Research shows many positive effects from physical exercise. The present study examined the impact of a structured physical exercise program compared to treatment as usual on the gross motor skills of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants included 20 children, from 4 to 7 years old, who were assigned to two groups;…

Parents participating in a prospective longitudinal study of infants with older siblings with autism completed an autism screening questionnaire and were asked about any concerns relating to their child's development, and children were administered an interactive assessment conducted by a researcher at 14 months. Scores on the parent questionnaire…

Infants show shifting patterns of visual engagement to faces over the first years of life. To explore the adaptive implications of this engagement, we collected eye-tracking measures on cross-sectional samples of 10-25-month-old typically developing toddlers (TD;N = 28) and those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD;N = 54). Concurrent language…

This study examined caregiver-reported medically-attended injuries among 30-68 month old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to general population (POP) and non-ASD developmental disorders (DD) controls in the Study to Explore Early Development. Injuries were common in ASD cases (32.3%) as well as POP (30.2%) and DD (27.8%)…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism-like traits are associated with deficits in face memory ability, although it is not yet clear whether this deficit reflects a specific aspect of the ASD/autism-like phenotype. We addressed this issue using a neurotypical sample of adolescent twins (N[subscript complete pairs] = 782) drawn from the Twins…

Children with autism use hand taking and hand leading gestures to interact with others. This is traditionally considered to be an example of atypical behaviour illustrating the lack of intersubjective understanding in autism. However the assumption that these gestures are atypical is based upon scarce empirical evidence. In this paper I present…

This study examined the developmental profile of male infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and its divergence from typical development and development of infants at high risk for autism associated with familial recurrence (ASIBs). Participants included 174 boys ranging in age from 5 to 28 months. Cross-sectional profiles on the Mullen Scales of…

Thyroid hormones are critical for normal brain development. This study examined autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels measured in mid-pregnancy maternal serum and infant blood after birth. Three groups of children born in Orange County, CA in 2000-2001 were identified: ASD (n = 78), developmental delay…

Here we describe the performance of children with autism, their siblings, and typically developing children using the Florida Apraxia Battery. Children with autism showed the lowest performance in all sections of the test. They were mostly impaired in pantomime actions execution on imitation and on verbal command, and in imitation of meaningless…

We investigated the predictive power of morphological features in 224 autistic patients and 224 matched-pairs controls. To assess the relationship between the morphological features and autism, we used the receiver operator curves (ROC). In addition, we used recursive partitioning (RP) to determine a specific pattern of abnormalities that is…

While studies report associations between perinatal outcomes and both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID), there has been little study of ASD with versus without co-occurring ID. We compared perinatal risk factors among 7547 children in the 2006-2010 Autism and Developmental Disability Monitoring Network classified as…

In typical development there is a bias to orient visual attention to social information. Children with ASD do not reliably demonstrate this bias, and the role of attention orienting has not been well studied. We examined attention orienting via the inhibition of return (IOR) mechanism in a spatial cueing task using social-emotional cues; we…

This study presents an independent replication and extension of psychometric evidence supporting the "Theory of Mind Inventory" ("ToMI"). Parents of 20 children with ASD (4; 1-6; 7 years; months) and 20 with typical development (3; 1-6; 5), rated their child's theory of mind abilities in everyday situations. Other parent report…

Twenty-seven boys and eight girls with ASD and thirty-five controls matched for gender, age and total score intelligence were studied to ascertain whether boys and girls with ASD display stronger reactive aggression than boys and girls without ASD. Participants performed a computerized version of the Pulkkinen aggression machine that examines the…

This study investigated neurodevelopmental changes in sound processing by recording mismatch negativity (MMN) in response to various degrees of sound complexity in 18 mildly to moderately autistic versus 15 healthy boys aged between 6 and 15 years. Autistic boys presented with lower IQ and poor performance on a range of executive and social…