Arousal In Children Research Articles

Prosocial Arousal in Children

AbstractChildren's prosociality emerges early in life, which suggests that helping others is rooted deeply in human nature. At the same time, the motivation underlying young children's instrumental helping poses a puzzle. Children do not express a specific emotion such as sympathy when removing physical obstacles for others. Instead of being motivated by a concern for others’ well‐being, toddlers may act to tie up loose ends or engage in social interactions, or they may be motivated because their goals align with those of others. Recent research has addressed the underlying motivation of children's helping by directly measuring children's internal arousal via changes in the dilation of their pupils. In several studies, children's arousal in response to others’ unfulfilled needs is genuinely prosocial and linked to the well‐being of others. This prosocial arousal may lie at the heart of not only children's instrumental helping but also their prosociality in general.

Young Children Want to See Others Get the Help They Need.

Children's instrumental helping has sometimes been interpreted as a desire to complete action sequences or to restore the physical order of things. Two-year-old children (n=51) selectively retrieved for an adult the object he needed rather than one he did not (but which equally served to restore the previous order of things), and those with greater internal arousal (i.e., pupil dilation) were faster to help. In a second experiment (n=64), children's arousal increased when they witnessed an adult respond inappropriately to another adult's need. This was not the case in a nonsocial control condition. These findings suggest that children's helping is not aimed at restoring the order of things but rather at seeing another person's need fulfilled.

Cortical arousal in children and adolescents with functional neurological symptoms during the auditory oddball task.

ObjectiveStress, pain, injury, and psychological trauma all induce arousal-mediated changes in brain network organization. The associated, high level of arousal may disrupt motor-sensory processing and result in aberrant patterns of motor function, including functional neurological symptoms. We used the auditory oddball paradigm to assess cortical arousal in children and adolescents with functional neurological symptom disorder.MethodElectroencephalogram (EEG) data was collected in fifty-seven children and adolescents (41 girls; 16 boys, aged 8.5–18 years) with acute functional neurological symptoms and age- sex- matched controls during a conventional auditory oddball task. The high-resolution fragmentary decomposition technique was used to analyse the amplitude of event-related potentials (ERPs) to target tones at midline sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz).ResultsCompared to age- and sex-matched controls, and across all three midline sites, children and adolescents with functional neurological symptoms showed increased amplitude of all ERP components (P50, N100, P200, N200, and P300) (t-value range 2.28–8.20; p value-range 0.023 to < 0.001) to the emotionally-neutral auditory stimulus.ConclusionsOur findings add to a growing literature indicating that a baseline state of high arousal may be a precondition for generating functional neurological symptoms, a finding that helps explain why a range of psychological and physiological stressors can trigger functional neurological symptoms in some patients. Interventions that target cortical arousal may be central to the treatment of paediatric patients with functional neurological symptom disorder.

Autonomic arousal in children of parents with and without social anxiety disorder: a high-risk study.

Autonomic hyperarousal in social situations is considered a genetic vulnerability factor for social anxiety disorder (SAD), but so far it is unstudied in children at risk for developing SAD. We examined autonomic activity during socially stressful tasks in children of mothers and fathers with and without lifetime SAD to reveal possible biological mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of SAD. One hundred ten children aged 4.5years were asked to sing a song in front of an audience and watch back their performance in the presence of that audience. Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), electrodermal activity (EDA), and blushing (cheek blood flow and temperature) were measured in anticipation of, during, and after the tasks. Both parents' lifetime SAD status was assessed, and both parents reported about their own and their child's social anxiety symptoms. Children of parents with lifetime SAD blushed more during the socially challenging tasks than children of parents without SAD. Moreover, children of parents with more social anxiety symptoms showed increased EDA throughout the tasks. Finally, more blushing, increased EDA, and reduced HRV were associated with greater child social anxiety. This study adds to the current knowledge on the intergenerational transmission of SAD by providing evidence that children at risk for SAD are characterized by excessive blushing in socially challenging situations. The findings also demonstrate that heightened autonomic activity is a characteristic of social anxiety already during early childhood. Hence, autonomic hyperarousal, and blushing in particular, is likely to play an etiological role in the development of SAD.

