this condition, mainly due to the frequent comorbidity that characterizes it. The earlier the diagnosis is made and the earlier psychoeducational treatment begins, the better the prognosis. In this sense, the role of pediatricians can be decisive in making children with signs suggestive of autism undergo a specialist diagnostic course. The development of increasingly advanced cognitive-behavioral educational techniques has considerably improved the prognosis of affected individuals, even though only a small minority of them come off the autistic spectrum. Pharmacological therapies are used to treat comorbidities. During childhood, the most important prognostic factor for long-term outcome seems to be intellectual functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a worldwide public health concern that poses unique challenges for both people on the spectrum and their families. It is critical that the world recognizes the magnitude of the problem without discrimination based on socioeconomic reasons. The goal of this study is to look at the relationship between health information-seeking behavior (HISB) and socioeconomic factors in parents of autistic children, as well as the implications for support and therapies. This paper presents the conceptual framework of health information seeking behavior and socioeconomic influences among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on the impact of socioeconomic factors such as parent’s age, income, qualification, and occupation as factors that may lead on their information-seeking tendencies. This study will be using a quantitative method. The findings have important consequences for both research and practice. It may help the government, nongovernmental organizations, and autism research centers provide specific support services and interventions in the development of policies and programs that address knowledge and resource gaps, thereby increasing the well-being of ASD households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism is called "spectrum" disorder because there is a wide variation in the type and the severity of symptoms that people experience. India has a vast population, diverse cultures, and multiple languages, making it crucial to under- stand the unique challenges faced by individuals with autism spectrum disorder in the Indian context. This narrative review explores the current state of knowledge about autism spectrum disorder in the Indian context. Databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Sage journals, and other sources were searched with relevant terms for preparing this review. All published literature till January 2023 was studied and those which met the inclusion criteria were included. The resources included were original research articles, review articles, web pages, and book chapters addressing the purpose of the paper. Forty-eight such studies which met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. Results showed that the prevalence of autism varied across different studies in India. The study found advanced paternal age, fetal distress, gestational respiratory infections, labor complications, preterm birth, neonatal jaundice, delayed birth cry, birth asphyxia, late initiation of breastfeeding, neonatal seizures, use of maternal hormonal intervention, and consanguinity as some of the identified risk factors of autism spectrum disorder. Parents and families of children with autism have to go through a complex negative experience, both in the family and the community. This negative experience is further compounded by the lack of awareness and access to appropriate professional help and resources. It can be concluded that there is an urgent need for services that help parents cope with the stress of parenting a child with autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory of mind (ToM) represents a complex ability, while persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encounter difficulties in the processing of ToM. The present ToM-focused studies on adults with ASD report inconsistent results, possibly owing to the differences between tasks. For instance, different ToM-related tasks involve different cognitive abilities, but the development of these cognitive abilities is different among adults with ASD, thereby leading to different behaviors by the same individual with ASD in different tasks. Therefore, it is of vital significance to explore the potential reasons for inconsistencies in the existing studies based on the task classification perspective. Hence, this study primarily reviews the existing ToM tasks used in studies on adults with ASD; afterward, based on the forms and characteristics of the task, the current ToM tasks are classified into four categories—reading comprehension, perceptual scene comprehension, comprehensive scene comprehension , and self–other processing. Subsequently, a meta-analysis is undertaken to determine the difference in each ToM task category between the ASD group and the typically developing (TD) group. As a result, 110 research papers (including 3,205 adults with ASD and 3,675 TD adults) that fulfilled the stated criteria are examined in this study. The study findings suggest that adults with ASD demonstrate worse performance in terms of all four ToM task categories as compared to TD adults. Furthermore, compared with tasks of self–other processing and perceptual scene comprehension, adults with ASD perform worse in reading comprehension and comprehensive scene comprehension. This shows that the differences between tasks may exert a potential influence on the study results. Future studies should focus on different abilities involved in ToM processing and the choice of ToM tasks, in order to elucidate the critical problems of ToM in adults with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depression compared to caregivers of neurotypical children. The high levels of stress and the prevalence of emotional disorders experienced by caregivers may negatively impact their capacity and confidence to effectively manage their child's complex emotional and behavioral needs. Given