Autism spectrum disorder is a growing public health concern in low-and middle-income countries that has prompted a World Health Organization resolution on "comprehensive and coordinated efforts for management of autism spectrum disorder." Despite being a signatory of the resolution, South Africa does not have any national policies to…

Autism and other developmental disabilities are common in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Organization developed the caregiver skills training programme to address the needs of families having children with developmental disabilities globally. This study explored the acceptability and feasibility of the caregiver skills training…

Caring for children with developmental delays or disabilities places significant stress on caregivers, which is often exacerbated in low-resource settings. The World Health Organization developed a caregiver skills training for families of children with developmental delays or disabilities, which includes a three-session caregiver well-being…

Understanding caregivers' needs is crucial for service planning and empowering caregivers around the world. Although research on autism from Arab countries is emerging, many countries are still unrepresented. Moreover, within-country disparities are understudied. This study investigated differences in needs, service use, and satisfaction between…

Autism spectrum disorder requires a careful approach from professionals and a favorable clinical environment for dental care and assistance. This article aims To perform a literature review about oral health among people with autism spectrum disorder and dental management strategies for this group. An integrative literature review was carried out…

Multi-sensory environments are widely used with autistic children. However, there are no data on how autistic children choose to spend time in the room and how this relates to their sensory, behavioural and intellectual profiles. We observed the frequency and duration of visits to multi-sensory environment equipment of 41 autistic children during…

Researchers increasingly employ longitudinal trajectory methods to understand developmental pathways of people on the autism spectrum across the lifespan. By assessing developmental or health-related outcome domains at three or more timepoints, trajectory studies can characterize their shape and varying rates of change over time. The purpose of…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted a range of health services for children across the United States. Autistic children have well-documented deficits in health-related services compared to nonautistic children. Parents of autistic children reported an increase in mental health and behavior problems with the onset of the pandemic, increasing the need…

The mediators of real-world executive functions in autism during the transition into adulthood are mainly unknown. This study aimed to identify the mediators for the behavioral and cognitive domains of real-world executive functions in late adolescent and young adult autistic populations. We followed up 289 autistic children (aged 11.6 ± 3.8, male…

Over the past few years, screen-based usage among children and youth has increased significantly, particularly among those with autism. Yet current screen time guidelines do not address the specific needs of autistic children and youth. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop specific and clear guidelines and strategies that…

Little is currently known about the autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-related difficulties of females narrowly below the ASD diagnostic threshold and whether the disorder conceptualisation should be broadened to capture their presentations. We extracted fine-grained information from the assessment reports of 222 children who were either diagnosed…

Significant barriers to training have been introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting in-person professional activities resulting in the development of the novel remote training. We developed and evaluated a remote training approach for master trainers of the Caregiver Skills Training Program. Master trainers support community practitioners,…

Multidimensional theory of mind assessments should include items assessing both explicit theory of mind (theory of mind knowledge) and applied theory of mind (application of theory of mind knowledge in real-life contexts). However, the two theory of mind scores cannot be interpreted collectively to identify children having mismatched explicit and…

Parents of autistic children have historically reported hardships related to raising their children. However, the access to resources related to the childrearing of an autistic child is not equitable, therefore resulting in exacerbated difficulties for parents in low-resource settings. In these situations, peer support may be a protective factor…

Physical exercise is widely reported beneficial to executive functions in children with autism spectrum disorder. However, its impact on self-regulation in the population remains unknown. This study is to test whether two types of physical exercise (cognitively engaging vs non-cognitively engaging) benefited self-regulation and whether the social,…