The link between parent and child sleep disturbances in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

ObjectiveAlthough sleep problems are widely known to be a prominent feature of childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), little is known about the link between these difficulties and parental sleep disturbances. MethodsThe design was cross-sectional assessing a clinical sample of 62 children, aged 7–17 years (mean age = 10.0 years) diagnosed with ADHD and their parents. All participants completed measures of ADHD symptoms, sleep, anxiety, and executive functioning. ResultsRegression analysis revealed that child's pre-sleep arousal significantly predicted parental sleep, and that medication status and children's anxiety significantly predicted children's sleep. Children with a clinical sleep score were more impaired in behavioral, emotional, and cognitive domains. ConclusionParents of children with ADHD exhibit sleep disturbances that might be affected by their child's arousal prior to bedtime. The nature of the interaction between children with ADHD and their parents' sleep abnormalities is yet to be elucidated.

EEG arousals in children exhibiting primary snoring

EEG arousals in children exhibiting primary snoring

Atypical sympathetic arousal in children with autism spectrum disorder and its association with anxiety symptomatology.

BackgroundAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been associated with autonomic atypicalities, although the nature of these differences remains largely unknown. Moreover, existing literature suggests large variability in autonomic function in ASD, motivating the need to examine the existence of subgroups that exhibit more homogeneous autonomic features.MethodsElectrodermal activity (EDA), a non-invasive physiological indicator of autonomic activity, was measured in typically developing children (n = 33) and those with ASD (n = 38) as participants performed tasks that elicit anxiety, attention, response inhibition, and social cognition processes. The ASD group was divided into low- (n = 18) and high-anxiety (n = 20) participants, and the groups were compared to mean EDA level and electrodermal reactions frequency (EDR).ResultsThe ASD group had a significantly blunted mean EDA response to the anxiety tasks (p < 0.004). The EDR response to all tasks, except response inhibition, was also blunted in the ASD group (p < 0.04). For this group, EDR frequency during the anxiety and social cognition tasks was negatively correlated with behavioral scores in the domains that were probed by each task (p < 0.002). The high-anxiety ASD group showed significantly decreased mean EDA compared to both the low-anxiety ASD group (p = 0.02) and the typically developing control group (p = 0.04). The high-anxiety ASD group also had significantly more severe symptoms than the low-anxiety ASD group on domains related to anxiety, attention, rule breaking, aggression, obsessions and compulsions, and depression.ConclusionsOur results suggest atypical autonomic function in children with ASD, specifically with respect to sympathetic activity. Moreover, anxiety symptomatology defined subgroups with distinct physiological and behavioral profiles. Overall, the results add to the body of literature supporting autonomic dysfunction in ASD and highlight the role of anxiety and autonomic features in explaining the variability in the autism spectrum.

Alternating hemiplegia of childhood

We reviewed the etiologic aspects, clinical symptoms, complementary studies, differential diagnosis and treatment of alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC). AHC is an uncommon illness of uncertain pathophysiology that provokes crisis of transient hemiplegia affecting one hemibody or occasionally both at the same time. Clinical symptoms of AHC usually begin before the age of 18 months and in some cases may present in the neonatal period. Clinical symptoms include abnormal ocular movements such as nystagmus and dystonic or tonic posturing. Hemiplegic attacks are not associated with alteration of consciousness. Hemiplegia may disappear after arousal and may reappear 10 to 20 minutes after arousal in children with AHC. The diagnosis of AHC is clinically made, and most of the clinically used diagnostic tests result in negative. The treatment of AHC includes flunarizine. It is necessary to suspect this diagnosis to identify patients with AHC.

Sense – a biofeedback system to support the interaction between parents and their child with the Prader-Willi syndrome: A pilot study

Parents of children with the Prader-Willi syndrome have shown to experience difficulties in interpreting their child's signals and experience a lack of interest from their child, which causes a risk for a disrupted bonding process between the child and his or her parents. Evidence suggests that this is mainly due to the fact that these children are excessively sleepy, hardly cry and express movement to a lesser extent. In this paper an intelligent biofeedback system is proposed to support parents in their interaction with their child. The proposed system - called Sense - uses a galvanic skin response sensor to monitor the child's arousal response and visually communicates this to the parents. A prototype of the system is created and evaluated with users. Furthermore, thirteen tests are carried out with Prader-Willi patients to validate whether the galvanic skin response sensor provides a meaningful output signal for the system. The results from the tests show that galvanic skin response is a valuable biofeedback source to provide more information about the child's emotions and reaction to the environment. As a result of evaluating the intelligent system, parents expect Sense will improve the interaction and bonding between parents and their child with the Prader-Willi syndrome.

