Informant Discrepancies in the Assessment of Social Skills and Behaviors of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study examined informant discrepancies for parent and teacher adaptive behavior ratings of 103 children, ages 6-12 years, with ASD (without intellectual disability). Scores on the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, third edition (Harrison and Oakland, Western Psychological Services, Los Angeles, 2015) General Adaptive Composite (GAC) and practical, social, and conceptual domains were examined for mean differences, level of agreement, and moderators of difference scores between informant groups. Teacher scores were significantly higher (indicating better functioning) than parents for the GAC and practical domain. Parent and teacher scores were moderately correlated and Bland-Altman plots and regression analyses revealed no systematic differences in parent-teacher agreement across the range of scores. None of the tested variables moderated the parent-teacher difference scores. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.

Actigraphy (ACT) is a non-invasive objective assessment tool for the study of sleep–wake rhythms. It is of particular interest in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as sleep disorders are highly prevalent and have a significant impact on both cognitive and behavioral functions. As polysomnography (PSG), the gold standard for the assessment of sleep, is difficult to perform in children with ASD, ACT has become a tool of choice but has not yet been validated against PSG using state-of-the-art methodology. The main objective of this study was to assess, for the first time, the validity of ACT compared to PSG for the measurement of sleep in children with ASD. During the same night of hospitalization, PSG and ACT were conducted in 26 children (6 girls and 20 boys; mean age 5.4 years ± 1.6) diagnosed with ASD according to DSM-5 criteria and standardized diagnostic scales. Sleep parameters were total sleep time (TST), sleep latency (SL), wake after sleep onset (WASO), and sleep efficiency (SE). To compare PSG and ACT, we conducted sleep parameter agreement analyses including: intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Bland-Altman plots, and equivalence tests. The comparison also included an epoch-by-epoch (EBE) agreement analysis to determine sensitivity (ability to detect sleep) and specificity (ability to detect wake). According to equivalence tests, the difference between ACT and PSG measures was clinically acceptable for TST (<30 min, p < 0.01), SL (<15 min, p < 0.001), and SE (10%, p < 0.01), but not for WASO (<15 min, p = 0.13). There was a good agreement between methods for SL (ICC = 0.79) and TST (ICC = 0.85) and a moderate agreement for WASO (ICC = 0.73) and SE (ICC = 0.68). The EBE agreement analysis revealed a high sensitivity (0.94 ± 0.06) and moderate specificity (0.5 ± 0.2). Since sleep disorders are one of the most common comorbidities within the ASD population and are highly prevalent, it is essential to validate objective tools of assessment. To our knowledge, our study is the first to validate ACT compared to PSG, using a state-of-the-art methodology, in children with ASD. The results suggest ACT to be a valid method to evaluate sleep within this population, with a good reliability for most sleep parameters.

Assessing Diverse Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Objective. To study the effect of nutrition and psychopathological traits on the development of eating behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Patients and methods. A comparative analysis of the features of nutrition and eating behavior in 40 children with ASD and 40 neurotypical controls was performed. Two patient groups were comparable in age (3–8 years). The methods used to assess nutrition included retrospective dietary recall, analysis of the frequency of consumption of specific foods or meals, and a 24-hour dietary recall survey. For retrospective analysis of children’s nutrition, we developed a questionnaire for parents, considering the characteristics of eating behavior in both children with ASD and neurotypical controls. Results. The introduction of first complementary foods in children with ASD did not differ significantly from neurotypical controls. The first peculiarities of eating behavior in children with ASD began to manifest themselves when trying to expand the variety of complementary foods. In 57.5% of children with ASD, clear disorders of eating behavior coincided with the onset of regression in neuropsychological development. There appeared food selectivity (in 72.5% of children with ASD), picky eating (in 22.5%), gagging at the sight, consistency, and color of food (in 42.5%) and a limited range of foods (in 70%), which was practically impossible to expand. The nutrition of children in the control group was diverse. They were interested in new tastes and consistency of foods, and food selectivity was noticed only in 16.7% of cases and was not so categorical. An attempt to influence the health status of children with ASD, primarily to reduce psychomotor agitation, was manifested in the use of elimination diets (gluten-free and/or casein-free) in 37.5% of children with ASD, which demonstrated a positive effect in most children. However, the indications for their use and duration were commonly not coordinated with a physician, which created a risk of deterioration in children’s health. Conclusion. Eating disorders are not always noticed by specialists in time and require special attention, as they can be both symptoms of ASD and contribute to disease aggravation. Refusal of children with ASD from previously consumed foods, selectivity, and picky eating commonly coincide with regression in neuropsychological development. The use of gluten-free and/or casein-free elimination diets in children with ASD should be justified. Restricted and unbalanced diets prescribed by parents without medical supervision may exacerbate the nutritional and health problems in children with ASD. Key words: autism spectrum disorder, children, eating behavior, nutrition, gluten-free diet, casein-free diet

