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Introduction Autism refers to an early-onset neurodevelopmental condition with characteristic impairments and difficulties in practical living skills, which persist across the lifespan such that adults with autism often require substantial support and comprehensive care. Yet, mental health and other services are frequently unavailable for adults with autism despite considerable need for mental healthcare and individual, familial and socioeconomic burdens. This study will (1) examine current needs, barriers and burdens related to ineffective healthcare of adults with autism in Germany, (2) develop specific recommendations for a need-oriented mental healthcare model and (3) evaluate its future implementation. Methods and analysis A mixed-methods design with three phases will be conducted. In phase 1, current mental healthcare for adults with autism will be assessed at three levels (individual, structural and professional) and from three perspectives (adults with autism, relatives and healthcare providers) using (1) focus groups/interviews (qualitative data) and (2) large-scale online surveys (quantitative data). Furthermore, service utilisation and related costs will be estimated. In phase 2, recommendations for a future healthcare model will be derived based on phase 1, considering the heterogeneous and complex needs within the autism spectrum and specifying indications for recommended services. In phase 3, these will again be evaluated by the three stakeholder groups using mixed-methods and analysed regarding feasibility of implementation and cost-effectiveness. Our study will, thus, contribute to a better translation of recommendations into practice to reduce disability, burden and costs related to ineffective healthcare and improve mental health outcomes for adults with autism and those who support them. Ethics and dissemination This study was approved by the Local Psychological Ethics Commission of the Center for Psychosocial Medicine at the University Medical Ce

Depuis la refonte des politiques en éducation, les établissements scolaires en Guadeloupe sont invités à revisiter leur fonctionnement en accordant une large place au travail collectif. Dès lors, la collaboration, inscrite au cœur des pratiques professionnelles, est mise de l’avant, notamment, dans la formation continue destinée aux chefs d’établissements scolaires ainsi qu’aux enseignants. Les institutions, que sont le ministère de l’Éducation nationale de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la recherche et l’Enseignement catholique français, incitent les communautés éducatives à coconstruire leurs apprentissages dans une visée d’ajustement des pratiques (Couture, Dionne et Savoie-Zajc, 2012), voire de développement professionnel (Uwamariya et Mukamurera, 2005). Toutefois, nous en savons peu sur les dispositifs pouvant être instaurés qui valoriseraient la collaboration dans une visée de développement continue des apprentissages au sein des communautés éducatives que forment les personnels scolaires oeuvrant dans les collèges et lycées à l’Enseignement catholique français en Guadeloupe. De là, la pertinence sociale de l’objet d’étude. Pour leur part, les recherches menées en Europe, en Amérique du Nord et plus singulièrement en France ont contribué aux connaissances sur le développement professionnel valorisant la mise à jour des compétences de ces derniers. Selon Roussel (2015), pour ce faire, il est incontournable qu’ils définissent eux-mêmes celles-ci en tant qu’acteur premier en les coconstruisant par l’intermédiaire de la collaboration. Cependant, la ‘‘timidité’’ des recherches par rapport aux relations entre la coconstruction instaurée dans des dynamiques collaboratives et l’émergence d’une communauté apprenante, s’instaurant au sein des communautés éducatives que sont les personnels des écoles, nous a amené à considérer la pertinence scientifique de l’objet d’étude, mais également sa pertinence pour les milieux de pratique. Ainsi, l’étude que nous avons menée inte, Since the overhaul of educational policies, schools in Guadeloupe are invited to revisit their operation by giving a large space forcollective work. Therefore, collaboration, which is at the heart of professional practices, is put forward, in particular, in continuing education for headteachers and teachers. The institutions, which are the Ministry of National Education of Higher Education and Research and French Catholic Education, promoteeducational communities to co-construct their learning with the aim of adjusting practices (Couture, Dionne and Savoie-Zajc, 2012), or even professional development (Uwamariya and Mukamurera, 2005). However, we know little about the mechanisms that can be implemented that would value collaboration in a goal of continuous development of learning withineducational communities that train school personnel working in colleges and high schools to French Catholic Education in Guadeloupe. Hence, the social relevance of the object of study. For their part, research conducted in Europe, North America and moreparticularly in France contributed to the knowledge of professional development, valuing the updating of their skills. According to Roussel (2015), to do this, it is essential that they themselves define these as a primary actor by co-constructing them through collaboration. However, the "shyness" of research in relation to the relationships between co-construction established in collaborative dynamics and the emergence of a learning community, established within the educational communities that are the school staff, has brought us to consider the scientific relevance of the object of study, but also its relevance for practice environments. Thus, the study that we conducted questions the following research question: In a social learning perspective, what are the relational dynamics between co-construction, collaboration, learning community and representations? In order to answer them scientifically, the conceptual framework ar

