The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) is a 23-item questionnaire used in primary screening of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current studies examine the concurrent validity of the M-CHAT in its ability to predict 18-month-olds' performance on theory of mind and word learning tasks. In Experiment 1, infants' understanding of…

Children with autism fail to imitate from an early age and this lack of imitation is a salient diagnostic marker for the disorder. For children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), increased imitation skills appear to be related to increased skill development in a variety of areas. Video modeling was recently validated as a technique to support…

The purpose of this study was to compare a group of recently diagnosed bilingual-exposed children with autism (n = 20) aged 24-2 months with a matched group of monolingual-exposed children with autism (n = 40). The groups were matched with regard to chronological age at the time of language assessment and nonverbal IQ score, then compared with…

We analyzed several studies of non-verbal communication (prosody and facial expressions) completed in our lab and conducted a secondary analysis to compare performance on receptive vs. expressive tasks by adolescents with ASD and their typically developing peers. Results show a significant between-group difference for the aggregate score of…

Language impairment is a common core feature in Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Many studies have tried to define the specific language profiles of these disorders, some claiming the existence of overlaps, and others conceiving of them as separate categories. Fewer have sought to determine whether…

This preliminary study examined the effects of 10 weekly lessons of therapeutic horseback riding (THR) on 42 participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ages 6-16 years) compared to a subset (n=16) of the total study population who were first evaluated before and after a 10-week waitlist control condition. All participants received…

To determine maternal stress and child variables predicting maternal stress, 104 mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) completed the Dutch version of the Parental Stress Index (PSI; De Brock, Vermulst, Gerris, & Abidin, 1992) every six months over a period of two years. The level of maternal…

Teachers working with children with autism spectrum disorders were surveyed to determine the characteristics of children with whom Social Stories are used, how extensively they are employed and the types of behaviors targeted by teachers; how and why teachers use Social Stories (including the extent to which Social Stories conform to recommended…

It is well established that language development in children with autism is disturbed in a number of ways, and evidence is accumulating that their emerging linguistic skills may be related to interactive competences such as joint attention, imitation and certain aspects of play as has been found in normally developing children. The present study…