these demands, caregivers of children with ASD require additional support to improve their psychological well-being and parenting self-efficacy. While support programs and treatments for children and adolescents with ASD are abundant, prevention programs that specifically targeted the emotional well-being of caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic were limited. In this case paper, we describe Coping Options for Parent Empowerment (COPE), a prevention program for parents adapted from the Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adults, Children, and Adolescents developed during the pandemic. To alleviate the stressors faced by caregivers during the pandemic and beyond, including increased caregiving responsibilities and financial difficulties, Project COPE targeted parent anxiety and depression through four brief, telehealth group sessions provided free of cost for caregivers of school-age children with ASD. In the case example presented, decreases in anxiety and depression, and increases in parent self-efficacy were reported after completing this program. Key insights about the intervention's feasibility and content reported by parents are described. Findings suggest that the intervention removes some treatment access barriers typically seen in caregivers of children with ASD during and following the pandemic and that the program can be modified to increase engagement and acceptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or autism, can be diagnosed based on a lack of behavioral skills and social communication. The most prominent method of diagnosing ASD in children is observing the child's behavior, including some of the signs that the child repeats. Hand flapping is a common stimming behavior in children with ASD. This research paper aims to identify children's abnormal behavior, which might be a sign of autism, using videos recorded in a natural setting during the children's regular activities. Specifically, this study seeks to classify self-stimulatory activities, such as hand flapping, as well as normal behavior in real-time. Two deep learning video classification methods are used to be trained on the publicly available Self-Stimulatory Behavior Dataset (SSBD). The first method is VGG-16-LSTM; VGG-16 to spatial feature extraction and long short-term memory networks (LSTM) for temporal features. The second method is a long-term recurrent convolutional network (LRCN) that learns spatial and temporal features immediately in end-to-end training. The VGG-16-LSTM achieved 0.93% on the testing set, while the LRCN model achieved an accuracy of 0.96% on the testing set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The externalising of problems and implementation of interactive metaphors may improve emotional regulation of those clients presenting with autism spectrum disorder. This paper describes a new eight‐session treatment protocol in terms of using preferred interest metaphors with the strengths and strategies of client and family across the home, school, and community settings of client life. This exploratory treatment intervention uses externalising metaphors therapy as a brief treatment modality, addressing emotional regulation concerns of youth on the autism spectrum. The treatment model concretises affective states and creatively leverages visual strengths to improve this common presenting concern for this population. A case study on family therapy is presented with the protocol overview and illustrations. Further research is needed to address the testable hypotheses and identify the mediators of change resulting from this current model. This research would help to establish best practices in a clinical population for which there is no broadly accepted treatment paradigm. Mr. McGuinty has indicated that there are no conflicts of interest in this manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnosis is a profoundly social phenomenon which, while putatively identifying disease entities, also provides insights into how societies understand and explain health, illness and deviance. In this paper, we explore how diagnosis becomes part of popular culture through its use in many non-clinical settings. From historical diagnosis of long-deceased public personalities to media diagnoses of prominent politicians and even diagnostic analysis of fictitious characters, the diagnosis does meaningful social work, explaining diversity and legitimising deviance in the popular imagination. We discuss a range of diagnostic approaches from paleopathography to fictopathography, which all take place outside of the clinic. Through pathography, diagnosis creeps into widespread and everyday domains it has not occupied previously, performing medicalisation through popularisation. We describe how these pathographies capture, not the disorders of historical or fictitious figures, rather, the anxieties of a contemporary society, eager to explain deviance in ways that helps to make sense of the world, past, present and imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Eye tracking has attracted the attention of Chinese scholars because it can objectively, timely and non-invasively reflect the eye movement and attention characteristics of autistic patients, which makes up for the lack of objectivity of traditional measurement methods. However, there is yet no visualization analysis of literature on eye tracking in autistic patients. OBJECTIVE: To perform the visualization analysis of relevant Chinese and English literature on eye tracking in autism and to understand the research overview, hot spots and trends in this field. METHODS: Literature related to eye tracking in autistic patients were searched in Web of Science Core Collection database and CNKI database from their inception to November 5, 2021. Bibliometrics and visualization analysis of key node information in the literature was conducted using CiteSpace software (R5.8.R1). The main observation indexes were node centrality, co-occurrence frequency or co-citation frequency, and burst time. