Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who engage in stereotypy may also emit a prior, temporally contiguous, high-risk response to access stereotypic behaviors. For example, the participant in this study who was diagnosed with ASD engaged in a chained response that included elopement, often in unsafe locations, to access light…

Restricted or repetitive behavior (RRB) is common for individuals with visual impairment (VI), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and intellectual disability. Previous reviews have suggested that VI may moderate the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to decrease RRB. A search of the single case literature resulted in 30 studies and 40…

Externalizing behaviors in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often either reduced or elevated compared to healthy controls (HCs). This study investigated the moderating role of context in ASD by comparing 32 individuals with ASD to 40 HCs during a social and a non-social provocation task. Compared to HCs, individuals with ASD…

Background: The present study aimed at investigating mother-child dyadic co-regulation patterns in dyads with children with intellectual disability (ID). Method: 24 children paired for developmental age and vocabulary size (8 with chromosome 14 aberrations, 8 with Down syndrome, and 8 with typical development) and their mothers participated in the…

The social communicative deficits and repetitive behaviours seen in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be affected by altered stimulus salience and reward attribution. The present study used eye tracking and a behavioural measure to index effort expenditure, arousal, and attention, during viewing of images depicting social scenes and…

There are few studies of behavior problems in preterm children prior to 2 years old and the changes that occur over time. The aims of this study were to examine the patterns and prediction of behavior problems and the effects of gender and socioeconomic status (SES) on behavior problems in preterm children at the toddler and preschool periods.…

Introduction: Children and young adults with Down syndrome can demonstrate increased behavior problems compared to their typically developing peers through childhood and adolescence. This study aims to: (1) identify common patterns of behaviors in children and young adults with Down syndrome and (2) assess potential medical comorbidities that…

Studies assessing sex/gender differences in autism spectrum conditions often fail to include typically developing control groups. It is, therefore, unclear whether observed sex/gender differences reflect those found in the general population or are particular to autism spectrum conditions. A systematic search identified articles comparing…

Recently the "DRD3" gene has been associated with ASD in two independent samples. Follow up analysis of the risk allele of the SNP rs167771 in 91 subjects revealed a significant association with a specific type of repetitive behavior: the factor "insistence on sameness" (IS) derived from the Autism Diagnostic Interview. This risk allele was…

Of the diagnostic features of autism, relatively little research has been devoted to restricted and repetitive behavior, particularly topographically complex forms of restricted and repetitive behavior such as rigidity in routines or compulsive-like behavior (e.g., arranging objects in patterns or rows). Like vocal or motor stereotypy,…

Background: Changes in reward processing are thought to be involved in the etiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as other developmental disorders. In addition, different forms of therapy for ADHD rely on reinforcement principles. As such, improved understanding of reward processing in ADHD could eventually lead to…

Background: There is a need for a more accurate characterisation of higher level restricted and repetitive behaviour (RRB) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including why it might be considered problematic and events associated with its occurrence. Method: We selected one form of higher level RRB--arranging and ordering--that was rated as severe…

Background: Increasing attention has been paid to the executive dysfunction hypothesis argued to underpin stereotyped behaviour in autism. The aim of this study is to investigate one component of this model, that stereotyped behaviours are related to impaired generativity and compromised behavioural inhibition, by examining whether episodes of…

The present study used a concurrent operants preference assessment to evaluate preference for two instructional approaches commonly used with children diagnosed with autism, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and the Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH). Results showed that the three children with autism…

Background: Recent research has shown that the range of repetitive behaviour seen in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) extends beyond food-related behaviour. Methods: The presence and intensity of repetitive, rigid and routinized behaviour in children with PWS was compared with that seen in children with another neurodevelopmental…