Assessment of social behavior in children with autism: The development of the Behavioral Assessment of Social Interactions in Young Children

Problem and goal. The article discusses the results of a comparative study of the communication&nbsp;skills of older preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder of the second and third autism groups according to the classification of O. Nikolskaya; A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results obtained during the&nbsp; &nbsp;scertaining experiment is given. A survey and assessment of communication skills&nbsp;was carried out using the questionnaire “Assessment of communication skills in children with autism&nbsp;spectrum disorders,” proposed by A. Khaustov, developed on the basis of the methodology “Assessment of social and communication skills for children with autism” (Quill, Bracken, Fair, Fiore, 2002)&nbsp;in two groups of senior preschoolers.&nbsp;The first group consisted of preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders of the second autism&nbsp;group; the second group is represented by preschoolers of the third group of autism. The revealed&nbsp;features determine differences in the content of the correctional work of a speech therapist to form&nbsp;communication skills in these groups of children.Problem statement: preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders of different groups receive preschool education in accordance with the recommendations of the psychological, medical and pedagogical commission.Among the individual educational routes may be getting education for children with ASD according to the adapted basic general educational program for students with severe speech impairments, receive corrective help from a speech therapist to develop communication skills. The research&nbsp;problem is to determine the individualized content of corrective speech therapy work with preschool&nbsp;children with ASD of different autism groups, taking into account the identified features of communication skills.The goal of research. We presented the results of a comparative study of the communication&nbsp;skills of senior preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders of the second and third autism groups&nbsp;and the main directions of the content of the correctional speech teacher’s work.Methodology (materials and methods). The methodological basis of the study are: provisions&nbsp;on the special significance of social education of L. S. Vygotsky; theoretical justification of the communication system of children with disabilities and society (G. L. Zaitseva, E. P. Kuzmicheva, V. G.&nbsp;Petrova, A. G. Litvak, V. I. Lubovsky and others); teachings on the general laws of development of normal and abnormal children, on the potential development of a child (L. S. Vygotsky, E. I. Gracheva, R. E. Levina, E. M. Mastyukova, etc.); the&nbsp; concept of periodization of mental development in&nbsp;ontogenesis, the psychological theory of the game (D.B. Elkonin).&nbsp;The study is based on the idea of childhood autism presented by domestic and foreign authors&nbsp;(V.V. Lebedinsky, K.S. Lebedinskaya, O.S. Nikolskaya, E.R. Baenskaya, A.V. Khaustov, R. Jordan,&nbsp;D.M. Ricks, M. Sigman, JA Ungerer, L. Wing et al.). Research methods were determined in accordance with the goal, hypothesis and tasks of the work. In the course of the study, both theoretical and&nbsp;empirical methods were used. The bibliographic method belongs to the first, the ascertaining experiment using the questionnaire “Assessment of communication skills in children with autism spectrum disorders” proposed by A. Khaustov, developed on the basis of the methodology “Assessment of&nbsp;social and communication skills for children with autism”, belongs to the second. The questionnaire is used to assess the formation of communication skills in children of senior preschool and primary&nbsp;school age with autism spectrum disorder. Parents are primarily involved in filling out the questionnaire, who fill out the questionnaire based on the results of monitoring their own child.Results. We identified the distinctive features of the communication skills of senior preschoolers&nbsp;in two groups of subjects. All subjects of group A showed a low level of formation of communicative skills, and all subjects of group B showed an average. The directions of the corrective work of a&nbsp;speech therapist teacher with preschool children with ASD of different groups are described taking&nbsp;into account the identified features.