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: A total of 1 458 papers were included in the Web of Science core Collection database, the first of which was published in 1994, and 210 papers were included in the CNKI database, the first of which was published in 2007. The international author with the most publications is JOHNSON MH who is from the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, and the institution with the most publications is University College London. In China, Chen Shunsen who is from the Institute of Applied Psychology of Minnan Normal University has published the most papers, and the institution with the most publications is the Institute of Applied Psychology of Minnan Normal University. There are some differences between domestic and international research hotspots. Domestic researchers mostly focus on the attentional bias behavior pattern of children with autism towards external social cues, and their results mainly show that children with autism have attentional bias of negative emotional cues and eye attention bias. International researchers not only focus on the visual patterns of processing social cues in children and infants with autism, but also use brain imaging technology to study the underlying neural mechanisms of abnormal visual behavior patterns. The main research results are that the abnormal attention pattern of autism patients is mainly related to the activation of amygdala, occipito-temporal lobe and fusiform gyrus. Further research on biomarkers related to autism is required to provide objective indicators for early diagnosis and intervention of autistic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although the importance of early detection and early intervention of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is widely recognized, multiple barriers exist in accessing early intervention services. As an alternative to these barriers, the SCOPE project presents a new, easy accessible and blended intervention called BEAR (Blended E-health for children at eArly Risk). This paper describes this BEAR intervention and study design of an ongoing two arm cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT). Methods: BEAR (Blended E-health for children at eArly Risk) is a blended e-health intervention, based on evidence-based naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBI’s) and can be offered to parents and infants/toddlers at high likelihood for ASD. During the ongoing RCT, N = 88 high risk infants and toddlers will be cluster randomized over the BEAR intervention and care-as-usual (CAU) conditions. The finalized version of the intervention protocol and study design are presented in this paper. The primary outcome measure is joint engagement measured by the Joint Engagement Rating Inventory (JERI) during videotaped parent–child interaction. Secondary outcome measures include severity of ASD symptoms, global level of adaptive functioning, parental well-being, parental skills and satisfaction with healthcare. Also, costs will be estimated from society's perspective. Assessments take place at the start of the study (T1), after eight weeks (T2) and after six months (T3) and include behavioral home observations and parental questionnaires. Discussion: The SCOPE project aims to contribute to improved early identification and timely start of suitable interventions for infants and toddlers at elevated likelihood for ASD. This ongoing RCT will offer insight in the feasibility, short-term and six months effects of the innovative BEAR intervention. It is estimated that inclusion for the trial (N = 88) is completed in spring 2023. Trial registration: Dutch Trial Register, NTR7695. Registered at December 17th, 2018, . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic evaluations can help decision makers identify what services for children with neurodevelopmental disorders provide best value-for-money. The aim of this paper is to review the best available economic evidence to support decision making for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children and adolescents. We conducted a systematic review of economic evaluations of ADHD and ASD interventions including studies published 2010–2020, identified through Econlit, Medline, PsychINFO, and ERIC databases. Only full economic evaluations comparing two or more options, considering both costs and consequences were included. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Drummond checklist. We identified ten studies of moderate-to-good quality on the cost-effectiveness of treatments for ADHD and two studies of good quality of interventions for ASD. The majority of ADHD studies evaluated pharmacotherapy (n = 8), and two investigated the economic value of psychosocial/behavioral interventions. Both economic evaluations for ASD investigated early and communication interventions. Included studies support the cost-effectiveness of behavioral parenting interventions for younger children with ADHD. Among pharmacotherapies for ADHD, different combinations of stimulant/non-stimulant medications for children were cost-effective at willingness-to-pay thresholds reported in the original papers. Early intervention for children with suspected ASD was cost-effective, but communication-focused therapy for preschool children with ASD was not. Prioritizing more studies in this area would allow decision makers to promote cost-effective and clinically effective interventions for this target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bridging the research–practice gap in autism communication services is an identified priority for improving services. Limited research has investigated the views of practitioners regarding this research–practice gap. Investigation of the barriers experienced and facilitators used in clinical practice may assist to identify scalable and sustainable strategies to increase use of evidence‐based practices (EBPs) in the delivery of communication services to children with autism. Aims: To elucidate how Australian speech pathologists engage with external evidence and how communication outcomes are measured to demonstrate the effectiveness of service provision to children