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Background: Social perception skills, such as understanding the mind and emotions of others, affect children's communication abilities in real-life situations. In addition to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is increasing knowledge that children with specific language impairment (SLI) also demonstrate difficulties in their social perception abilities. Aims: To compare the performance of children with SLI, ASD and typical development (TD) in social perception tasks measuring Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition. In addition, to evaluate the association between social perception tasks and language tests measuring word-finding abilities, knowledge of grammatical morphology and verbal working memory. Method & Procedures: Children with SLI (n = 18), ASD (n = 14) and TD (n = 25) completed two NEPSY-II subtests measuring social perception abilities: (1) Affect Recognition and (2) ToM (includes Verbal and non-verbal Contextual tasks). In addition, children's word-finding abilities were measured with the TWF-2, grammatical morphology by using the Grammatical Closure subtest of ITPA, and verbal working memory by using subtests of Sentence Repetition or Word List Interference (chosen according the child's age) of the NEPSY-II. Outcomes & Results: Children with ASD scored significantly lower than children with SLI or TD on the NEPSY-II Affect Recognition subtest. Both SLI and ASD groups scored significantly lower than TD children on Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest of NEPSY-II. However, there were no significant group differences on non-verbal Contextual tasks of the ToM subtest of the NEPSY-II. Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest were correlated with the Grammatical Closure subtest and TWF-2 in children with SLI. In children with ASD correlation between TWF-2 and ToM: Verbal tasks was moderate, almost achieving statistical significance, but no other correlations were found. Conclusions & Implications: Both SLI and ASD groups showed difficulties in tasks measuring verbal ToM but differences were not found in tasks measuring non-verbal Contextual ToM. The association between Verbal ToM tasks and language tests was stronger in children with SLI than in children with ASD. There is a need for further studies in order to understand interaction between different areas of language and cognitive development.

We evaluated social anxiety (SA) symptoms in parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs; N = 131) and community parents (N = 597) using the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI). SA was significantly more common in ASD than control mothers (15.6 vs. 6.7 %) and more equal between the ASD and control fathers (3.3 vs. 4.8 %). The ASD mothers scored significantly higher than control mothers on all SPAI scales. ASD fathers scored significantly higher than control fathers on the somatic, cognitive, avoidance and agoraphobic symptoms of SA. It is of clinical import to support ASD parents' well-being as their psychiatric features may contribute greatly to their children's emotional development and the well-being of the whole family.

In this follow-up study, we evaluated children's communication development at the ages of 8 ("n" = 50), 18 ("n" = 46), 24 ("n" = 44) and 36 months ("n" = 36) using the Finnish version of the "MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories" (MCDI). A sample of children ("n" = 14) received family-based intervention 10 times in five months and mother-infant relationship was examined using the "Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment" (PC-ERA) before (at the age of 9-12 months) and after (at the age of 15-18 months) the intervention. The infants' communication skills developed from the use of few words and signs of understanding to that of longer sentences and better grammar during the study period. Specifically, girls scored higher than the boys on the 24-month MCDI. Eight-month-old infants with siblings in the family were more competent than those without siblings, measured using the PC-ERA "infant" variables. However, there were no significant differences in the MCDI or PC-ERA scores between children with and without intervention. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

We assessed the validity and determined cut-off scores for the Finnish Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ). A population sample of 8-year-old children (n = 4,408) was rated via the ASSQ by parents and/or teachers, and a subgroup of 104 children was examined via structured interview, semi-structured observation, IQ measurement, school observation, and medical records. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were diagnosed following DSM-IV-TR criteria. A search for hospital-registered ASDs was performed. For Finnish higher-functioning primary school-aged, 7- to 12-year-olds, the optimal cut-off score was 30 in clinical settings and 28 in total population screening using summed ASSQ scores of parents' and teachers' ratings. Determining appropriate cut-off scores in ASD screening in different languages and in different cultures is of utmost importance.