Animals may act as social buffers: Skin conductance arousal in children with autism spectrum disorder in a social context.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience high rates of social stress and anxious arousal. Preliminary evidence suggests that companion animals can act as buffers against the adverse effects of social stress in adults. We measured continuous physiological arousal in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children in a social context during four conditions: (a) a baseline of reading silently, (b) a scripted classroom activity involving reading aloud, (c) free play with peers and toys, and (d) free play with peers and animals (guinea pigs). Our results confirmed heightened arousal among children with ASD compared to TD children in all conditions, except when the animals were present. Children with ASD showed a 43% decrease in skin conductance responses during free play with peers in the presence of animals, compared to toys. Thus, animals may act as social buffers for children with ASD, conferring unique anxiolytic effects.

G399(P) Usefulness of pulse transit time in the assessment of children with obstructive sleep apnoea

Aims Pulse oximetry is widely used to identify children with OSA but lacks sensitivity compared to polysomnography. Previous studies have shown the utility of pulse transit time (PTT) at detecting arousals in children with OSA but values likely to be indicative of disease have not been established. 1 PTT is the time taken for the pulse pressure wave to travel from the aortic valve to the periphery and is a non-invasive marker of blood pressure. It provides a quantitative measurement of inspiratory effort in patients with sleep-related breathing disorders. We aim to investigate if a correlation exists between PTT indices (PTT arousals, respiratory swing) and oximetry results to ascertain its usefulness or otherwise in the assessment of children with suspected OSA. Methods A retrospective review was carried out of 176 paediatric inpatient sleep studies undertaken at a district general hospital between Dec 2013–Dec 2014. Data were obtained from a database and patient notes. Sleep studies were carried out using VISILAB equipment incorporating ECG, audio, video, PTT and oximetry. Statistical analysis was performed using an unpaired, 1-tailed students t test. Results Our data showed an upward trend in average PTT arousals when OSA severity was determined using pulse oximetry or by sleep study based diagnosis. Positive studies had an average PTT over 49/hour (Figures 1 and 3). This upward trend is also the case for respiratory swing (Figure 2), with positive studies having a mean respiratory swing over 24 ms. There is a highly significant difference in mean PTT and respiratory swing between normal/borderline and abnormal oximetry categories (p = 0.05). Conclusion PTT is not sufficiently discriminatory if used in isolation for assessment of OSA in children, but is a useful addition when combined with pulse oximetry and other parameters. Reference Katz ES, Lutz J, Black C, Marcus CL. Pulse transit time as a measure of arousal and respiratory effort in children with sleep-disordered breathing. Pediatr Res. 2003;53:580–588

Experimental manipulation of the Trier Social Stress Test-Modified (TSST-M) to vary arousal across development.

Reliable laboratory protocols manipulating the intensity of biobehavioral arousal for children are uncommon, and those available have minimal converging evidence of their efficacy in manipulating arousal across multiple biological systems. This report presents two studies of the efficacy of the modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-M). In Study 1, sixty-three 7-15-year olds, and 19 young adults (18-25 yrs) completed the TSST-M. Comparable reactivity across age groups was observed for salivary cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), pre-ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), whereas self-reported stress was higher in adults compared to children. In Study 2, eighty-four 7-8-year olds and eighty-six 12-15-year olds were randomly assigned to a standard or low-stress TSST-M condition. Cortisol and self-reported stress responses were higher in the standard compared to the low-stress condition. In contrast, sAA and PEP were higher in the low-stress condition and RSA responses were comparable between the two TSST-M conditions. In addition, age group differences emerged in Study 2, though never in conjunction with the TSST-M manipulation. To test, refine, and advance theory about the implications of stress for child development, laboratory tasks that manipulate and enable assessment of biobehavioral arousal in children are needed.

