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Autism is associated with genomic instability, which is regulated by telomere length (TL) and index of global methylation (LINE-1). This study will determine relative TL (RTL) and LINE-1 methylation percentage for 69 patients and 33 control subjects to evaluate their potential role as biomarkers for autism. The results displayed a significant decrease of both RTL and LINE-1 methylation in autistic cases relative to controls (P < 0.001). Analysis of receiver operating characteristics curve revealed that both of RTL and LINE-1 methylation percentage have the ability to serve as autism biomarkers (area under the curve = 0.817 and 0.889, respectively). The statistical analysis revealed positive correlation between the two biomarkers (correlation coefficient = 0.439 and P < 0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the measurable impact of the use of virtual interactive training agents (ViTA) as a way to practice interviewing and gain confidence in responding to questions asked during job interviews. Of the total participants (n = 153), the majority were male (72.55%) with an average age of 21.71 years old (SD = 3.14 years). Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs; 64.71%) and intellectual disability (40%) were the most frequently reported diagnoses. Using a within-subjects repeated measures design, the repeated measures linear regression analysis found that the average self-efficacy score increased by 0.31 (p = 0.002), and statistically significant increases were found in all three subscales. Further development of virtual reality interventions like ViTA, that improve outcomes for adults with ASDs and other developmental disabilities, is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Williams syndrome (WS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with atypical social-emotional functioning. Affective visual stimuli were used to assess autonomic reactivity and emotion identification, and the social responsiveness scale was used to determine the level social functioning in children with WS and ASD contrasted with typical development (TD), to examine syndrome-specific and syndrome-general features. Children with ASD exhibited the highest arousal in response to faces, with a lack of difference in autonomic sensitivity across different emotional expressions, unlike in WS and TD. The WS group demonstrated unique deficits in identifying neutral stimuli. While autonomic responsivity to neutral faces was associated with social functioning in all children, converging profiles characterized children with WS contrasted with TD and ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an earlier investigation, the authors assessed the reliability of the ADI-R when multiple clinicians evaluated a single case, here a female 3 year old toddler suspected of having an autism spectrum disorder (Cicchetti et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 38:764-770, ). Applying the clinical criteria of Cicchetti and Sparrow (Am J Men Def 86:127-137, ); and those of Cicchetti et al. (Child Neuropsychol 126-137, ): 74 % of the ADI-R items showed 100 % agreement; 6 % showed excellent agreement; 7 % showed good agreement; 3 % manifested average agreement; and the remaining 10 % evidenced poor agreement. In this follow-up investigation, the authors described and applied a novel method for determining levels of statistical significance of the reliability coefficients obtained in the earlier investigation. It is based upon a modification of the Z test for comparing a given level of inter-examiner reliability with a lower limit value of 70 % (Dixon and Massey in Introduction to statistical analysis. McGraw-Hill, New York, ). Results indicated that every item producing a clinically acceptable level of inter-examiner reliability was also statistically significant. However, the reverse was not true, since a number of the items with statistically significant reliability levels did not reach levels of agreement that were clinically meaningful. This indicated that clinical significance was an accurate marker of statistical significance. The generalization of these findings to other areas of diagnostic interest and importance is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]