Theories of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have focused on altered perceptual integration of sensory features as a possible core deficit. Yet, there is little understanding of the neuronal processing of elementary sensory features in ASD. For typically developed individuals, we previously established a direct link between frequency-specific neural activity and the intensity of a specific sensory feature: Gamma-band activity in the visual cortex increased approximately linearly with the strength of visual motion. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated whether in individuals with ASD neural activity reflect the coherence, and thus intensity, of visual motion in a similar fashion. Thirteen adult participants with ASD and 14 control participants performed a motion direction discrimination task with increasing levels of motion coherence. A polynomial regression analysis revealed that gamma-band power increased significantly stronger with motion coherence in ASD compared to controls, suggesting excessive visual activation with increasing stimulus intensity originating from motion-responsive visual areas V3, V6 and hMT/V5. Enhanced neural responses with increasing stimulus intensity suggest an enhanced response gain in ASD. Response gain is controlled by excitatory-inhibitory interactions, which also drive high-frequency oscillations in the gamma-band. Thus, our data suggest that a disturbed excitatory-inhibitory balance underlies enhanced neural responses to coherent motion in ASD.

Theories of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have focused on altered perceptual integration of sensory features as a possible core deficit. Yet, there is little understanding of the neuronal processing of elementary sensory features in ASD. For typically developed individuals, we previously established a direct link between frequency-specific neural activity and the intensity of a specific sensory feature: Gamma-band activity in the visual cortex increased approximately linearly with the strength of visual motion. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated whether in individuals with ASD neural activity reflect the coherence, and thus intensity, of visual motion in a similar fashion. Thirteen adult participants with ASD and 14 control participants performed a motion direction discrimination task with increasing levels of motion coherence. A polynomial regression analysis revealed that gamma-band power increased significantly stronger with motion coherence in ASD compared to controls, suggesting excessive visual activation with increasing stimulus intensity originating from motion-responsive visual areas V3, V6 and hMT/V5. Enhanced neural responses with increasing stimulus intensity suggest an enhanced response gain in ASD. Response gain is controlled by excitatory-inhibitory interactions, which also drive high-frequency oscillations in the gamma-band. Thus, our data suggest that a disturbed excitatory-inhibitory balance underlies enhanced neural responses to coherent motion in ASD.

Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show hallmark deficits in social perception. These difficulties might also reflect fundamental deficits in integrating visual signals. We contrasted predictions of a social perception and a spatial-temporal integration deficit account. Participants with ASD and matched controls performed two tasks: the first required spatiotemporal integration of global motion signals without social meaning, the second required processing of socially relevant local motion. The ASD group only showed differences to controls in social motion evaluation. In addition, gray matter volume in the temporal-parietal junction correlated positively with accuracy in social motion perception in the ASD group. Our findings suggest that social-perceptual difficulties in ASD cannot be reduced to deficits in spatial-temporal integration.

Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show hallmark deficits in social perception. These difficulties might also reflect fundamental deficits in integrating visual signals. We contrasted predictions of a social perception and a spatial-temporal integration deficit account. Participants with ASD and matched controls performed two tasks: the first required spatiotemporal integration of global motion signals without social meaning, the second required processing of socially relevant local motion. The ASD group only showed differences to controls in social motion evaluation. In addition, gray matter volume in the temporal-parietal junction correlated positively with accuracy in social motion perception in the ASD group. Our findings suggest that social-perceptual difficulties in ASD cannot be reduced to deficits in spatial-temporal integration.

Individuals suffering from autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often show a tendency for detail-or feature-based perception (also referred to as local processing bias'') instead of more holistic stimulus processing typical for unaffected people. This local processing bias has been demonstrated for the visual and auditory domains and there is evidence that multisensory processing may also be affected in ASD. Most multisensory processing paradigms used social-communicative stimuli, such as human speech or faces, probing the processing of simultaneously occuring sensory signals. Multisensory processing, however, is not limited to simultaneous stimulation. In this study, we investigated whether multisensory processing deficits in ASD persist when semantically complex but nonsocial stimuli are presented in succession. Fifteen adult individuals with Asperger syndrome and 15 control persons participated in a visual-audio priming task, which required the classification of sounds that were either primed by semantically congruent or incongruent preceding pictures of objects. As expected, performance on congruent trials was faster and more accurate compared with incongruent trials (crossmodal priming effect). The Asperger group, however, did not differ significantly from the control group. Our results do not support a general multisensory processing deficit, which is universal to the entire autism spectrum. Autism Res 2011,4: 383-388. (C) 2011 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Individuals suffering from autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often show a tendency for detail-or feature-based perception (also referred to as local processing bias'') instead of more holistic stimulus processing typical for unaffected people. This local processing bias has been demonstrated for the visual and auditory domains and there is evidence that multisensory processing may also be affected in ASD. Most multisensory processing paradigms used social-communicative stimuli, such as human speech or faces, probing the processing of simultaneously occuring sensory signals. Multisensory processing, however, is not limited to simultaneous stimulation. In this study, we investigated whether multisensory processing deficits in ASD persist when semantically complex but nonsocial stimuli are presented in succession. Fifteen adult individuals with Asperger syndrome and 15 control persons participated in a visual-audio priming task, which required the classification of sounds that were either primed by semantically congruent or incongruent preceding pictures of objects. As expected, performance on congruent trials was faster and more accurate compared with incongruent trials (crossmodal priming effect). The Asperger group, however, did not differ significantly from the control group. Our results do not support a general multisensory processing deficit, which is universal to the entire autism spectrum. Autism Res 2011,4: 383-388. (C) 2011 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Individuals with autism often show a fragmented way of perceiving their environment, suggesting a disorder of information integration, possibly due to disrupted communication between brain areas. We investigated thirteen individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and thirteen healthy controls using the metastable motion quartet, a stimulus consisting of two dots alternately presented at four locations of a hypothetical square, thereby inducing an apparent motion percept. This percept is vertical or horizontal, the latter requiring binding of motion signals across cerebral hemispheres. Decreasing the horizontal distance between dots could facilitate horizontal percepts. We found evidence for altered horizontal binding in HFA: Individuals with HFA needed stronger facilitation to experience horizontal motion. These data are interpreted in light of reduced cross-hemispheric communication.

Individuals with autism often show a fragmented way of perceiving their environment, suggesting a disorder of information integration, possibly due to disrupted communication between brain areas. We investigated thirteen individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and thirteen healthy controls using the metastable motion quartet, a stimulus consisting of two dots alternately presented at four locations of a hypothetical square, thereby inducing an apparent motion percept. This percept is vertical or horizontal, the latter requiring binding of motion signals across cerebral hemispheres. Decreasing the horizontal distance between dots could facilitate horizontal percepts. We found evidence for altered horizontal binding in HFA: Individuals with HFA needed stronger facilitation to experience horizontal motion. These data are interpreted in light of reduced cross-hemispheric communication.