A Kalman filtering framework for physiological detection of anxiety-related arousal in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Anxiety is associated with physiological changes that can be noninvasively measured using inexpensive and wearable sensors. These changes provide an objective and language-free measure of arousal associated with anxiety, which can complement treatment programs for clinical populations who have difficulty with introspection, communication, and emotion recognition. This motivates the development of automatic methods for detection of anxiety-related arousal using physiology signals. While several supervised learning methods have been proposed for this purpose, these methods require regular collection and updating of training data and are, therefore, not suitable for clinical populations, where obtaining labelled data may be challenging due to impairments in communication and introspection. In this context, the objective of this paper is to develop an unsupervised and real-time arousal detection algorithm. We propose a learning framework based on the Kalman filtering theory for detection of physiological arousal based on cardiac activity. The performance of the system was evaluated on data obtained from a sample of children with autism spectrum disorder. The results indicate that the system can detect anxiety-related arousal in these children with sensitivity and specificity of 99% and 92%, respectively. Our results show that the proposed method can detect physiological arousal associated with anxiety with high accuracy, providing support for technical feasibility of augmenting anxiety treatments with automatic detection techniques. This approach can ultimately lead to more effective anxiety treatment for a larger and more diverse population.

Reply: Arousal Threshold in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

From the Authors: We thank Professor Marcus for her interest in our study (1), and for highlighting these key arousal threshold studies in children with and without obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (2). Our paper focused on adults. The pathophysiology of OSA in children may be quite different. Nonetheless, comparing potential differences and similarities in the varying causes of OSA between adults and children is of interest. In considering the role of arousal in sleep-disordered breathing pathogenesis across the lifespan, it is noteworthy that termination of obstructive respiratory events are rarely associated with cortical arousal in infants (<10%) (3), occur occasionally in children (<50%) (3, 4), and are present more frequently in adults (∼80%) (5). These divergences may reflect differences in arousal mechanisms, neuromuscular responses, or a combination of both. The timing of EEG arousal also often does not precisely coincide with airway opening in OSA (5, 6). Thus, EEG arousals are not required for airway opening in OSA and the upper airway muscles are capable of restoring airflow via noncortical arousal mechanisms, especially in infants. On average, our data indicate that respiratory arousal thresholds are marginally higher (harder to wake up) in adult patients with OSA than in healthy control subjects, even after at least 3 months of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy for more than 4 hours per night (1). However, most patients with OSA have arousal thresholds that are within the normal range after therapy (1, 6). In those who have high arousal thresholds despite CPAP treatment (∼25% of the patoents with OSA we studied), OSA is typically very severe (6, 7). Increased arousal thresholds in these patients may be inherent or slowly/incompletely reversible. However, caution is warranted, as current treatments for OSA in both children and adults are often incompletely effective in mitigating sleep-disordered breathing and its consequences, particularly when CPAP compliance is considered. Elevated arousal thresholds in OSA may also be protective via preservation of sleep and facilitation of upper airway muscle activity (8–10). Thus, it is unclear if elevated arousal thresholds in some patients with OSA are a consequence/adaptive response or a contributor to the disorder. This may differ between children and adults. A combined pediatric and adult study using standardized techniques to characterize respiratory and nonrespiratory arousal, ideally longitudinally, would likely be insightful in determining the potential role of high arousal thresholds in OSA pathogenesis. In contrast, CPAP does not appear to decrease the arousal threshold in patients with OSA with low arousal thresholds, who likely represent at least 30% of the current adult OSA population (6). Thus, while there is a group of patients with OSA in whom arousal thresholds are high, others may have inherently low arousal thresholds. From a phenotyping perspective, it is essential to consider inter-individual variability in arousal thresholds in OSA. The level of hypercapnia associated with cortical arousal in children with OSA varies widely (from ∼53 to ∼65 mm Hg [7]), as does the negative esophageal pressure to obstructive respiratory events (approximately −8 to −65 cm H2O [4]). Similarly, while the existing adult arousal threshold literature primarily includes patients with severe OSA, the degree of negative epiglottic or esophageal pressure required to elicit cortical arousal to respiratory stimuli ranges from −8 to −147 cm H2O (6). The pathophysiological contribution and consequences of arousal for a patient with OSA who wakes up repetitively at −10 cm H2O compared with another patient who arouses at highly negative pressures will be quite different. Waking up too easily (a low arousal threshold) is likely to contribute to repetitive respiratory events. Certain sedatives increase the arousal threshold (11, 12) and can promote breathing stability in patients with OSA with a low arousal threshold (12). On the other hand, quite a high arousal threshold may contribute to more severe hypoxemia and its accompanying consequences (6). Ultimately, the arousal threshold in combination with key anatomical and other nonanatomical phenotypic traits need to be considered on a per-patient basis to improve our understanding of this heterogeneous disorder. While the pathophysiological heterogeneity of OSA is complex, this observed heterogeneity also provides opportunities to better tailor therapies for patients with OSA (1).

