The authors compare pretend play and executive function both in preschool children with an acquired brain injury and in neurotypical preschool children. They find the ability to produce logical, sequenced pretend play actions and object substitutions in play correlates strongly with executive function ability in both groups, and working memory…

Linguistic alignment--the contingent reuse of our interlocutors' language at all levels of linguistic structure--pervades human dialogue. Here, we design unique measures to capture the degree of linguistic alignment between interlocutors' linguistic representations at three levels of structure: lexical, syntactic, and semantic. We track these…

Thyroid hormones are critical for normal brain development. This study examined autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels measured in mid-pregnancy maternal serum and infant blood after birth. Three groups of children born in Orange County, CA in 2000-2001 were identified: ASD (n = 78), developmental delay…

Secondhand tobacco smoke is considered a developmental neurotoxicant especially given underdeveloped vital systems in young children. An ecological test of its negative influence on brain development can be made by examining the prospective association between early childhood household smoke exposure and later classroom behavior. Using a…

Recent research suggests that brain development follows an abnormal trajectory in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The current study examined changes in diffusivity with age within defined white matter tracts in a group of typically developing children and a group of children with an ASD, aged 6 to 14 years. Age by group interactions…

This fMRI study investigated neural responses while making appraisals of self and other, across the social and academic domains, in children and adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Compared to neurotypical youth, those with ASD exhibited hypoactivation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex during self-appraisals. Responses in…

The school system is an institution where teachers adopt different teaching methods to impact knowledge and skills. The teaching method adopted by a class teacher has a great effect on children interest, academic achievement and brain development of a child. To support this fact the researcher used two groups of children from ten schools to carry…

Background: It is unclear why children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tend to be inattentive to, or even avoid eye contact. The goal of this study was to investigate affective-motivational brain responses to direct gaze in children with ASD. To this end, we combined two measurements: skin conductance responses (SCR), a robust arousal…

Aim: The aim of this article was to clarify the impact and consequences of very preterm birth (born less than 32wks of gestation) and/or very low birthweight ([VLBW], weighing less than 1500g) on brain volume development throughout childhood and adolescence. Method: The computerized databases PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and EMBASE were searched for…

Automatic stimulus-change detection is usually investigated in the auditory modality by studying Mismatch Negativity (MMN). Although the change-detection process occurs in all sensory modalities, little is known about visual deviance detection, particularly regarding the development of this brain function throughout childhood. The aim of the…

The aims of the current study were to examine whether early growth abnormalities are (a) comparable in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other childhood psychiatric disorders, and (b) specific to the brain or generalized to the whole body. Head circumference, height, and weight were measured during the first 19 months of life in 129 children…

The present study contrasted physiological arousal in infants and toddlers with fragile X syndrome to typically developing control participants and examined physiological predictors early in development to autism severity later in development in fragile X syndrome. Thirty-one males with fragile X syndrome (ages 8-40 months) and 25 age-matched…

Failure to develop normal language comprehension is an early warning sign of autism, but the neural mechanisms underlying this signature deficit are unknown. This is because of an almost complete absence of functional studies of the autistic brain during early development. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we previously observed a trend…

This study examined the nature of cognitive and behavioral sex differences in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and two comparison groups: a group of typically developing (TD) children and a group of unaffected siblings of ASD children. Sex differences in core autistic symptoms, co-occurring behavioral symptoms, and cognitive styles…

Crowding refers to impaired target recognition caused by surrounding contours. We investigated the development of crowding in central vision by comparing single-letter and crowding thresholds in groups of 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and adults. The task was to discriminate the orientation of a Sloan letter E. Single-letter thresholds,…