Research indicates that mothers of children with ID who receive familial support experience less stress than those who receive less support. Less is known about the relation of support to mothers' evaluation of parenting self-efficacy, particularly in Latino families. We examined the relationship of different types of family support to life…

Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome exhibit high rates of social-behavioral problems, particularly in the internalizing domain, indicating an area in need of intervention. The current investigation was designed to obtain information regarding parent and teacher ratings of the social-emotional behavior of children with 22q11DS. Using the Child…

There have been limited direct tests of the hypothesis that self-injurious behavior (SIB) regulates arousal. In this study, two autonomic biomarkers for physiological arousal (heart rate [HR] and the high-frequency [HF] component of heart rate variability [HRV]) were investigated in relation to SIB for 3 participants with intellectual…

Despite the increased risk for anxiety disorders in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), there is a lack of research on the assessment and treatment of anxiety in this population, particularly for those with an intellectual disability (ID). The present study evaluated a multimethod strategy for the assessment of anxiety and problem…

Although the assertion of a link between vaccines and autism has been scientifically rejected, the theory continues to be popular and may influence the attitudes of parents of children with autism spectrum disorders. The authors sought to assess how often parents change or discontinue their child's vaccine schedule after autism spectrum disorder…

Parental school involvement and satisfaction are unstudied in families raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To fill this gap, the current study utilized a national sample of families (N = 8,978) from the 2007 Parent and Family Involvement in Education survey (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education…

We examine how the family environment is associated with aspects of the Fragile X syndrome phenotype during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Mothers of children (n = 48), adolescents (n = 85), and adults (n = 34) with Fragile X syndrome participated in a multisite study. For children and adults with Fragile X syndrome, the presence of warmth…

In the current study, the authors examined whether the fatigue level of children diagnosed with cri du chat syndrome was associated with the expression of autistic symptoms. Sixty-nine children with cri du chat syndrome were compared with 47 children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities who did not differ on intellectual severity.…

Perception of time, in the seconds to minutes range, is not well characterized in autism. The required interval timing system (ITS) develops at the same stages during infancy as communication, social reciprocity, and other cognitive and behavioral functions. The authors used two versions of a temporal bisection procedure to study the perception of…

Researchers examining the relationship of autism "symptomatology" and maternal stress have defined symptomatology in terms of level of severity, frequency of occurrence, or symptom type. In the present study, the relationship of maternal perceptions of these dimensions, along with a fourth, symptom diversity, and negative and positive indices of…

A functional polymorphism in the promoter of the gene encoding monoamine oxidase A has been associated with problem behavior in various populations. We examined the association of MAOA alleles in adult males with intellectual/developmental disabilities with and without established histories of problem behavior. These data were compared with a…

Individual change and variation in emotional/behavioral disturbance in children and adolescents with intellectual disability has received little empirical investigation. Based on 11 years of longitudinal data from the Australian Child to Adult Development Study, we report associations among individual differences in level, rate of change, and…

We used experimental and descriptive functional analyses and lag sequential analyses to examine the functional and temporal relationship among the self-injurious (SIB), potentially injurious, repetitive, challenging, and pragmatic communicative behaviors of 6 children with intellectual disabilities. Functional analyses revealed social function for…

The experience of stressful social interactions, negative causal attributions, and the use of maladaptive coping efforts help maintain depression over time in the general population. We investigated whether a similar experience occurs among adults with mild intellectual disability. We compared the frequency and stress impact of such interactions,…

To describe the early phenotype of girls with full mutation fragile X, we used 54 observations of 15 girls between the ages of 6 months and 9 years to examine developmental trajectories as measured by the Battelle Development Inventory. In this sample, autistic behavior was associated with poorer developmental outcomes, primarily due to…