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Lay Abstract: Self-injurious thoughts and behaviors are high among autistic youth, yet research most often relies on caregiver reports and does not include youth perspectives. Relatedly, specific characteristics of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (e.g. type of behavior, thought content, triggers), and choices to share these thoughts and behaviors with caregivers/parents (or not), have not been studied in autistic youth. With limited information on self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in autistic youth, clinicians and families supporting autistic youth in crisis continue to experience major challenges to best assess and support youth. Therefore, to begin to understand youth perspectives of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, we administered a self-injurious thoughts and behaviors clinical interview (Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale; C-SSRS) to 103 autistic youth without intellectual disability (10-17 years of age) at a clinic for outpatient mental health services. We added follow-up questions to the interview about suicide to better understand what youth think about when it comes to suicide, what triggers them to feel suicidal, and whether they let their caregiver know about what they are thinking and feeling. Results show that most autistic youth reported suicidal thoughts at some point in their life ( n  = 86; 83.5%), with thoughts of dying/suicide ( n  = 20; 23.3%) and death by cutting ( n  = 13; 15.1%) as common thought content. Half of youth experiencing suicidal thoughts ( n  = 43; 50.0%) did not share this with their caregiver. Nearly one in four youth had attempted suicide at some point in their life ( n  = 25; 24.3%), while some youth ( n  = 16; 15.5%) sought help from caregivers to prevent an attempt. Sadness/depression and bullying/teasing were the most common triggers of suicidal behaviors, while anger/frustration was the leading trigger for nonsuicidal self-injury. Findings can be used to improve current assessment tools and prevention approaches for autistic youth to create better support for autistic youth in crisis., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: J.M.S. received partial salary support as a clinical provider in the Psychiatry Autism Research Team Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, from which de-identified clinical data were generated for analyses in the present study. The authors declare no other actual or potential conflicts of interest.

Anxiety and depression are prevalent among autistic adolescents and may be difficult to accurately diagnose and treat given various factors (e.g., diagnostic overshadowing, heterogeneity). Therefore, efforts to examine transdiagnostic factors (i.e., distress tolerance, behavioral activation) may afford more parsimonious means for assessment and treatment. To our knowledge, there has been little research on distress tolerance, behavioral activation, and depressive and anxiety symptoms in autistic adolescents to guide diagnostic practices and treatment planning. In the current study, we examined the interrelationships between these transdiagnostic factors and depressive and anxiety symptoms using ratings from 100 verbally fluent autistic adolescents without intellectual disability (M age  = 13.70, SD age  = 2.23, Range: 11:00-17:11 years) and 100 of their caregivers. Many adolescents reported male sex assigned at birth (61%), cisgender (87%), not Hispanic/Latinx (90%), and White (80%) identities. A series of correlational analyses were employed to examine associations between these constructs from youth and caregiver perspectives, and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the mediating roles of distress tolerance and behavioral activation. Preliminary results show that low distress tolerance and behavioral activation were associated with more severe internalizing symptoms per self- and caregiver-report. Some differences by rater emerged, which highlight the importance of multi-informant ratings in autism. Results from mediation analyses may show that behavioral activation may be more salient to assessments and treatment planning for depression than distress tolerance, while distress tolerance may be important for both anxiety and depression; however, findings are preliminary given the cross-sectional nature of the data. Findings suggest that these transdiagnostic concepts may be important to individualizing treatment approaches, including the timing of certain approaches, for anxiety and/or depression in autistic adolescents., (© 2024 The Author(s). Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Autistic youth are more likely to experience depression than their non-autistic peers, yet research on risk and protective factors to depression in this population is limited. Behavioral activation (i.e., prioritizing and engaging in meaningful activities), including social activities, is an important mechanism in the pathway to depression in non-autistic youth that is understudied in autism. Ratings of youth depressive symptoms and behavioral and social activation at one timepoint from 100 autistic youth without intellectual disability and 100 of their caregivers were analyzed. The study aims were to examine caregiver and youth ratings of youth internalizing symptoms and behavioral and social activation, inter-rater reliability on study variables, and associations between depressive symptoms and behavioral and social activation in autistic youth by rater. Results revealed significant differences in youth and caregiver ratings on all variables and inter-rater reliability ranged from poor to moderate. Across both raters, more severe anxiety symptoms and lower behavioral activation were associated with more severe depressive symptoms; social activation, specifically the number of friends youth have, was significant in caregiver ratings only. Findings can be leveraged to enhance risk stratification and intervention efforts for autistic youth experiencing depression., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Children with neurologic disorders face increased risks for mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, with information often limited to parent report. To better understand mental health and neurodevelopmental needs in this population, a retrospective chart review of a convenience sample of children with neurologic disorders referred for a neuropsychological evaluation was conducted in the present study to explore interrater agreement between care team members (referring providers, parents, pediatric neuropsychologist). Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the evaluation reports of 129 youth (9:0-17:11 years old; 51.2% of female sex) with neurologic disorders (i.e., 38.0% traumatic brain injury, 27.1% epilepsy, 14.7% premature birth, 7.8% pediatric cancer, 3.9% prenatal substance exposure, and 14.7% other) who completed an evaluation in 2019. Over half the youth were flagged for unmet neurodevelopmental and mental health concerns and analyses revealed low interrater agreement for mental health concerns (κ = .324), better agreement for neurodevelopmental concerns (κ = .511), and low sensitivity of referring providers (Se = .326) and parents (Se = .366). One-way analyses of variance uncovered important factors (e.g., symptom severity, adaptive skills) that may account for missed concerns. Findings guide recommendations to strengthen methods for understanding mental health and/or neurodevelopmental concerns in children with neurologic disorders., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Lay Abstract: Depression in youth is a significant public health problem worldwide, particularly for autistic youth who are over twice as likely to experience depression than their non-autistic peers. Although pathways to depression are complex, emotional reactivity and negative self-esteem are two risk factors for depression in autistic and non-autistic youth. Although autistic youth are more likely to experience depression than their non-autistic peers, psychotherapy options for autistic youth are very limited; community guidance in the development and testing of psychotherapy programs is a promising approach in autism. Therefore, in this study, we designed an autism-adapted CBT-DAY, in collaboration with autistic community members. Specifically, CBT-DAY combined neurodiversity-affirming and cognitive behavioral approaches to target emotional reactivity and self-esteem in youth to improve depressive symptom severity in a group setting across 12 weeks. We examined the preliminary feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of CBT-DAY in a pilot non-randomized trial. In addition, we implemented a rigorous protocol for assessing, monitoring, and addressing potential harms in this intervention. Results from 24 autistic youth (11-17 years old) suggest that CBT-DAY may be feasible to use in an outpatient clinical setting and generally acceptable to youth and their caregivers. Participation in CBT-DAY may be associated with significant improvements in youth emotional reactivity and self-esteem, as well as depressive symptom severity per self-report only. Exploratory analyses showed that participation in CBT-DAY may also be associated with significant improvements in internalizing symptoms. Findings demonstrate the potential promise of neurodiversity-affirming and cognitive behavioral approaches to treating depressive symptoms in some autistic youth., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Jessica Schwartzman received partial salary support from facilitating the group therapy as a clinical provider in the Psychiatry Autism Research Team Clinic. Zachary Williams has received consulting fees from Roche, Autism Speaks, and the May Institute. He also serves on the family advisory committee of the Autism Speaks Autism Care Network Vanderbilt site and on the autistic researcher review board of the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P). Zachary Williams and Marissa Roth co-facilitated a portion of the therapy groups as clinical trainees and received clinical supervision hours in this role; they were not financially compensated. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

