Purpose: There is a relationship between motor and language skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but little work addresses the ramifications of this relationship for professionals who teach motor skills to this population. Within a motor skills intervention, this study probed the importance of language skills for motor…

Family-centered care represents a collaborative partnership between caregivers and service providers, and is associated with positive caregiver and child outcomes. This approach may be especially important for caregivers with early concerns about autism, as service providers are often the gateway to appropriately-specialized intervention.…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with or without intellectual disability (ID), is common in children with congenital blindness. This complex combination of disabilities often involves many challenges for the family. This study explored parents' experiences of having a child with blindness and ASD (with or without ID), their support needs and…

The author argues for a functionalist understanding of autism. Instead of explaining autism as an inborn or otherwise neurological deficit, autism may be understood as a functional disturbance: the impairment of the abstract attitude. The abstract attitude is a concept developed by German neuropsychiatrist Kurt Goldstein (1987-1965) to describe…

In children with autism spectrum disorder, atypical gesture use is a core deficit with consequences for social learning, social interaction, and language development. Little is known about the relevance of early gesture use in predicting developmental outcomes of children receiving early interventions targeting social-communicative behaviors such…

To understand the perspectives and needs of autistic children and their families in the context of an emergency, 109 parents and 56 autistic children (5.75-18 years) from Canada completed an online survey about needs, barriers and facilitators to coping with the pandemic. Parents' concerns about their child's development and difficulties managing…

Little is known about the language trajectories of minimally verbal school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders. The present investigation conducted observations across two elementary schools over an entire school year to analyze the vocal language development of nine minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder between the ages…

Rates of inclusion for children with disabilities continue to increase. Schools are also experiencing an increase in culturally and linguistically diverse students. As such, the diversity of children in classrooms across the country continues to dramatically shift and teachers are challenged to implement culturally responsive and relevant…

Emotional and behavioral difficulties in children with autism often present problems for families seeking appropriate treatment interventions. Using data from the 2011 Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services, ordinal logistic regression models were used to examine the association between parental perceptions about autism and their reports of…

Recent studies of autism diagnosis in New Zealand have revealed inconsistent implementation of best practice standards in autism assessment and high rates of parental dissatisfaction with the diagnostic process. These findings have arisen despite the development and dissemination of the New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline (the…

Social communicative precursors to autism spectrum disorder may influence how infants who are later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder interact with their social partners and the responses they receive, thus bidirectionally influencing early social experience. This systematic review aimed to identify a developmental timeline for parent-infant…

Inclusion of students with autism has been a challenge for educators who indicate gaps in professional training, especially regarding interventions in the school context. The international literature shows evidence of the effectiveness of a type of intervention not found in the national literature, called peer-mediated intervention (PMI). This…

In this article, the breadth and depth of play as an integrating process for children with developmental challenges are explored. The fact that play is a source of developmental growth suggests that its role in intervention with children with language and communication disorders cannot be overstated. Several contemporary play-based intervention…

A qualitative study of three parents and their toddlers with autism was conducted to investigate the communicative functions underlying parent-toddler interactions and how the instrumental or social nature of one partner's actions influenced the other's engagement. Parent-child interaction videos collected from a separate intervention study were…

Specific developmental concerns can distinguish between an early versus later diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Caregiver survey responses of children = 9 years-of-age (2012) with ASD were used to evaluate developmental concerns and associations with age of diagnosis [early (< 3 years: n = 106) vs. later (= 3 years: n = 432)] using…