Children with autism demonstrate early deficits in joint attention and expressions of affect. Interventions to teach joint attention have addressed gaze behavior, gestures, and vocalizations, but have not specifically taught an expression of positive affect such as smiling that tends to occur during joint attention interactions. Intervention was…

Previous clinical and genetic studies have suggested autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is associated with immunological abnormalities involving cytokines, immunoglobulins, inflammation, and cellular immunity, but epidemiological reports are still limited. Patients with ASDs were identified in the National Health Insurance Database from 1996 to…

We aimed to investigate the Health Related Quality of Life and related clinical variables (HRQoL) of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). We included 102 children with ASD (46 with autism, 38 with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) and 18 with Asperger's syndrome (AS)) and 39 typically developing children…

Despite repeated findings of abnormal corpus callosum structure in autism, the developmental trajectories of corpus callosum growth in the disorder have not yet been reported. In this study, we examined corpus callosum size from a developmental perspective across a 30-year age range in a large cross-sectional sample of individuals with autism…

This study assessed the validity of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) in a sample of 69 adults, aged 18-40 years old. Participants included 21 adults diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID), and 48 individuals diagnosed with ID and no diagnosis of an ASD. The SCQ yielded a sensitivity of 0.71…

Studies have shown that children with ASD have increased severity and incidence of pain symptoms compared to typically developing children and children with other disorders. Pain has also been shown to act as a setting event for problem behavior. Further, problem behavior is one of the biggest impediments to quality of life for families and highly…

This study examined individual differences in self-regulation, emotional and behavioral school engagement, and prosocial peer engagement in a sample of 40 children that included children with high functioning autism (HFA; n = 20) and their typical peers (n = 20). Children were 54.57 months on average at recruitment. Measures of self-regulation…

We examined the effects of constructed-response matching-to-sample (CRMTS) training on the generalization of reading and spelling skills in three Japanese children with autism using a series of overlapping-syllable word sets. We taught them to construct printed words to match printed words, spoken words, and pictures through the CRMTS procedure.…

The primary aim of this paper was to investigate heterogeneity in language abilities of children with a confirmed diagnosis of an ASD (N = 20) and children with typical development (TD; N = 15). Group comparisons revealed no differences between ASD and TD participants on standard clinical assessments of language ability, reading ability or…

Agreement between the DSM-5, DSM-IV, and Checklist for Autism Spectrum Disorder was assessed in 125 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which included high and low functioning autism (HFA and LFA) and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS), and children with other clinical disorders (e.g., ADHD, mental…

Hope is shown to provide resiliency for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) against the negative effects related to extreme parenting stressors. The broad positivity of hope may overlook opposing parental feelings about their child that may be important for well-being. Vicarious futurity (VF) is the hope and despair a parent…

Although it is well known that families of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk for increased stress and other problems, little is known about what child characteristics may mediate that risk. To address the impact of child behavior problems on family health, we examined data collected from 136 families raising children with…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have strong preferences for screen-based media, particularly video games. Although problematic video game use has been associated with behavior problems among typically developing children, the relationship between these variables has not been previously examined among children with ASD. The current…

This systematic review aims to determine whether or not structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) data support the DSM-5 proposal of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnostic category, and whether or not classical DSM-IV autistic disorder (AD) and Asperger syndrome (AS) categories should be subsumed into it. The most replicated sMRI findings…

Postural control is a fundamental building block of each child's daily activities. The aim of this study was to compare patterns of postural sway in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with typically developing children (TD). We recruited 21 schoolchildren diagnosed with ASD aged 9-14 and 30 TD pupils aged 8-15. Postural sway parameters…