This study examined the role of lifetime and past 30-day experiences of sexual and gender minority (SGM) stress on clinical symptom severity in 286 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Participants completed measures of clinical symptoms, and SGM adolescents (n = 176, 61.5 %) reported on minority stress experiences across three domains (i.e., negative expectancies, internalized homonegativity, homonegative climate). SGM adolescents reported greater clinical symptom severity than non-SGM adolescents. Most SGM adolescents (77.3%) reported lifetime minority stress exposure, endorsing an average of 3.3 stressors (SD = 2.9). Among those endorsing lifetime minority stress history, 76.1% reported past 30-day minority stress exposure. Lifetime and recent minority stress exposure were positively associated with clinical symptom severity. Findings support the importance of assessing SGM identities and minority stress experiences in psychiatric settings and supporting youth in coping with these experiences., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest There are no conflicts of interest to disclose, (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Rates of psychiatric hospitalization among adolescents in the United States are rising, with many adolescents presenting to these settings with diverse clinical presentations, including autistic traits. To our knowledge, there has been little research identifying clinical characteristics of adolescents with autistic traits admitted to psychiatric inpatient units, which may be leveraged to improve assessment and treatment practices., Method: In the current study, we examined clinical and demographic characteristics of 195 adolescents admitted to an adolescent psychiatric inpatient unit. Specifically, we investigated the prevalence of adolescents endorsing elevated autistic traits and tested associations between autistic traits, psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts), and key demographic variables (age, sex, gender, sexual orientation)., Results: Results show that over half of the adolescents admitted to the psychiatric inpatient unit reported elevated autistic traits on a short screening questionnaire. Higher autistic traits were significantly associated with more severe depressive symptoms, though to a small degree. Autistic traits were not associated with anxiety symptoms, suicidal thoughts, nor social disconnectedness, and did not differ by sex, gender identity, nor sexual orientation., Conclusions: Findings highlight the challenge of diagnostic overshadowing among adolescents in crisis and the need for more rigorous measures designed for an inpatient setting to improve risk stratification, clinical assessments, intervention approaches, and discharge planning.

Despite the popularity of social skills groups, there remains a need for empirical investigation of treatment effects, especially when targeting pivotal aspects of social functioning such as initiations to peers. The goal of the present study was to conduct a randomized controlled trial of a 12-week social intervention (SUCCESS), which combined an inclusive social group with a parent education program. Twenty-five 4- to 6-year-olds with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were randomized to SUCCESS (N = 11) or to treatment as usual (N = 14). Combining a peer group model with a parent training program, the SUCCESS intervention used naturalistic behavioral techniques (e.g., environmental arrangement, natural reinforcement) to increase social initiations to peers. After 12 weeks, children participating in the SUCCESS program made more frequent initiations to peers than children in the treatment-as-usual group, including more prompted and unprompted initiations to request. Additional gains in clinician-rated social functioning were observed in children randomized to SUCCESS, while differential treatment effects were not detected in parent-rated measures. However, lower baseline social motivation was associated with greater parent-reported initiation improvement. This study provides preliminary support for the efficacy of a naturalistic, behavioral social skills intervention to improve peer initiations for children with ASD. The findings suggest that using a motivation-based social skills group was effective in increasing both prompted and spontaneous initiations to peers, and highlights the need for further research into the role of baseline social motivation in predicting social skills treatment response., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Individuals with Tourette syndrome (TS) have poorer quality of life (QoL) than their peers, yet factors contributing to poor QoL in this population remain unclear. Research to date has predominantly focused on the impact of tics and psychiatric symptoms on QoL in TS samples. The aim of this cross-sectional, multi-informant study was to identify psychosocial variables that may impact adolescent QoL in TS. Thirty-eight adolescents aged 13 to 17 with TS and 28 age-matched controls participated with a caregiver. No group differences were found on QoL, although the TS group reported reduced QoL compared to population normative data. In the TS group, reduced QoL was associated with lower self-esteem, poorer family functioning, higher stress, and greater depression and anxiety; QoL was unrelated to tic severity. In regression analyses, after adjusting for covariates, family functioning was the strongest predictor of QoL. These results emphasize the need to further explore the influence of psychosocial factors, particularly family functioning, on QoL in adolescents with TS., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Lay Abstract: Autistic adolescents are more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury than non-autistic adolescents, per caregiver- and self-report on single-item questionnaires. Comprehensive, clinician-rated measures of suicide risk have not been used to measure suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury in autistic youth despite greater parent-child rating discrepancies among autistic youth than their non-autistic peers. The Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale is a widely used, clinician-rated measure of suicide risk that has not been tested with autistic youth. In this study, the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale was employed to assess suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury in a community sample of 239 early adolescents (10:0-13:9 years old), of whom 138 youth were autistic and 101 were not autistic. Multiple analyses examined diagnostic (autistic vs non-autistic) and sex-based (male vs female) differences in suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury, as well as youth consistency in reporting across self- and clinician-rated measures. Findings show that a greater proportion of autistic youth reported lifetime suicidal thoughts and nonsuicidal self-injury than non-autistic youth; however, there were no sex-based differences. The majority of non-autistic youth were consistent in reporting suicidal thoughts on self- and clinician-rated measures; however, nearly one in five autistic youth disclosed suicidal thoughts on a self-report measure but not to a psychiatrist on the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Findings suggest that autism diagnostic status, but not sex, confers significant risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury in early adolescents and that the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale may be a useful measure of suicide risk for some autistic youth, but it may not detect all autistic youth experiencing suicidal thoughts., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Lay Abstract: Autistic youth and adults are more likely to experience psychiatric symptoms (e.g. depression, anxiety) and to use psychiatric services than non-autistic people, yet research on evidence-based approaches to enhance psychiatric care for autistic people is limited. Measurement-based care is an evidence-based approach to psychotherapy that improves outcomes for clients, clinicians, and organizations by routinely administering and evaluating measures to clients. Despite this, research on measurement-based care systems for autistic clients is sparse. To address this gap, we developed an autism-adapted measurement-based care (MBC-AUT) system for and with autistic people and pilot tested the system in an outpatient psychiatry clinic to investigate the preliminary feasibility, acceptability, benefits, and barriers to this system for clients and clinicians. Findings suggested that the MBC-AUT system was a feasible and acceptable system for the first 18 autistic youth, their caregivers, and autistic adults to use the system. In semi-structured interviews, clients and clinicians discussed the benefits of the MBC-AUT system to various therapeutic processes, as well as several important barriers to the use of the system. We offer potential solutions to address these barriers and to reduce client and clinician burden, and propose future directions for this line of research to increase access to more autistic people. As autistic clients continue to seek psychological services amid social landscapes of increasing complexity (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic), efforts to enhance the delivery of psychotherapy for this population are critical.

