Purpose: Gesture delay in autistic infants and toddlers has been widely reported. The developmental trajectory of gesture production during early childhood is understudied. Thus, little is known about the possible changes of gesture production over time. The present study aimed to document the development of gesture production in autistic children…

Autism is often associated with early developmental delays in language and motor skills. However, little is known about the complex dynamic processes that drive the co-development of such early difficulties. The aim of the present study was to model the parallel growth of language and motor skills in a cohort of infants and to explore differences…

The Early Start Denver Model is an evidence-based, comprehensive naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention for young and very young children with autism spectrum disorder. This interdisciplinary model is suitable for the Taiwanese public health system. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of an Early Start Denver Model program…

Background: The rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has transformed the Australian funding landscape for individuals with disability and their families. This study examined whether the profiles of autistic children and their families accessing an early intervention (EI) setting have changed following its introduction.…

Often included within 'high-risk sibling' studies, the Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) has only one independent replication study and no evaluation with community-ascertained cohorts. We administered the AOSI and established clinical measures with 103 infants (68% male) at 'high autism likelihood' on the Social Attention and…

In children with autism spectrum disorder, atypical gesture use is a core deficit with consequences for social learning, social interaction, and language development. Little is known about the relevance of early gesture use in predicting developmental outcomes of children receiving early interventions targeting social-communicative behaviors such…

Atypical motor development has frequently been reported in infants at elevated likelihood for autism spectrum disorder. However, no previous study has used detailed motion capture technology to compare infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder and infant siblings with no familial history of autism spectrum disorder. We investigated…

Overweight and obesity have been reported to be more prevalent in populations with autism spectrum disorder than in children with typical development. The aim of this study was to compare the anthropometric status of children with autism spectrum disorder (diagnosed and subclinical) and children with typical development and analyse which variables…

This article evaluates the effects of an individualized intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) based on the principles of the DIR/FloortimeTM model, which encourages caregivers to follow their child's emotions and interests and to interact with them in a natural social environment to help children develop social…

Each year, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) releases a list of scientific advances that represent significant progress in the field of autism research. The "Summary of Advances" provides short, plain language summaries of the top research breakthroughs selected by the IACC from a pool of research articles nominated by…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit emotional problems, which can be associated with emotion regulation (ER) difficulties. Parent co-regulation is often associated with child ER and emotional problems, though little work has been done with reference to youth with ASD. This study investigated the association among parent…

This study aims to explore the relationship between developmental ability, autism and adaptive skills in preschoolers. Adaptive function was assessed in 152 preschoolers with autism, with and without developmental delay, and without autism, with and without developmental delay. Their overall adaptive function, measured by the general adaptive…

Background: Recent models of the early emergence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) propose that infant intrinsic risk susceptibilities in behaviour may be amplified by interaction within the early social environment into an increasingly atypical developmental trajectory. This study examines whether 6- and 12-month parent-infant interactions in…