Background: Unusual responses to sensory stimuli are seen in many children with autism. Their presence was highlighted both in early accounts of autism and in more recent first-person descriptions. There is a widespread belief that sensory symptoms characterize autism and differentiate it from other disorders. This paper examines the empirical…

Objective: We investigated the role of genetic and environmental factors in the developmental association among symptoms of eating disorders, depression, and anxiety syndromes in 8-13-year-old and 14-17-year-old twin girls. Methods: Multivariate genetic models were fitted to child-reported longitudinal symptom data gathered from clinical interview…

Background: Childhood psychopathology is associated with both high and low levels of prosocial behaviour. It has been proposed that the development of prosocial behaviour shows emerging and consolidating individual differences as children grow older. The influences on these individual differences have not previously been examined in children and…

Background and Purpose: The intensity of physical therapy provided for children in early intervention (EI) programs may be influenced by a number of factors. In an individualized program, however, some children and families may benefit from an increased frequency of services. The purpose of this case report was to systematically document and…

Deficits in theory of mind (ToM), evident in most individuals with autism, have been suggested as a core deficit of autism. ToM difficulties in young siblings of children with autism (SIBS-A) compared to siblings of typically developing children (SIBS-TD) would place the former within the broad phenotype. We examined ToM's possible associations…

Lowered intelligence relative to controls is evident by mid-childhood in children with sickle cell disease. There is consensus that brain infarct contributes to this deficit, but the subtle lowering of IQ in children with normal MRI scans might be accounted for by chronic systemic complications leading to insufficient oxygen delivery to the brain.…

The papers presented at the 2004 Academy meetings can be thought of as pieces from jigsaw puzzles. While the employment of this metaphor over the years has been useful, we may be ready for a new image, one that is both more accurate and inspiring. We can picture ourselves working at different locations along a river bank. Some of us work upstream,…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess heritability of activity, attention, and impulsivity by comparing young monozygotic (MZ) twins with dizygotic (DZ) twins using objective measures. Method: The OPTAx test is an infrared motion analysis to record the movement pattern during a continuous performance test. Seventeen MZ and 12 same…

Genetic engineering is now an integral part of many high school textbooks but little work has been done to assess whether it is being properly addressed. A checklist with 19 items was used to analyze how genetic engineering is presented in biology textbooks commonly used in Spanish high schools, including the content, its relationship with…

This article reviews research on the behavioral and molecular genetics of reading and, where available, spelling. Recent research is summarized, suggesting that reading and spelling appear to share a common genetic basis, and that dyslexia lies on a genetic continuum with normal variance in reading skill. Research also suggests that while many of…

Prevalence of severe sleep problems and its association with other variables were investigated with 109 individuals who have Angelman syndrome. Severe settling problems, frequent night waking, and early waking were found in 2%, 37%, and 10% of the individuals, respectively. Sleep problems were persistent in this sample. No statistically…

Converging evidence supports the hypothesis that the most common subtype of childhood speech sound disorder (SSD) of currently unknown origin is genetically transmitted. We report the first findings toward a set of diagnostic markers to differentiate this proposed etiological subtype (provisionally termed "speech delay-genetic") from other…

Objective: To investigate children selected from a community sample for showing extreme autistic-like traits and to assess the degree to which these individual traits--social impairments (SIs), communication impairments (CIs), and restricted repetitive behaviors and interests (RRBIs)--are caused by genes and environments, whether all of them are…

It is the belief of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child that better public understanding of the rapidly growing science of early childhood and early brain development can provide a powerful impetus for the design and implementation of policies and programs that could make a significant difference in the lives of all children.…

In this article, we review the literature on siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from a lifespan developmental perspective, from infancy through adulthood, focusing on the sibling relationship and sibling well-being. We situate this review within the larger body of research on siblings of individuals with developmental…