The present study aimed to examine anxiety profiles among children and adolescents on the autism spectrum. It further aimed to characterize the association between the identified anxiety profiles and key clinical and developmental variables. The Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Parent Version (SCAS-P) data from a large international pooled sample of 870 caregivers of autistic children and adolescents (M age  = 11.6 years, SD age  = 2.77; 107 females) was used. Latent profile analysis identified a three-anxiety profile solution exhibiting high entropy (0.80) and high latent profile probabilities, with good classification accuracy. Identified profiles fell along the severity spectrum and were named as the mild (n = 498), moderate (n = 272) and severe (n = 100) anxiety profiles. There were no statistically significant differences between the three anxiety profiles in terms of sex distribution. Participants in the mild profile were significantly younger than those in the severe profile, had significantly fewer social communication difficulties than youth in the moderate anxiety profile group and had significantly fewer restricted and repetitive behaviors and lower cognitive functioning scores compared to participants in moderate and severe anxiety profiles. This is the first study to move beyond identifying associations and group-level differences to exploring and identifying characteristics of anxiety-based subgroups at an individual level that differ on key clinical and developmental variables. The subgroups identified in this study are a preliminary, yet important, first step towards informing future assessment and individualized interventions aiming to support young people on the autism spectrum to reduce and manage anxiety. LAY SUMMARY: This study tried to understand if there are subgroups of autistic young people who may have similar anxiety profiles. We found that we could meaningfully group young people into three groups based on how severe the anxiety symptoms their caregivers reported were: a group with low levels of anxiety, those with moderate anxiety, and those with more severe anxiety. We also found that the young people in the mild group were younger, had fewer autism traits and lower levels of intellectual functioning than young people in the other two groups., (© 2022 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Depression is more prevalent among autistic adults than neurotypical adults, yet risk factors are incompletely understood in this population. Some research groups have focused on relationships between negative repetitive thinking and depression in the autistic population, which may explain elevated prevalence rates in line with general population findings on rumination and internalizing disorders. Little is known about associations between depression and more prototypical repetitive cognitions and/or behaviors characteristic of autism (i.e., insistence on sameness [IS] and repetitive sensorimotor [RSM] behaviors). Therefore, the present study aimed to examine associations between IS, RSM behaviors, and depressive symptoms in 762 autistic adults, and whether observed effects are confounded by additional factors (e.g., demographic factors, trait neuroticism). To test if greater IS scores were associated with greater depressive symptoms on the BDI-II, a Bayesian linear regression was conducted with BDI-II scores (dependent variable) regressed on age, gender, educational level, RSM scores, and IS scores (independent variables). To test the effects of neuroticism on observed relationships, a second regression was conducted that included all predictors from the baseline model and neuroticism. Standardized regression coefficients were tested against an interval null hypothesis of [-0.1, 0.1] to assess for practical significance. Results indicated that IS exhibited a moderate positive relationship with depressive symptoms, while RSM behaviors provided only a slight increase in predictive ability. However in the second model, neuroticism exhibited a strong positive relationship with depressive symptoms, completely attenuating the effect of IS. Associations between RSM behaviors and depressive symptoms did not meet our criteria for practical significance, particularly when neuroticism was added to the model. Neither RSM nor IS moderated the effect of neuroticism on depression. The findings from this study add to the literature on risk factors in the pathway to depression in autism, and suggest opportunities for clinical translation to screening and intervention efforts. Screening for IS in autistic individuals is a common diagnostic practice in clinical and research settings that may be leveraged to also identify those at higher risk for depression, and increasing flexibility in daily life may promote emotional regulation and distress tolerance., Competing Interests: ZW has served as a consultant for Roche. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Schwartzman, Williams, Richards, Mattheiss and Gotham.)

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience elevated stress, yet parent-specific interventions are sparse. Thirty-five parents of children with ASD were randomized to the novel 8-week AMOR (Acceptance, Mindfulness, Optimism, Resilience) Method parent group or waitlist control group. Significant gains in resilience were reported by AMOR parents only (d = 1.42, p < 0.001, 95% CI [2.152, 10.083]). AMOR parents exhibited significant gains in stress management and reductions in mental health symptoms, along with parent-reported improvements in martial, family, and child functioning. AMOR group follow-up data showed some maintenance of treatment gains. Findings demonstrate promise for resilience interventions in parents of children with ASD. The trial was registered (clinicaltrials.gov; NCT03513419; May 1, 2018) and approved by the Stanford University Institutional Review Board., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Lay Abstract: Depression is more common in autistic adolescents than their neurotypical peers, but the effects of diagnosis and sex on the severity and types of depressive symptoms remain unclear. The study explored diagnostic- and sex-based differences in depressive symptoms in 212 autistic and neurotypical early adolescents. Results show that autism spectrum disorder and female may pose elevated risks, and depressive symptoms related to interpersonal problems and negative self-esteem are more frequent in autism spectrum disorder. Autistic males and females endorsed similar severity and type of depressive symptoms, but unique differences emerged when compared to sex-matched neurotypical peers. Exploratory analyses in a clinical subsample of early adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms (Children's Depression Inventory, Second Edition, Total T -score ⩾60) revealed more endorsement of beliefs of worthlessness in autistic early adolescents. Findings suggest initial intervention targets for treating depression in autistic early adolescents.