Abnormal Pre-Attentive Arousal in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Contributes to Their Atypical Auditory Behavior: An ERP Study

Auditory sensory modulation difficulties and problems with automatic re-orienting to sound are well documented in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Abnormal preattentive arousal processes may contribute to these deficits. In this study, we investigated components of the cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) reflecting preattentive arousal in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children aged 3-8 years. Pairs of clicks (‘S1’ and ‘S2’) separated by a 1 sec S1-S2 interstimulus interval (ISI) and much longer (8-10 sec) S1-S1 ISIs were presented monaurally to either the left or right ear. In TD children, the P50, P100 and N1c CAEP components were strongly influenced by temporal novelty of clicks and were much greater in response to the S1 than the S2 click. Irrespective of the stimulation side, the ‘tangential’ P100 component was rightward lateralized in TD children, whereas the ‘radial’ N1c component had higher amplitude contralaterally to the stimulated ear. Compared to the TD children, children with ASD demonstrated 1) reduced amplitude of the P100 component under the condition of temporal novelty (S1) and 2) an attenuated P100 repetition suppression effect. The abnormalities were lateralized and depended on the presentation side. They were evident in the case of the left but not the right ear stimulation. The P100 abnormalities in ASD correlated with the degree of developmental delay and with the severity of auditory sensory modulation difficulties observed in early life. The results suggest that some rightward-lateralized brain networks that are crucially important for arousal and attention re-orienting are compromised in children with ASD and that this deficit contributes to sensory modulation difficulties and possibly even other behavioral deficits in ASD.

The methods applied by pre-school teachers to raise the curiosity of children and their views

The purpose of this study is to determine the strategies used by pre-school teachers in order to raise curiosity in children. Based on this aim, sample is composed of 52 pre-school teachers working in kindergartens affiliated to Ministry of National Education. Study data were collected via qualitative research methods. Research data were gathered in face to face manner by asking questions to teachers in a semi-structured interview form developed by researchers. Teachers were asked open-ended questions in which activities and methods they try to evoke curiosity; which subjects/activities most easily and hardly arouse curiosity; their self-perception of competency in provoking curiosity. As a result of this study, techniques used by teachers for provoking curiosity were identified and suggestions were made regarding the process of curiosity arousal in children. Key words: Pre-school teacher, pre-school education, a sense of wonder.

Heart rate variability as a biomarker for autonomic nervous system response differences between children with chronic pain and healthy control children

Studies in adults have demonstrated a relationship between lowered heart rate variability (HRV) and poor health. However, less is known about the role of autonomic arousal in children’s well-being. The aim of the current study was to examine resting HRV in children with chronic pain compared to healthy control children and, further, to examine children’s HRV following a series of acute experimental pain tasks in both groups. Participants included 104 healthy control children and 48 children with chronic pain aged 8–17 years. The laboratory session involved a 5-minute baseline electrocardiogram followed by four pain induction tasks: evoked pressure, cold pressor, focal pressure, and a conditioned pain modulation task. After the tasks were complete, a 5-minute post-task electrocardiogram recording was taken. Spectral analysis was used to capture high-frequency normalized power and the ratio of low-to-high frequency band power, signifying cardiac vagal tone and sympathetic balance, respectively. Results revealed that children with chronic pain had significantly lower resting HRV (signified by low high-frequency normalized power and high ratio of low-to-high frequency band power) compared to healthy children; moreover, a significant interaction between groups and time revealed that children with chronic pain displayed a static HRV response to the pain session compared to healthy children, whose HRV was reduced concomitant with the pain session. These findings suggest that children with chronic pain may have a sustained stress response with minimal variability in response to new acute pain stressors.

