Abstract
Psychological and mental health consequences of large-scale anti-contagion policies are assuming strong relevance in the COVID-19 pandemic. We proposed a specific focus on a large sample of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), developing an ad hoc instrument to investigate changes occurred in specific (sub-)domains during a period of national lockdown (Italy). Our questionnaire, named AutiStress, is both context-specific (being set in the COVID-19 pandemic scenario) and condition-specific (being structured taking into account the autistic functioning peculiarities in the paediatric age). An age- and gender-matched group of neurotypical (TD) controls was also provided. As expected, the severe lockdown policies had a general negative impact both on ASD and TD children, reflecting the obvious burden of the pandemic situation. However, our findings also indicate that children with ASD experienced more positive changes than TD ones. Noteworthy, we report a thought-provoking double dissociation in the context-specific predictor (i.e., accessibility to private outdoor spaces), indicating that it impacts differently on the two groups. Focusing on the ASD group, results suggest a condition-specific impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on core autistic (sub-)domains. Taken together, our data call for a multi-layered, context- and condition-specific analysis of the pandemic burden beyond any oversimplification.
Highlights
No doubt that the health, social and economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a worldwide impact on our lives, and it deeply set the course of biomedical research in 2020 providing extraordinary rapid insights on the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) biology, diagnostics, and t reatment[1,2,3]
We focus on the House-Characteristics predictor to consider peculiarities of the COVID-19 pandemic scenario
Mood domain represents an unspecific and non-core autistic feature that may reliably help in characterizing the burden of the pandemic scenario both for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and TD children
Summary
No doubt that the health, social and economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a worldwide impact on our lives, and it deeply set the course of biomedical research in 2020 providing extraordinary rapid insights on the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) biology, diagnostics, and t reatment[1,2,3]. We propose a specific focus on a well-characterized sample of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) living in the Northern Italy (Lombardy region), that has been one of the first and major pandemic epicenters in E urope[13] This will provide additional insights on this extremely complex and multi-layered balance, but it offers the unique possibility to explore the impact of unprecedented restriction measures on children with ASD using a clinically driven approach based on peculiarities of the autistic functioning. Both the unprecedented pandemic COVID-19 scenario and the underestimated peculiarities of the autistic functioning call for a tailored approach in investigating the consequences of severe lockdown policies in our children with ASD sample For these reasons, we provided an ad hoc questionnaire, named AutiStress, to explore the pandemic impact in a spectrum of domains, each characterized by specific sub-domains referring to distinct types-of-change (Table S1). A group of neurotypical children was provided as control group
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