Competing Interests: POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Deficits in social skills are common in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and there is an urgent need for effective social skills interventions, especially for improving interactions with typically developing peers. This study examined the effects of a naturalistic behavioral social skills intervention in improving social initiations to peers through a randomized controlled trial. Analyses of multimethod, multi-informant measures indicated that children in the active group (SIMI) demonstrated greater improvement in the types of initiations which were systematically prompted and reinforced during treatment (i.e., behavior regulation). Generalization to joint attention and social interaction initiation types, as well as collateral gains in broader social functioning on clinician- and parent-rated standardized measures were also observed., (© 2021. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Lay Abstract: Elevated parenting stress among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder is well-documented; however, there is limited information about differences in parenting stress and potential relationships with parent ratings of child functioning. The aim of this study was to explore profiles of parenting stress among 100 parents of young children with autism spectrum disorder enrolled in two clinical trials and to explore relationships between parenting stress level and parent ratings of child functioning before treatment. Secondary aims examined differential patterns of association between parenting stress profiles and parent versus clinician ratings of child functioning. We show that stress may influence parent ratings of certain child behaviors (e.g. problem behaviors) and not others (e.g. language), yet clinician ratings of these same children do not differ. This new understanding of parenting stress has implications for parent-rated measures, tracking treatment outcome, and the design of clinical trials.

In the wake of COVID-19, the world has become a more uncertain environment-a breeding ground for stress and anxiety, especially for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study examined stress, anxiety, and coping in a data-driven, real-time assessment of 122 youth with and without ASD and their parents at the height of the COVID-19 shutdown and three-months later. Standardized measures were administered to ascertain stress and coping explicitly related to the pandemic (RSQ COVID-19-Child [self-report], Adult [self-report from the guardian of youth], Parent [report about child]) and anxiety (STAI-C, STAI-A). Multivariate, univariate analyses of variance and hierarchical regression were used. ASD youth endorsed more Trait anxiety and response to specific stressors (e.g., virus). Caregivers of youth with ASD (Adults) self-reported higher anxiety, yet scores were elevated for both groups. Adults of youth with ASD reported more stress, especially related to the virus, access to healthcare, and concern for the future. In the TD group, youth and adults used more Primary and Secondary Control Coping whereas ASD youth and adults used more Disengagement Coping. Adult stress was the primary predictor of parent perception of child stress as well as Child self-reported stress. While the ASD group was consistently high compared to the TD group, there were no significant changes over time for stress or anxiety. Results reveal striking differences in youth with ASD and their parents regarding stress, anxiety, and coping. Findings highlight the need for essential support, access to services, and strategies to enhance psychological and emotional well-being. LAY SUMMARY: This study examined stress, anxiety, and coping related to the COVID-19 pandemic in 61 youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 61 youth with typical development (TD) and their parents. Results showed that ASD youth reported more anxiety and stress. Adults of youth with ASD indicated higher self-reported anxiety and stress than adults of TD youth. TD youth and their parents reported using more adaptive coping strategies. Findings highlight the need for strategies to enhance psychological and emotional well-being., (© 2021 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Given the high prevalence of communication deficits in developmental disorders, there is need for efficient early interventions. The aim of this pilot study is to examine benefits of pivotal response treatment (PRT) for improving language in young children with developmental disorders without autism spectrum disorder. Parents of 15 children with developmental disorders received weekly PRT parent training for 12 weeks. Standardized parent-rated assessments were administered at baseline and post-treatment to measure changes in language. Structured laboratory observation indicated children demonstrated significantly greater frequency of utterances and improvement on standardized questionnaires measuring expressive language and adaptive communication skills following PRT. Findings suggest that PRT may be efficacious in improving language abilities among children with developmental disorders., (©AAIDD.)

