Although food selectivity and so-called "picky" eating are well documented in autism spectrum disorder, emotion-linked eating has rarely been investigated. This study examined emotion-linked over- and under-eating based on parent ratings of these behaviors in 4- to 17-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (n = 190) as compared…

Research indicates that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently exhibit dysregulation, which refers to poorly coordinated affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses to a given situation. We examined the characteristics of dysregulation in children presenting to a multidisciplinary ASD clinic for an ASD diagnostic evaluation.…

Substantial research indicates that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties with Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities, but rarely have studies used a comprehensive battery to measure both the cognitive and affective aspects of ToM. The present study tested this ability in 24 Greek-speaking children with ASD (ages 7-14), and…

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder are less physically active compared with their age-related peers. Despite the many benefits of physical activity, little is known about why they are predominantly inactive. To date, research has rarely included adolescent's perspectives, and little is known about how wider social, systemic, and policy…

Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a multicomponent peer-mediated intervention (PMI) on teaching adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) how to show interest in peer conversation partners by asking partner-focused questions about the person, their interests, or their experiences and by making partner-focused…

This study examined the family emotional climate as assessed by Five Minute Speech Samples and the relation with parenting stress and parenting behaviors among parents of children (6-17 years, 64.7% boys) with autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and without any known disability (n = 447). The large majority of parents (79%)…

Although prosodic deficits have been reported to occur with many different populations, little published research addresses treatment options for these deficits. This study was designed to examine one treatment's impact, the six-step imitative approach, on the expressive affective prosody of an adolescent with autism who had average intelligence…

Circumscribed interests are a symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that may be related to exaggerated affective neural responses. However, the use of generic ASD-interest image stimuli has left an open question as to whether affective responses towards individual interests are greater in ASD compared to typically developing (TD) controls. We…

Many males with FXS meet criteria for ASD. This study was designed to (1) describe ASD symptoms in adolescent and young adult males with FXS (n = 44) and (2) evaluate the contributions to ASD severity of cognitive, language, and psychiatric factors, as well as FMRP (the protein deficient in FXS). A few ASD symptoms on the ADOS-2 were universal in…

Background: Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have the potential to support sociocommunicative interactions for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but little is known about the sense of presence participants feel in CVEs or how CVEs can be used to assess skills. Method: Ten children with ASD and 10 typically developing (TD)…

Introduction: The use of horses in therapy has a fairly long history. There are many references to the therapeutic benefits of this activity. Such therapies have been undergoing a boom internationally in recent years. However scientific research into the effective use of this activity in children with autism is still in the early stages of…

The present study investigated the impact of social support on the psychological well-being of mothers of adolescents and adults with ASD (n = 269). Quantity of support (number of social network members) as well as valence of support (positive support and negative support) were assessed using a modified version of the "convoy model" developed by…

The sensitivity of male children (5-15 years) with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to the affective state of others was tested using an emotion recognition task. Only children without ASD could reliably differentiate between enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles. Results are considered in terms of the social impairments of children with…

Introduction: Severe mood dysregulation and problems (SMP) in otherwise typically developing youth are recognized as an important mental health problem with a distinct set of clinical features, family history and neurocognitive characteristics. SMP in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have not previously been explored. Method: We…

We examined upper facial basic emotion recognition in 57 subjects with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (M = 13.5 years) and 33 typically developing controls (M = 14.3 years) by using a standardized computer-aided measure (The Frankfurt Test and Training of Facial Affect Recognition, FEFA). The ASD group scored lower than controls on the total…