Purpose: According to the speech attunement framework, autistic individuals lack the ability and/or motivation to "tune up" their speech to the same level of precision as their neurotypical peers. However, previous studies exploring the articulatory patterns of autistic individuals have yielded disparate findings. One reason contrasting…

The COVID-19 infectious disease pandemic has caused significant fear and uncertainty around the world and had significant adverse psychological impact. Children, adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are a particularly vulnerable population, impacted by stay-at-home orders, closures at nonessential services, and social…

Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is the most common sensory difficulty experienced by autistic individuals. Parents of 88 autistic children and young adults between the ages of 3 and 30 described coping strategies and physical and emotional responses used to deal with distressing sounds, and their impact on daily activities. Loud, sudden, and…

The oxytocin system may be different in autistic people, which could explain some of the deficits in social behavior and cognition associated with autism spectrum disorder. However, studies comparing oxytocin levels in autistic and neurotypical individuals have shown conflicting results and a 2016 meta-analysis on seven studies concluded that…

This study explored the association between autistic-like traits in young adults and dietary intake in early childhood in the Gen2 Raine Study cohort. Data were available from 811 participants at years 1, 2 and 3 for the assessment of dietary intake, and at year 20 for measurement of autistic-like traits. Results showed as autistic-like traits…

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors. Changes in the number of specific cell types in the cerebral cortex could produce a dramatic alteration in the regulation of cortical circuits, and thus an alteration of behavior. We investigated whether there are…

Prosody or "melody in speech" in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often perceived as atypical. This study examined perception and production of statements and questions in 84 children, adolescents and adults with and without ASD, as well as participants' pitch direction discrimination thresholds. The results suggested that the abilities…

An action's end state can be anticipated by considering the agent's goal, or simply by projecting the movement trajectory. Theories suggest that individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have difficulties anticipating other's goal-directed actions, caused by an impairment using prior information. We examined whether children, adolescents…

Auditory sensory over-responsivity (aSOR) is a frequently reported sensory feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD); however, there is little consensus regarding its prevalence and severity. This cross-sectional study uses secondary data from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R; Item 72: "undue sensitivity to noise") housed…

Participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (n = 121, mean [SD] age: 14.6 [8.0] years) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 40, 16.4 [13.3] years) were presented with a series of videos representing biological motion on one side of a computer monitor screen and non-biological motion on the other, while their eye movements were…

Dental treatment provided under general anaesthesia (DGA) is an expectation for many children and young adults (CYA) diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Planning and delivery of DGA requires consideration of morbidity and mortality risks and implications for families and healthcare services. One hundred patient records of CYA with…

The literature from inception to 2020 on the prevalence of epilepsy in autistic individuals was systematically reviewed and further explored by subgroup analyses and meta-regression models. This systematic review is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020179725). A total of 66 studies from 53 articles were included. The updated pooled prevalence of…

It has been suggested that attenuated adaptation to visual stimuli in autism is the result of atypical perceptual priors (e.g., Pellicano and Burr in "Trends Cogn Sci" 16(10):504-510, 2012. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.08.009). This study investigated adaptation to color in autistic adults, measuring both strength of afterimage and the…

Abnormalities in executive function (EF) are clinical markers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the neural mechanisms underlying abnormal EF in ASD remain unclear. This meta-analysis investigated the construct, abnormalities, and age-related changes of EF in ASD. Thirty-three fMRI studies of inhibition, updating, and switching in…

Although pragmatic speech impairments have been found across the autism spectrum, how these manifest in minimally verbal (MV) individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has not been studied. We compared the pragmatic speech profiles of MV (n = 50) and verbally fluent (VF) individuals with ASD (n = 50; 6-21 years-old) based on natural language…