Camouflaging refers to behavioral adaptations that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially females, use to mask symptoms during social situations. Compensation is a component of camouflaging in which an individual's observed behavior is considerably better than actual ability. The study explored diagnostic, sex-based, and compensatory differences using the Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (CASS). The sample included 161 youth 10:0-to-16:11 years (115 males, 46 females). T-tests were performed based on sex (female, male) or High (good ADOS + poor Theory of Mind (TOM)) compared to Low (poor ADOS + poor TOM) Compensation groups. Comparisons were examined for Social Affect (SA), Restricted Repetitive Behavior, (RRB), IQ, social behavior (Positive Affect, Overall Involvement) and communication (Vocal Expression, Gestures). Females exhibited fewer RRB t(158) = 3.05, P = 0.003, d = 0.54. For the CASS, females evidenced more Vocal Expressiveness t(157) = -2.03, P = 0.05, d = 0.35, which corroborates sex-based differences in the literature. Compensation group differences indicated the High compared to Low group showed stronger Social and Communication behaviors on the CASS for Vocal Expression t(72) = 2.56, P = 0.01, d = 0.62, and overall rapport t(72) = 2.36, P = 0.02, d = 0.56. Several differences were observed when the groups were stratified based on level of compensation, with the High compensation participants showing stronger social engagement and communication behaviors. Findings may inform efforts to understand camouflaging, compensation, and clinical practices for male and female adolescents with ASD. A more nuanced consideration of camouflaging alongside compensation models reveals subtle differences in cognition, behavior, and affect that may reflect underlying profiles of challenge and strength in youth with ASD. LAY SUMMARY: Camouflaging refers to ways individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially females, mask symptoms. Compensation occurs when a person's observed behavior appears more typical than what would be expected based on underlying ability and symptoms. The study explored camouflaging and compensation differences in 161 youth with ASD. Findings suggest sex-based differences with females showing better vocal expression. However, several compensation differences were observed with the High compensators showing stronger social communication and rapport. A more nuanced consideration of camouflaging using compensation models reveal subtle differences in underlying challenge and strength., (© 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Depression is more prevalent among male early adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) than their typically- developing (TD) peers, but findings are limited to two male-only studies. Therefore, a broader understanding of depressive symptoms among both male and female early adolescents with ASD in larger samples is needed. Self- and parent-ratings are frequently used, yet rater differences may emerge and provide unique insights., Method: Ratings of adolescent depressive symptoms were examined among 230 early adolescents (10:0-13:5 years) with and without ASD using self- (Children's Depression Inventory, Second Edition; CDI-2) and parent- report (Child Behavior Checklist; CBCL) measures. The influence of diagnostic group (ASD vs. TD) and rater (early adolescent vs. parent) on ratings were examined with Full Scale IQ and sex as covariates. Additionally, the reliability and strength of agreement between raters were examined., Results: Higher depressive symptoms were reported by both raters in the ASD group (Borderline range) compared to the TD group (Average range). The interaction of diagnostic group and rater was nonsignificant, but significant main effects emerged. Sex was a significant covariate, but Full Scale IQ was not. The reliability and strength of agreement between raters in the ASD group only were not significant., Conclusions: Findings suggest that depressive symptoms may be higher in both male and female early adolescents with ASD across self- and parent- reports. However, measurement of depression in ASD may be complicated by nonsignificant reliability and strength of agreement between raters. Results have implications for screening and intervention for early adolescents with ASD., Competing Interests: Author Conflicts of Interest: None to report for any of the authors.