It has been recently shown that dysregulation of transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1), IL-23 and IL-17 has been identified as a major factor involved in autoimmune disorders. Based on the increasing evidence of immune dysfunction in autism the aim of this study was to measure serum levels of TGF-beta1, IL-23 and IL-17 in relation to the…

The authors hypothesised that red dermographism--a skin reaction involving the cholinergic system--is more frequent in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) than in children exhibiting typical development. We used a dermatological examination to study red dermographism in this transverse study, which compared forty six children with ASDs…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) routinely fail false belief tests of theory of mind (ToM), even at advanced chronological and mental ages. Initial training efforts were largely disappointing for those with ASD, suggesting an intractable deficit. However, more recently, children with ASD trained with various pictorial strategies…

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) is the only cognitive flexibility task that has consistently shown deficits in individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As this is the only task characterized by limited explicit task instructions and a high degree of disengagement required to perform the switch, we hypothesized that cognitive…

The American Psychiatric Association has proposed major revisions for the diagnostic category encompassing Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which will reportedly increase the specificity and maintain the sensitivity of diagnoses. As a result, the aim of the current study was to compare symptoms of ASD in children and adolescents (N = 208) who met…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of weight bearing exercise and calcium intake on bone mineral density (BMD) of students with autism spectrum disorders. For this reason 60 boy students with autism disorder (age 8-10 years old) were assigned to four groups with no differences in age, BMD, calcium intake, and physical…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) frequently encounter difficulties in visuomotor tasks, which are possibly caused by atypical visuoperceptual processing. This was tested in children (aged 9-12 years) with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD; including PDD-NOS and Asperger syndrome), and two same-age control groups (Tourette syndrome…

The present study attempted to investigate the effect of perceptual-motor training on attention in children with autism spectrum disorders. The participants (20 girls and 20 boys) were divided into experimental and control groups. They were selected from among 85 subjects after primary tests to be matched. The design of the study was…

The current study examined the association between prenatal pregnancy complications (PPC) and childhood psychiatric symptoms in children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and non-ASD children who were referred to a psychiatric clinic (Controls). Parents completed a "DSM-IV"-referenced rating scale and developmental history questionnaire.…

Sleep problems have often been reported in children with intellectual disabilities (ID). How anomalies in 24-h sleep patterns relate to behaviour difficulties in children with different types of ID remains to be elucidated. The purpose of this study was to assess 24-h sleep and behaviour patterns in children with a variety disorders including…

Whereas research addressing empathy in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tends to employ pencil-and-paper and laboratory-based behavioural methods, the current study is novel in eliciting parent-report data regarding everyday empathy, sampling various emotional situations regularly encountered by children. Parents of typically-developing children…

Contrary to the extensive amount of empirical findings about parental perceptions, parenting cognitions, and coping in families with a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), research about parenting itself is very scarce. A first goal of this study was to examine the factor structure and internal consistency of two scales to measure parenting…

Bipolar (BD) symptomatology is prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and may lead to increased impairment. The current study compared clinical and neurocognitive impairment in children (7-13 years) diagnosed with ASD (n=55), BD (n=34), ASD + BD (n=23), and a non-clinical control group (n=27). Relative to the ASD group, the ASD…

This study investigated perceptual causality in launch and reaction events in children with ASD (CA = 8.4, VMA = 5.1) and mental age matched controls with typical development and learning difficulties. This is of interest because difficulties with global processing in autism suggest that individuals with ASD may not "see" causal Gestalts in…

Previous research shows that high-functioning children with autism are slow to pass "litmus" false belief tests of ToM but how this may relate to other aspects of mindreading (e.g., discerning thoughts from facial expressions) is less clear, partly for methodological reasons. Thus the joint methodological and conceptual goals of this…