The reported prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has more than tripled in the past two decades in the United States, due in part to improved screening and diagnostic techniques. Epidemiologic data on ASD, however, are largely limited to population-based surveillance systems. We examined epidemiologic patterns in ASD diagnoses among…

Lockdown drill practice is part of the "new normal" in schools for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and educational practitioners in K-12 schools across the United States. These drills place a tremendous amount of responsibility on practitioners (i.e., teachers, paraprofessionals) that is beyond the scope of their…

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to struggle with reading comprehension, often resulting in difficulties with inference generation. While most of the previous research has focused on the product of comprehension, we report a preliminary validation of an experimental reading task in English to measure, by means of eye-movements,…

The pattern of behaviors and abilities that reflect the core characteristics of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and an environment that lacks the ability to understand individuals with ASD can make these students targets of bullying. Bullying is a serious problem for students with ASD, and practices against it are important in terms…

Using eye-tracking, we studied allocation of attention to faces where the emotional expression and eye-gaze dynamically changed in an ecologically-valid manner. We tested typically-developed (TD) adults low or high in autistic-like traits (Experiment 1), and adults with high-functioning autism (HFA; Experiment 2). All groups fixated more on the…

The aim of this study was to find out about attitudes toward inclusion and benefits perceived by families with children enrolled in schools attended by students with ASD at different educational stages (from kindergarten to high school). 323 families of classmates of students with ASD from different educational stages of 16 mainstream schools…

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the effect of family-professional partnerships in adapted physical education on the fundamental motor skills, physical activity levels, and adaptive behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and on parental satisfaction. Methods: A randomized controlled trial design was used, with pre-and…

Children with autism often display differences in functional and symbolic play and may experience barriers to social inclusion with peers in preschool settings. Therefore, interventions supporting social play between children with autism and their peers that can be feasibly implemented by teachers in inclusive settings are needed. A…

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have challenges in reading comprehension, especially when implicit information in narrative texts is involved. Three interrelated factors influencing reading comprehension have been proposed to explain these challenges: Theory of Mind -- ToM; executive functions -- EF; and central coherence -- CC.…

This study describes parents' daily "highs" and "lows" during their child's transition to school for the first time and examines how those experiences relate to turbulence in the parents' relationship. 106 parents (53 couples) rated their relationship qualities at pre-test and post-test and described "high" and…

One of the characteristics of individuals on the autism spectrum is the restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities which have been considered the result of a direct deficit in self-regulation skills. Peer-mediated intervention (PMI) is one of the ways to support young children on the autism spectrum for following school…

Although early behavioral intervention is considered as empirically-supported for children with autism, estimating treatment prognosis is a challenge for practitioners. One potential solution is to use machine learning to guide the prediction of the response to intervention. Thus, our study compared five machine algorithms in estimating treatment…

Purpose: This study examined predictors of sexual victimization among autistic and non-autistic college students. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether autistic students are more likely than non-autistic students to experience unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault, controlling for co-occurring diagnoses. We also aimed to determine…

The COVID-19 pandemic (2020) resulted in school closures and changes to school delivery. The aim of this study was to explore how these changes impacted on children on the autism spectrum. As part of an online survey, parents (n = 180) of school-aged children (9.3-16.5 years) on the autism spectrum in Australia were asked an open-ended question on…

Analyzing data from students in the NCES High School Longitudinal Study dataset, we drew upon expectancy-value theory to examine the role of student motivation (measured by self-efficacy, identity, utility, and interest), as mediators between 9th grade math test scores and final math GPA for autistic students. In predicting final high school math…