BackgroundChildren with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can experience issues in motor development and fall short of physical activity (PA) recommendations. Family members, especially parents and siblings, play important roles in influencing their motor behaviors.ObjectiveThis study investigated motor behaviors (i.e., levels of PA, parent‐perceived motor competence, and related family dynamics) in children with ASD during a historical event—the COVID‐19 pandemic—during which most service approaches were not being used, and children with ASD were staying at home with their parents and neurotypical (NT) siblings.MethodsThis cross‐sectional study recruited 17 ASD–NT–parent triads (51 participants in total). Motor behaviors were all measured by questionnaires and surveys, with levels of PA also measured objectively using ActiGraph GT3X. Descriptive analyses were conducted.ResultsChildren with ASD participated in more types of sedentary activities than leisure‐time and sports activities. Parents perceived a low level of motor competence in their children with ASD, and compared with siblings, they perceived more interactions and higher self‐efficacy in supporting PA in children with ASD.ConclusionThe findings of this study can be helpful to us as we evolve our understanding and strategies to influence motor behaviors in children with ASD, ultimately to advance our service‐delivery model to include family‐based approaches.ImplicationsThis study should inform future ASD studies of the importance of providing quality family‐based PA/education programs for children with ASD and boosting parents' and NT siblings' self‐efficacy in supporting PA in children with ASD.

The Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO) is a schedule for the diagnosis of autistic spectrum and related disorders and assessment of individual needs. It enables information to be recorded systematically for a wide range of behaviours and developmental skills and is suitable for use with all ages and levels of ability. In addition to helping the clinician to obtain a profile of each individual's pattern of development and behaviour, the DISCO also enables identification of specific features found in autistic spectrum disorders that are relevant for use with established diagnostic systems. This paper describes the historical background of the DISCO, outlines its structure and reports the results of an inter-rater reliability study with parents of 82 children aged 3 to 11 years with autistic spectrum disorder, learning disability, language disorder or typical development. Inter-rater reliability for the items in the interview was high (kappa coefficient or intra-class correlation at .75 or higher). This level of agreement was achieved for over 80% of the interview items.

Factor structure replication and bias investigation of the teacher rating of social skills

Development of inhibitory control is a core component of executive function processes and a key aspect of healthy development. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in performance on inhibitory control tasks. Nevertheless, the research on the neural correlates of these impairments is inconclusive. Here, we explore the integrity of inhibitory control networks in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children using resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imagaing (MRI). In a large multisite sample, we find evidence for significantly greater functional connectivity (FC) of the right inferior frontal junction (rIFJ) with the posterior cingulate gyrus, and left and right frontal poles in children with ASD compared with TD children. Additionally, TD children show greater FC of rIFJ with the superior parietal lobule (SPL) compared with children with ASD. Furthermore, although higher rIFJ-SPL and rIFJ-IPL FC was related to better inhibitory control behaviors in both ASD and TD children, rIFJ-dACC FC was only associated with inhibitory control behaviors in TD children. These results provide preliminary evidence of differences in intrinsic functional networks supporting inhibitory control in children with ASD, and provide a basis for further exploration of the development of inhibitory control in children with the disorder. Autism Research 2018, 11: 1468-1478. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Inhibitory control is an important process in healthy cognitive development. Behavioral studies suggest that inhibitory control is impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, research examining the neural correlates underlying inhibitory control differences in children with ASD is inconclusive. This study reveals differences in functional connectivity of brain networks important for inhibitory control in children with ASD compared with typically developing children. Furthermore, it relates brain network differences to parent-reported inhibitory control behaviors in children with ASD. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that differences in brain connectivity may underlie observable behavioral deficits in inhibitory control in children with the disorder.

Difficulties with social interaction have been reported in both children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), although these disorders have very different diagnostic characteristics. To date, assessment of social skills in a DCD population has been limited to paper-based assessment or parent report. The present study employed eye tracking methodology to examine how children attend to socially-relevant stimuli, comparing 28 children with DCD, 28 children with ASD and 26 typically-developing (TD) age-matched controls (aged 7–10). Eye movements were recorded while children viewed 30 images, half of which were classed as ‘Individual’ (one person in the scene, direct gaze) and the other half were ‘Social’ (more naturalistic scenes showing an interaction). Children with ASD spent significantly less time looking at the face/eye regions in the images than TD children, but children with DCD performed between the ASD and TD groups in this respect. Children with DCD demonstrated a reduced tendency to follow gaze, in comparison to the ASD group. Our findings confirm that social atypicalities are present in both ASD and to a lesser extent DCD, but follow a different pattern. Future research would benefit from considering the developmental nature of the observed findings and their implications for support.

