Lay Abstracts

Title: Motor Skills of Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Authors: Lloyd, MacDonald and Lord

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311402230

Lay abstract: With increased interest in the early diagnosis and treatment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), more attention has been called to the motor skills of very young children with ASD. This paper describes the gross motor (e.g. running, kicking, catching) and fine motor (e.g. tying laces, holding a pencil) skills of a large sample of 162 children with ASD between the ages of 12-36 months, as well as a subset of 58 children followed over one year. The difference between the child’s chronological age and “motor skill age” was calculated. Results of study 1 indicate that in the larger group, delays in gross motor and fine motor skills became significantly greater with each 6-month period of chronological age. In Study 2, where 58 children were measured twice, the results indicate that the gross motor and fine motor skills also fell significantly behind between the first and second measurements. The results of this paper indicate that very young children with ASD have delayed motor skills, and the delay becomes more pronounced with age. Therefore, early motor interventions are recommended for young children with ASD.

Title: Parent Child Interactions in Autism: Characteristics of Play

Authors: Freeman and Kasari

DOI: 10.1177/1362361312469269

Lay Abstract: This study examined associations between parent-child interactions and the development of social skills in 42 children (21 typically developing and 21 with autism spectrum disorders) between the ages of 3:0 and 6:11 years. We expected that positive parent-child interaction qualities would be related to children’s social skills and would help explain some of the differences found in social skills based on children’s developmental status (i.e., typical development versus those with autism spectrum disorders). Videotapes of parents and children during a 5-minute wordless book-reading task were coded for parent positive affect and emotional support as well as parent-child cohesiveness. High levels of emotional support and cohesiveness were both related to higher social skills in children. Additionally, parent-child cohesiveness helped to understand the connection between children’s developmental status and their social skills. These findings suggest that parent emotional support as well as cohesiveness between parents and children positively influence children’s social skills. Parent positive affect was unrelated to social skills. Implications of these findings for social skills interventions are discussed, particularly for young children with autism spectrum disorders.

Title: Flexibility in young people with Autism Spectrum Disorders on a card sort

Authors: Reed, Watts and Truzoli

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311409599

Lay abstract: Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been shown to have difficulty altering their behaviour in accordance with changing situations; for example, they often find it hard to switch between one rule that governs their behaviour to another. This characteristic has also been shown to occur in high-functioning children with ASD. However, there have been few studies of flexibility in lower-functioning children with ASD. The current study investigated whether similar lack of flexibility in the face of changing rules would occur with a group of low functioning children with ASD compared to a mental-aged matched comparison group. The group with ASD learned an initial task in which a particular rule governed the way that they were to sort a set of cards, and did so as quickly as the matched comparison group. However, when the rule governing the way that the cards were to be sorted was changed, the comparison group learned the new task with fewer errors, and made the discrimination more quickly, than the group with ASD. These findings suggest that low-functioning children with ASD do display problems with flexibility in their behaviour on such a card sort task, as do other sets of individuals with ASD, which suggests lack of flexibility is a common problem for those with ASD regardless of whether they display high or low functioning abilities.

Title: Does Central Coherence Relate to the Cognitive Performance of Children with Autism in Dynamic Assessments?

Authors: Aljunied and Frederickson

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311409960

Lay abstract: A tendency to focus on individual details, rather than taking a wholistic overview is described as having weak central coherence. It is characteristic of children with autism and is associated with some perceptual strengths but also with problems in some measures of learning, such as reading comprehension. This study investigated the relationship between central coherence and dynamic assessment test scores in a sample of primary aged children with autism. Dynamic assessment texts measure improvements in performance following permitted teaching by the tester. We found that for those children with below average non-verbal intelligence weaker central coherence was associated with lower dynamic assessment gain scores, indicating greater problems in transferring learning across contexts. However children with average and above average non-verbal abilities showed the opposite pattern. This suggests caution in the use of dynamic assessments of learning potential for children with autism whose non-verbal intelligence is below average.