with autism. Methods & Procedures: A total of 15 Australian speech pathologists, with experience ranging from less than 1 to more than 16 years, participated in three focus groups. Data from focus groups were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis within an interpretive phenomenological paradigm. Outcomes & Results: Seven themes were identified. Participants reported on the diversity of individuals with autism, their experiences of resource constraints, seeking collegial advice and accessing a diverse range of evidence sources, the role of clinical expertise in translating evidence to practice, the barriers experienced in outcome measurement and use of stakeholders to facilitate data collection to demonstrate outcomes. Conclusions & Implications: Individual practitioner skill and beliefs are facilitators to translating research to practice. Interventions to improve clinician use of EBP should address the skill and belief barriers, aiming to increase a clinician's EBP self‐efficacy and increasing their expectation that investing in EBP activities will result in improved services for children with autism. Modelling and reflective practice are two strategies that may have an application as interventions to improve EBP use in clinical practice. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: Constrained resources, especially lack of time, is a barrier to routine uptake of best available evidence in clinical services for children with autism. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: In this study, the perception that speech pathologists lacked time to engage in EBP activities was linked with the speech pathologist's research skill and their beliefs about the benefits of engaging in EBP. Speech Pathologists reported using a range of information sources, as "evidence" but also reported feeling uneasy when using evidence of disputable, or unknown quality. Accessibility and relevance to their individual client were highly prioritised in selecting evidence. Clinical expertise was an essential skill for research translation. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Interventions which target professional beliefs and research translation capability are requisite for motivating speech pathologists to improve their use of EBP.Modelling of EBP use, individual reflective practice and collegial active listening to facilitate reflective practice, might be useful strategies which target beliefs and capability of individual speech pathologists; thereby changing their EBP use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder typically characterized by abnormalities in social interaction and stereotyped and repetitive behaviors. Diagnosis of autism is mainly based on behavioral tests and interviews. In recent years, studies involving the diagnosis of autism based on analysis of EEG signals have increased. In this paper, recorded signals from people suffering from autism and healthy individuals are divided to without overlap windows considered as images and these images are classified using a two-dimensional Deep Convolution Neural Network (2D-DCNN). Deep learning models require a lot of data to extract the appropriate features and automate data classification. But, in most neurological studies, preparing a large number of measurements is difficult (a few 1000s as compared to million natural images), due to the cost, time, and difficulty of recording these signals. Therefore, to make the appropriate number of data, in our proposed method, some of the data augmentation methods are used. These data augmentation methods are mainly introduced for image databases and should be generalized for EEG-as-an-image database. In this paper, one of the nonlinear image mixing methods is used that mixes the rows of two images. According to the fact that any row in our image is one channel of EEG signal, this method is named channel combination. The result is that in the best case, i.e., augmentation according to channel combination, the average accuracy of 88.29% is achieved in the classification of short signals of healthy people and ASD ones and 100% for ASD and epilepsy ones, using 2D-DCNN. After the decision on joined windows related to each subject, we could achieve 100% accuracy in detecting ASD subjects, according to long EEG signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the current state of the literature on response interruption and intervention (RIRD) beginning with the year the term was first coined. The paper aims to replicate and refine previous reviews on this topic by including: (1) only articles that used the term "RIRD"; (2) all behaviorally oriented journals with publications on the topic; (3) articles that evaluated RIRD across multiple topographies of automatically reinforced behavior; and (4) an evaluation of measures of treatment integrity, social validity, maintenance, and generality. Suggestions for future research and use of RIRD in clinical practice will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the importance of early screening and diagnosis has been subject to considerable discussion. Given the subtle differences between ASD children and typically developing children during the early stages of development, it is imperative to investigate the utilization of automatic recognition methods powered by artificial intelligence. We aim to summarize the research work on this topic and sort out the markers that can be used for identification.We searched the papers published in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SpringerLink, Wiley Online Library, and EBSCO databases from 1st January 2013 to 13th November 2023, and 43 articles were included.These articles mainly divided recognition markers into five categories: gaze behaviors, facial expressions, motor movements, voice features, and task performance. Based on the above markers, the accuracy of artificial intelligence screening ranged from 62.13 to 100%, the sensitivity ranged from 69.67 to 100%, the specificity ranged from 54 to 100%.Therefore, artificial intelligence recognition holds promise as a tool for identifying children