In studies that assess perceptions of autistic people by non-autistic people, researchers often ask participants to review vignettes depicting fictional autistic characters. However, few studies have investigated whether non-autistic peers accurately identify these hypothetical individuals as being on the autism spectrum. Accurately ascribing…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a multifactorial, pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder affecting 1 in 36 children in the United States. Given the rising prevalence and significant economic and social costs associated with ASD, it is critical that continued efforts be made towards better understanding the underlying etiology as well as…

Purpose: The goal of the current study was to conduct a substantive validity review of four autism knowledge assessments with prior psychometric support (Gillespie-Lynch in J Autism and Dev Disord 45(8):2553-2566, 2015; Harrison in J Autism and Dev Disord 47(10):3281-3295, 2017; McClain in J Autism and Dev Disord 50(3):998-1006, 2020; McMahon…

Genetic testing is recommended as part of an autism assessment, and most parents support genetic testing for their minor children. However, the impact on parents of receiving a monogenetic/ copy number variant diagnosis for autism in their child is not well understood. To explore this, we surveyed and interviewed parents of children in the SPARK…

This study applied the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate frontal activity in autism when performing verbal fluency test and emotion recall task. We recruited 32 autistic adults without intellectual disability and 30 typically-developing controls (TDC). Prefrontal hemodynamic changes were evaluated by fNIRS when the…

Using a cross-sectional design, this study explored attachment insecurity and disorganization (assessed using the Strange Situation Procedure) in 90 toddlers (aged 14-24 months) with and without autism traits and assessed the associations between autism traits (severity and profiles) and both developmental level and attachment classification. Our…

Only one in every five children with autism is diagnosed before the age of 3 years. As a result, tens of thousands of children every year in the United States miss benefiting from early interventions and supports that could potentially optimize their lifetime outcomes. A major obstacle is the extremely limited access to high quality diagnosis. To…

Purpose: Feeding problems, ranging from mild to severe, are common in children with autism spectrum disorder. We conducted a 15-item online survey of community providers to gather information on service demand and current treatment approaches for this clinical population. Methods: Respondents, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists,…

This study examined the sustained and moderating effects of a behavioural sleep intervention for autistic children in a randomised controlled trial. Autistic children (5-13 years) with sleep problems were randomised to the Sleeping Sound intervention or Treatment as Usual (TAU). At 12-month follow-up (n = 150), caregivers of children in the…

Sleep problems are common in children and adolescents, particularly those with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. With the changes in daily habits resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have analyzed sleep characteristics, during social isolation, in Brazilian children and adolescents aged between 4 and 12 years with Autism Spectrum Disorder (N =…

Elevated "neural noise" has been advanced as an explanation of autism and autistic sensory experiences. However, functional neuroimaging measures of neural noise may be vulnerable to contamination by recording noise. This study explored variability of electrophysiological responses to tones of different intensities in 127 autistic and 79…

In a recent editorial, Mandy declared an autism mental health crisis and proposed six ideas for how this might be addressed, with which we agree. However, we propose that for these ideas (e.g. training for mental health professionals) to be implemented for psychologists, assumptions about best practice need to be assessed considering the evolving…

Since the retina shares its embryological origin with the central nervous system, optical coherence tomography (OCT), an imaging technique frequently employed in ophthalmology to analyze the macula and intraretinal layer thicknesses and volumes, has recently become increasingly important in psychiatric research. We examined 34 autistic and 31…

Purpose: Autistic children with limited spoken language ability (LSLA) often do not respond to traditional interventions, reducing their social inclusion. It is essential to identify effective interventions, and sensitive measures to track their intervention response. Methods: Using data from an RCT comparing music-mediated and play-based…

Today, the global prevalence of autism is high and continues to increase dramatically. Effective support and interventions are therefore warranted. Augmented reality (AR), one of the recent modalities of immersive technology, is gaining traction in autism interventions. However, there is currently a lack of reviews on the use of AR in children…