Identifying infants at elevated likelihood for autism and other developmental differences in the first year of life remains a significant challenge. This study explored associations between behavioral differences in infancy and developmental outcomes in toddlerhood. We conducted a secondary data analysis of 256 infants with an older autistic…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted a range of health services for children across the United States. Autistic children have well-documented deficits in health-related services compared to nonautistic children. Parents of autistic children reported an increase in mental health and behavior problems with the onset of the pandemic, increasing the need…

The increased prevalence of suicide among autistic people highlights the need for validated clinical suicide screening and assessment instruments that are accessible and meet the unique language and communication needs of this population. We describe the preliminary preregistered psychometric validation of the Suicide Assessment Kit-Modified…

Anxiety has been associated with social communication and interaction differences among autistic children. We sought to clarify the direction of these associations longitudinally, and test executive function as a moderator. Participants were autistic children (N = 157; 15% female, 85% male) engaged in a longitudinal study. Analyses focused on two…

Being looked at is an important communicative signal, and attenuated responses to such direct gaze have been suggested as an early sign of autism. Using live eye tracking, we examined whether direct gaze elicits different gaze responses in infants at ages 10, 14 and 18 months with and without later autism in real-life interaction. The sample…

Males are more likely to be diagnosed with autism than females, and at earlier ages, yet few studies examine sex differences in screening. This study explored sex differences in psychometric properties, recommended cutoff scores, and overall scores of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised, with Follow-Up. Participants were 28,088…

Emotion dysregulation is a common challenge for autistic individuals, yet research examining early emotion regulation processes in autism is lacking. The present study examined negative emotion expression and parent-child co-regulatory processes in 18-month-old younger siblings of autistic children (children with an "elevated likelihood"…

Various aspects of parent responsiveness are associated with child outcomes, such as play, language, and social development. However, behavioral coding methods used to measure parent responsiveness vary widely, making comparison of results across studies difficult. The purpose of this scoping review was to summarize current behavioral coding…

Children are at risk of short- and long-term morbidity and mortality from COVID-19. We examine whether autistic children and children with mental health conditions have higher odds of underlying health conditions at high risk of severe disease from COVID-19. We use claims data from a national sample of Medicaid-enrolled children for the years…

Autistic individuals are at significantly higher risk of suicide than non-autistic individuals, with transition-aged youth at potentially the highest risk. While lower executive function (EF) skills have been significantly associated with suicide risk in other clinical samples, the link between EF and suicidality has not yet been examined for…

Studies on children and adults combined suggest higher mortality rates for autistic than other people, but few report mortality rates for autistic children. In addition, past studies may not be representative of the current generation of children diagnosed with autism. We examined mortality in children using data from Scotland's annual pupil…

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors and nonsuicidal self-injury are more common in autistic adolescents than non-autistic adolescents, per parent- and self-report. Clinician-rated measures of suicide risk (e.g. Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale) have not been investigated with autistic youth despite high parent-child rating discrepancies. In the…

This study builds on existing literature on autism spectrum disorder (autism) and sexual and gender minority (SGM) identities and is the first to examine self-declared frequency rates, associated functional impairments, and treatment engagement levels for sexual minority (SM) and non-SM populations with and without autism cross-sectionally via a…

Understanding the impact of preemptive interventions on development for those with a high likelihood for autism is a critical step in building a transdiagnostic model of optimized intervention. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to examine the impact of preemptive autism interventions on parent outcomes and child…

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder are at increased risk of unhealthy eating behaviors and obesity. This study examined feasibility of a virtual implementation of Bringing Adolescent Learners with Autism Nutrition and Culinary Education, an 8-week nutrition intervention based on social cognitive theory that addresses autism spectrum…