Title: Factors affecting the age at diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders in Nova Scotia, Canada

Authors: Frenette, Dodds, MacPherson, Flowerdew, Hennen, and Bryson

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311413399

Lay abstract: There is good evidence to suggest that children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) benefit from interventions that are delivered early in life. While early diagnosis of ASDs is essential for ensuring timely access to early intervention services, few studies have investigated factors that might be related to a delay in this diagnosis. We conducted a population-based study of children born between 1990 and 2002 in Nova Scotia, Canada to explore the age at which children were diagnosed with ASDs and the factors associated with this age. Of the 884 children with an ASD, the average age of diagnosis was 4.6 years. Three factors were significantly associated with age of diagnosis of ASDs. For each additional year of maternal age at the time of delivery, there was a small decrease in the age at autism diagnosis. As well, there were differences in age at diagnosis according to area of residence in the province. Children with a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder had a 1.3 year increase in age at diagnosis. A limitation of this study was a lack of information about the severity or subtype (e.g., Asperger syndrome) of ASD. Nevertheless, since the age at ASD diagnosis was affected by certain demographic and clinical variables, this highlights the need for coordinated strategies for early detection of autism.

Title: Feasibility of exposure response prevention to treat repetitive behaviors of children with autism and an intellectual disability: A brief report

Authors: Boyd, Woodard, and Bodfish

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311414066

Lay abstract: Parents of children with autism have reported that problems associated with repetitive behaviours and unusual interests are among the most challenging aspects of autism to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Because Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and autism share some overlapping features, it is possible that behavioural treatments used to treat OCD may prove useful to treat repetitive behaviours found in autism. Exposure response prevention (ERP) is one intervention strategy that has been used as part of a broader cognitive-behavioural treatment approach to successfully treat symptoms of OCD. The overall goal of this initial “proof-of-principle” study was to determine if ERP could be modified to treat repetitive behaviours more commonly found in autism, and if the strategy would be useful for individuals who also had an intellectual disability. Five school-aged children (ages 5-11) with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder and a co-occurring intellectual disability participated in this study. We found that ERP could be modified to treat repetitive behaviours more often found in individuals with autism, however, a larger well-controlled study is needed to substantiate our findings. Further, we found that classroom teachers were able to implement the ERP intervention and that treatment effects for children in the study appeared to generalise across clinic and classroom settings. Practical but effective forms of treatment should allow children with autism to function more independently and thereby diminish the cost of their care for society at large.

Title: Autobiographical memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder: the role of depressed mood, rumination, working memory and theory of mind

Authors: Crane, Goddard and Pring

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311418690

Lay abstract: Recollections of past events from our lives (e.g., our first day at school, last year’s summer holiday) are known as autobiographical memories. Several research studies have shown that adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) find it difficult to recall autobiographical memories. However, there has been very little research assessing why they experience such difficulties. Studies of typical adults, as well as adults who are diagnosed with other clinical disorders (e.g., depression, schizophrenia) have identified several factors that appear to be related to the successful retrieval of autobiographical memories. These include levels of depressed mood, levels of rumination (the extent to which a person excessively and passively thinks about their negative emotions), working memory (a capacity required for completing complex mental tasks) and theory of mind (the ability to understand that a person can have thoughts, feelings and emotions that differ to one’s own and also from reality). In the current research, we assessed these factors and how they related to autobiographical memory in 28 adults with ASD and 28 typical adults. We confirmed previous reports of difficulties with autobiographical memory in adults with ASD. We also found that some of the factors that were related to autobiographical memory in typical adults (specifically, depressed mood and rumination) were not related to autobiographical memory retrieval in adults with ASD. These findings were confirmed when we analysed the responses of two adults with ASD who were also diagnosed with depression and had high levels of rumination. Overall, these findings suggest that there are differences in the way typical adults and adults with ASD access their autobiographical memories. This may explain why adults with ASD experience difficulties in recalling events from their lives.

Title: Learning through interaction in children with autism: Preliminary data from a social communication based intervention

Authors: Casenhiser, Shanker and Stieben

DOI: 10.1177/1362361311422052

Lay abstract: The study evaluates a randomized control trial of a social-communication-based approach to autism intervention aimed at improving the social interaction skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. Children between the ages of 2 and 5 years participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either a target intervention group or a waitlist/community treatment group. Families in the target treatment group were given 2 hours of therapy and coaching each week in an intervention emphasizing social-interaction and the parent-child relationship, while children in the community treatment group received a variety of standard treatment services. After 12 months, both groups made about the same gains in standard language measures, but the target treatment group made significantly greater gains in social interaction skills in comparison to the community treatment group. In addition, caregiver skills that were taught to the parents during the course of treatment improved significantly in the target group and were associated with changes in children¹s social interaction skills.