PurposeVarious gastrointestinal factors may contribute to maladaptive behavior in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). To determine the association between maladaptive behavior in children with ASD and gastrointestinal symptoms such as severity, intestinal microbiota, inflammation, enterocyte damage, permeability and absorption of opioid peptides.MethodsThis observational cross-sectional study compared children with ASD to healthy controls, aged 2-10 years. Maladaptive behavior was classified using the Approach Withdrawal Problems Composite subtest of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory. Dependent variables were gastrointestinal symptom severity index, fecal calprotectin, urinary D-lactate, urinary lactulose/mannitol excretion, urinary intestinal fatty acids binding protein (I-FABP) and urinary opioid peptide excretion.ResultsWe did not find a significant difference between children with ASD with severe or mild maladaptive behavior and control subjects for gastrointestinal symptoms, fecal calprotectin, urinary D-lactate, and lactulose/mannitol ratio. Urinary opioid peptide excretion was absent in all children. Children with ASD with severe maladaptive behavior showed significantly higher urinary I-FABP levels compared to those with mild maladaptive behavior (p=0.019) and controls (p=0.015).ConclusionIn our series, maladaptive behavior in ASD children was not associated with gastrointestinal symptoms, intestinal inflammation (no difference in calprotectin), microbiota (no difference in urinary D-lactate) and intestinal permeability (no difference in lactulose/manitol ratio). ASD children with severe maladaptive behavior have significantly more enterocyte damage (increased urinary I-FABP) than ASD children with mild maladaptive behavior and normal children.

Status and Potential of Community-Engaged Research to Investigate Physical Activity Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Chinese-American Communities

The Child Sensory Profile-2 (CSP-2) is an 86-item parent-report sensory measure rated on a Likert scale from 0 (not applicable) to 5 (almost always). While the CSP-2 has been translated widely, there is currently no Malay version (MCSP-2) available for Malay-speaking parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Malaysia. This study aims to translate the CSP-2 into Malay and establish the validity and reliability of the MCSP-2. A cross-sectional study was conducted using convenience sampling. Two professional translators translated the CSP-2. Ten occupational therapists (OTs) and 109 parents of children with ASD participated in the study. Parents assessed face validity, while experts evaluated content validity of the MCSP-2. Internal consistency and test–retest reliability were assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Bland–Altman plots, and standard error of measurement (SEM). The MCSP-2 demonstrated good face validity, with Face Validity Index (FVI) scores ranging from 0.94 to 1.00. Content Validation Index (CVI) scores were excellent, with Item CVI averaging from 0.78 to 1.0 and Scale CVI/Average from 0.91 to 0.93. Cronbach’s alpha indicated high internal consistency, and test–retest reliability assessed by ICC, SEM, and Bland–Altman plots showed good reliability. These findings support the MCSP-2 as a reliable and valid tool for assessing sensory processing in Malay-speaking children with ASD. Therefore, the MCSP-2 is suitable for use among Malay-speaking parents or caregivers in Malaysia. This tool will help in better understanding and managing sensory processing issues in this population. Moreover, the MCSP-2 is suitable for use among Malay-speaking parents or caregivers in Malaysia, particularly those caring for children with ASD.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit self-stimulation behaviors (stimming), such as repetitive movements, sounds, or actions, which can disrupt therapy sessions and social interactions. These behaviors can impede the development of social skills and focus. Given the importance of non-invasive interventions, modifying play-based activities such as LEGO and maze games (LEMA) has been explored as a potential method to reduce stimming behaviors. (LEMA) game on reducing self-stimulation (stimming) behaviors in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research employed an A-B-A design, including a baseline phase (A1), an intervention phase (B), and a post-intervention phase (A2), conducted over 12 sessions. Two children, RFQ and HG, both of whom exhibited frequent stimming behaviors, were selected as participants. The intensity of their stimming behaviors was measured before and after the intervention using observational data. The data were analyzed using visual analysis to identify changes in the frequency and intensity of stimming behaviors across phases. Additionally, percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) was calculated to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention data. The findings showed that stimming behaviors in both children, which originally lasted approximately 390 seconds during the baseline phase (A1), significantly decreased during the intervention phase (B), with durations reduced to 48-55 seconds. After the intervention was stopped, stimming behaviors remained reduced in the post-intervention baseline phase (A2), indicating the effectiveness of the LEMA game in reducing these behaviors. Modifying the LEGO and Maze (LEMA) game effectively reduced self-stimulation behaviors in children with ASD. The results align with previous studies suggesting that structured play interventions, like LEGO and maze activities, can enhance focus and reduce repetitive behaviors in children with ASD.