The Complex Relationship Between ADHD and Pediatric Sleep Disorders

Research Findings, 12 In the last decades, many studies have investigated the association between attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and sleep problems, reported in a percentage ranging from 25% to 50% of cases (Corkum, Tannock, & Moldofsky, 1998). This relationship is still poorly understood because sleep problems include a wide range of specific sleep disorders, from insomnia to hypersomnia. Indeed, a better characterization and understanding of the specific sleep disorders underlying these complaints in children with ADHD is needed (Owens, 2005). The complexity of this issue is also due to the heterogeneity of the studies on sleep in pediatric ADHD (subjective studies based on sleep questionnaires fulfilled by caregivers or objective studies based on actigraphic and polysomnographic recordings), and the contradictory results reported. Caregivers are worried mostly about insomnia, bedtime resistance, difficulties with morning awakenings, snoring, and daytime sleepiness. Objective data showed an increase in sleep onset latency (actigraphic studies) or a decreased time to fall asleep during daytime with daytime somnolence (as measured by the Multiple Sleep Latency Test), a decreased amount of sleep time, an increased number of apneahypopnea during sleep and of movements during sleep (polysomnographic studies) (Cortese, Faraone, Konofal, & Lecendreux, 2009). Sleep instability in children with ADHD might also be a consequence of the increased rate of EEG-interictal discharges during sleep or of epilepsy (Silvestri et al., 2007). Finally, sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is a well-known sleep disorder that is associated with diurnal neurobehavioral problems, such as ADHD, learning problems, behavioral disorders, and hypersomnolence. Intermittent hypoxia during sleep and sleep fragmentation due to sleep apnea are implicated in the pathogenesis of the diurnal neurobehavioral consequences of SDB (Kheirandish & Gozal, 2006). Paradoxically, while many studies have hypothesized the presence of an arousal dysfunction in ADHD, few data have been collected on the analysis of arousals in children with ADHD. The analysis of arousals has many clinical implications: An increased level of arousability might be related to sleep fragmentation, and excessive arousals from sleep may impair cognitive development, as well may low levels of arousability. Arousals are important components of sleep structure and are defined as transient intrusions of wakefulness during sleep and are closely correlated with the recovery function of sleep. Presented below is

Diurnal variations in arousal: a naturalistic heart rate study in children with ADHD

Previous studies suggest an altered circadian regulation of arousal in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as measured by activity, circadian preference, and sleep-wake patterns. Although heart rate is an important measure to evaluate arousal profiles, to date it is unknown whether 24-h heart rate patterns differentiate between children with and without ADHD. In this study, 24-h heart rate data were collected in 30 non-medicated children with ADHD (aged 6-11) and 30 sex-, class-, and age-matched normal controls in their naturalistic home and school setting, during 5 days. Simultaneously, 24-h activity patterns were registered. Confounding effects of demographic variables (e.g., age, sex, BMI, pubertal stage) and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems on heart rate levels were additionally assessed. Longitudinal analysis showed that heart rate levels were overall higher in the ADHD group (p < 0.01)--with the largest effects during afternoon and night--in a model controlling for age. Other factors did not significantly contribute to variations in heart rate levels. Compared to controls, children with ADHD showed higher activity levels during daytime (especially early afternoon), but not during nighttime (p < 0.05). Post hoc analyses showed that environmental effects might influence daytime variations. Findings suggest an autonomic imbalance in children with ADHD as compared to controls, with higher heart rate levels in the ADHD group. Nighttime tachycardia in this group could not be explained by nighttime activity levels or comorbid externalizing/internalizing problems. Further research on autonomic functioning in ADHD is recommended because of the major impact of higher resting heart rate on health outcomes.

Physiologic arousal to social stress in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A pilot study

Little is known about arousal to socially stressful situations in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This preliminary study investigates physiologic arousal in children with high functioning autism (HFA, n = 19) compared to a comparison group ( n = 11) before, during, and after the Trier Social Stress Test. The HFA group was more likely to have a decrease in salivary cortisol following the stressor, while the comparison group was more likely to have an increase ( p = .02). However, there was no difference in electrodermal activity, a measure of sympathetic arousal, or vagal tone, a measure of parasympathetic activity, between groups. These findings implicate a differential neuroendocrine response to social stress in children with HFA despite similar sympathetic and parasympathetic responses during a stressor. Further studies are required to substantiate this finding.