with ASD. However, it still needs to continually enhance the screening model and improve accuracy through multimodal screening, thereby facilitating timely intervention and treatment.Methods: With the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the importance of early screening and diagnosis has been subject to considerable discussion. Given the subtle differences between ASD children and typically developing children during the early stages of development, it is imperative to investigate the utilization of automatic recognition methods powered by artificial intelligence. We aim to summarize the research work on this topic and sort out the markers that can be used for identification.We searched the papers published in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SpringerLink, Wiley Online Library, and EBSCO databases from 1st January 2013 to 13th November 2023, and 43 articles were included.These articles mainly divided recognition markers into five categories: gaze behaviors, facial expressions, motor movements, voice features, and task performance. Based on the above markers, the accuracy of artificial intelligence screening ranged from 62.13 to 100%, the sensitivity ranged from 69.67 to 100%, the specificity ranged from 54 to 100%.Therefore, artificial intelligence recognition holds promise as a tool for identifying children with ASD. However, it still needs to continually enhance the screening model and improve accuracy through multimodal screening, thereby facilitating timely intervention and treatment.Results: With the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the importance of early screening and diagnosis has been subject to considerable discussion. Given the subtle differences between ASD children and typically developing children during the early stages of development, it is imperative to investigate the utilization of automatic recognition methods powered by artificial intelligence. We aim to summarize the research work on this topic and sort out the markers that can be used for identification.We searched the papers published in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SpringerLink, Wiley Online Library, and EBSCO databases from 1st January 2013 to 13th November 2023, and 43 articles were included.These articles mainly divided recognition markers into five categories: gaze behaviors, facial expressions, motor movements, voice features, and task performance. Based on the above markers, the accuracy of artificial intelligence screening ranged from 62.13 to 100%, the sensitivity ranged from 69.67 to 100%, the specificity ranged from 54 to 100%.Therefore, artificial intelligence recognition holds promise as a tool for identifying children with ASD. However, it still needs to continually enhance the screening model and improve accuracy through multimodal screening, thereby facilitating timely intervention and treatment.Conclusion: With the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the importance of early screening and diagnosis has been subject to considerable discussion. Given the subtle differences between ASD children and typically developing children during the early stages of development, it is imperative to investigate the utilization of automatic recognition methods powered by artificial intelligence. We aim to summarize the research work on this topic and sort out the markers that can be used for identification.We searched the papers published in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SpringerLink, Wiley Online Library, and EBSCO databases from 1st January 2013 to 13th November 2023, and 43 articles were included.These articles mainly divided recognition markers into five categories: gaze behaviors, facial expressions, motor movements, voice features, and task performance. Based on the above markers, the accuracy of artificial intelligence screening ranged from 62.13 to 100%, the sensitivity ranged from 69.67 to 100%, the specificity ranged from 54 to 100%.Therefore, artificial intelligence recognition holds promise as a tool for identifying children with ASD. However, it still needs to continually enhance the screening model and improve accuracy through multimodal screening, thereby facilitating timely intervention and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of this paper is to identify the trajectory of conduct and emotional problems for young people within the general population at four time points (between 9 years 7 months and 16 years 6 months), investigate their relationship with hyperactive/inattentive traits and explore the moderating effect of autistic social traits (ASTs). Methods: Data from 9305 individuals involved in The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) study were included. Conduct and emotional problems and hyperactive/inattentive traits were measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. ASTs were assessed using the Social Communication Disorder Checklist. Individual trajectories for conduct and emotional problems were identified via growth curve modelling. Hyperactive/inattentive traits were included within the growth curve model as a time-varying covariate to determine their effect on these outcomes. Finally, participants were split into two groups (below and above clinical threshold ASTs Groups) and multi-group invariance testing was conducted on the data to identify the moderating effect of ASTs on the relationship between hyperactive/inattentive traits and outcomes (i.e. conduct and emotional problems). Results: Hyperactive/inattentive traits were associated with higher rates of conduct and emotional problems for both boys and girls. The presence of ASTs moderated these relationships for boys, but not for girls, by increasing the risk of boys with hyperactive/inattentive traits developing greater conduct and emotional problems. Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of identifying hyperactive/inattentive traits and ASTs in young people and addressing the increased risk of conduct and emotional problems. Research and clinical implications are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]