Developmental needs should be assessed in early infancy and followed longitudinally to improve identification, prevention and intervention efforts.The objective was to examine the relationship between competencies and areas of need in toddlers' development, and to describe the properties and utility of the Brief Infant Toddler Social-Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) in a pilot study in Northern Finland. Parents (N = 50) evaluated toddler development at 18 and 36 months. Assessments included the BITSEA, the Child Behavior Checklist and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Lower communicative skills were associated with an increase in toddler behavioural problems. Social-emotional competence (S-EC) was associated with better communication development. Parents reporting enhanced communication skills and S-EC in their toddlers also reported fewer behavioural problems in their young children; however, further research employing the BITSEA in a larger and heterogeneous sample of Finnish children is needed to determine appropriate cut-off scores and reliability especially for the unique subscales of BITSEA. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) have reported to have impairments in face, recognition and face memory, but intact object recognition and object memory. Potential abnormalities, in these fields at the family level of high-functioning children with ASD remains understudied despite, the ever-mounting evidence that ASDs are genetic and highly heritable disorders. Recent studies indicate also that face perception is heritability ability, thus impairments in facial memory may be, inherited from parents with or without ASD symptoms. We studied 45 high-functioning children with, ASD (M = 11.5 years) and 26 of their parents as well as 70 control community children (M = 12.4 years), and 73 of their parents. Three subtests of the Developmental Neuropsychological Evaluation (NEPSY), were administered. Results indicate that younger children with ASD (less than 11.9 years old) had poorer, facial memory than their control counterparts and that the facial memory improves with age in, children with ASD. Adolescents with ASD (greater than 11.9 years) performed better than their community, counterparts in visual object recognition. Parents of children with ASD share weakness in facial, memory ability and strength in visual object recognition with their children. Thus, families with, HFA/AS may benefit interventions of social cognition and attentional strategy. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Background. Previous studies investigating neuropsychological functioning of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have only analysed certain abilities, such as executive functions or language. While comprehensive assessment of the neuropsychological profile of children with ASD has been the focus of recent research, most of the published evidence originates from single centres. Though studies on differences in neuropsychological features of children with ASD across countries are essential for identifying different phenotypes of ASD, such studies have not been conducted. Objective. Our goal was to assess the neuropsychological abilities of children with ASD in northern Finland and Egypt and to examine the effect of age and intelligence quotient (IQ) on these abilities. Design. Selected verbal and non-verbal subtests of the neuropsychological assessment NEPSY were used to examine 88 children with ASD in northern Finland (n =54, age M =11.2, IQ M =117.1) and Egypt (n =34, age M =8.4, IQ M =96.6). Results. Finnish ASD children scored significantly higher than their Egyptian counterparts on the verbal NEPSY subtests Comprehension of Instructions (p B0.001), Comprehension of Sentence Structure (p B0.01), Narrative Memory (p B0.001) and Verbal Fluency (p B0.05) and on the non-verbal NEPSY subtest Design Fluency (p B0.01). Finnish and Egyptian ASD children did not differ on the subtests Memory for Faces, Object Recognition and Object Memory. In addition, we found that age and verbal IQ can have significant influence on neuropsychological performance. Conclusions. Our results suggest a possible cultural impact on verbal and visuomotor fluency. However, the ability to recognize and memorize objects and the disability to remember faces appear to be typical for ASD and culturally independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Difficulties in facial emotion recognition (ER) skills are linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in studies performed in Western and Eastern Asian countries. However, there is a paucity of research examining ER skills in Arab countries, where face-covering veils are more common than in Western countries., Objective: Our aim was to examine basic ER and ER error patterns in Egyptian and Finnish children with and without ASD., Method: We employed the eye-submodule of the Frankfurt Test and Training of Facial Affect Recognition (FEFA) and the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ)., Results: Arab children with ASD (n = 34, M age = 8.6 years, FSIQ = 96.7) recognized correctly fewer emotions than did Scandinavian children with ASD (n = 32, M age = 12.5 years, FSIQ = 102.8) and Arab typically developing (TD) children (n = 34, M age = 10.3 years, FSIQ = 123.4) in general and specifically on surprise, disgust and neutral scales as well as on a blended emotion scale. Scandinavian children with ASD demonstrated a lower ability to recognize emotions in general and specifically happiness than did Scandinavian TD children. There were no differences between Arab and Scandinavian (n = 28, M age = 13.9 years) TD children in ER accuracy. We found country specific differences in ER error patterns in happiness, sadness and anger: Arab children interpreted these emotions more often as another emotion (happiness = sadness, sadness = anger, anger = sadness and surprise), whereas Scandinavian children interpreted happiness and sadness as neutral expression and anger as disgust. Arab children with ASD labeled sadness and anger in their ER error patterns more negatively than did Arab TD children, but there were no differences between Scandinavian children with ASD and TD in ER error patterns., Conclusions: The differences between the Arab and Scandinavian children may reflect cultural differences in ER and ER error patterns.