Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present learning difficulties and limited performance of social skills, besides lower motor skills performance in comparison with their peers. Owing to these difficulties, most of children with ASD are at risk of social exclusion or a poor inclusion due to their behavior, mainly playing with other…

Little is known about outcomes of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder reared in bilingual homes. There are concerns that social communication deficits among children with autism spectrum disorder may reduce the developmental benefits of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder raised in bilingual…

This longitudinal study investigated whether variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and early parent-child interactions predicted later empathic behavior in 84 toddlers at high or low familial risk for autism spectrum disorder. Two well-studied OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms, rs53576 and rs2254298, were examined. Parent-child…

Background: Siblings of children with autism (sibs-A) are at increased genetic risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and milder impairments. To elucidate diversity and contour of early developmental trajectories exhibited by sibs-A, regardless of diagnostic classification, latent class modeling was used. Methods: Sibs-A (N = 204) were assessed…

Although motor deficits are common in autism, the neural correlates underlying the disruption of even basic motor execution are unknown. Motor deficits may be some of the earliest identifiable signs of abnormal development and increased understanding of their neural underpinnings may provide insight into autism-associated differences in parallel…

Evaluation of 195 normal children (aged 1-5 years), 160 normal children (aged 3-24 months), and 41 autistic children (aged 5-11 years) on the eight psychological variables of the Behavioral Rating Instrument for Autistic and Other Atypical Children indicated certain autistic behaviors are not normal at any stage of development. (Author/CB)

Described is a program for autistic children, and presented are educational case studies of 13 children (6-9 years old). The program is explained to provide individualized instruction based on assessment using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test, B. Ruttenberg and E. Wolf's Vocalization and Expressive Speech Development Scale, L. Lee's…

The National Research Council formed a Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism and charged the committee with integrating the scientific, theoretical, and policy literature and creating a framework for evaluating the scientific evidence concerning the effects and features of educational interventions for young children with…