Than Typically Developing Research Articles

Neural Correlates of Emotion Reactivity and Regulation in Young Children with ADHD Symptoms.

Emotion reactivity and regulation are frequently impaired in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), yet few studies have examined these factors in young children with ADHD, and none have explored the neural correlates of emotion reactivity and regulation in this group through event-related potentials (ERPs). Children aged 4 to 7 with (n=25; 18 boys) and without (n=29; 20 boys) ADHD symptoms completed an attention task composed of four blocks: baseline, frustration, suppression, and recovery. In the frustration and suppression blocks, negative affect was induced by false negative feedback. During the suppression block, children were asked to suppress emotional expressions. Neural reactivity, assessed via the N2 and P3 components, suggests that children with ADHD symptoms processed the emotional induction differently than typically developing (TD) children. TD children demonstrated decreased N2 and increased P3 amplitudes at frontal and frontocentral regions across task conditions whereas children with ADHD symptoms showed relatively stable N2 and P3 amplitudes. This pattern suggests that young children with ADHD symptoms are not as effective as their TD peers in modulating attention allocation and cognitive control in emotionally laden situations. The present study underscores that emotional contexts may exacerbate attentional control deficits in young children with ADHD symptoms.

Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities

Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing (TD) peers on measures of cohesion in spoken language and on written transcription measures; however, there is far less research comparing groups on cohesion as a measure of written language across genres. The current study addresses this gap through the following two aims. First, to describe and compare cohesion in narrative and expository writing samples of children with and without language learning disabilities. Second, to relate measures of cohesion to written transcription and translation measures, oral language, and writing quality. Fifty intermediate-grade children produced one narrative and one expository writing sample from which measures of written cohesion were obtained. These included the frequency, adequacy and complexity of referential and conjunctive ties. Expository samples resulted in more complex cohesive ties and children with TD used more complex ties than peers with LLD. Different relationships among cohesion measures and writing were observed for narrative verse expository samples. Findings from this study demonstrate cohesion as a discourse-level measure of written transcription and how the use of cohesion can vary by genre and group (LLD, TD). Clinical implications for assessment, intervention, and future research are provided.

Risk Factors for Overweight in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Previous literature suggests children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a higher prevalence of excess weight than typically developing (TD) children, but information addressing risk factor concordance between those with ASD and TD children is lacking. We used a retrospective analysis of children (N = 2610) who visited an Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network (AS-ATN) center in the United States or Canada. This analysis occurred concurrently with two other research teams within AS-ATN. We found substantial agreement between predictors of weight in children with ASD and known correlates of obesity in typical children. These included Asian and Hispanic ethnicities, four medication groups, and psychopathological comorbidities such as aggression, anxiety, depression, and ADHD symptoms. The similarities of risk factors for weight between TD and ASD children will allow for use of existing protocols for weight interventions with minimal modification, saving resources otherwise spent pursuing new risk factors or treatments.

Comparison of speech rate and intelligibility between children with cerebral palsy and typically developing children in Taiwan

Due to the defect of speech motor control, cerebral palsied children (CP) with dysarthria often show slower, weaker, and imprecise articulation with poor coordination, which have profound impact on speech intelligibility (Hodge & Gotzke, 2014; Hustad, Gorton, & Lee, 2010). It was reported that CP children had lower speech rate and intelligibility than typically developing (TD) children. However, little research discussed the application of this finding in languages other than English. The present study investigated the correlations between speech rate and intelligibility in 4 Mandarin-speaking CP children aged 4-8 and 4 TD children aged 5. Speech data were collected from the repetition tasks of sentences ranging from 3 to 8 words. Speech rate were calculated through WPM (words per minute) and IWPM (intelligible words per minute), and speech intelligibility of each child was judged by three listeners. The results showed that: 1) TD had significantly higher mean intelligibility and slightly higher IWPM than the CP group; 2) Mean WPM of CP was higher than TD; 3) Higher WPM in CP did not correspond to higher intelligibility. Contrary to the previous findings, in the present study, CP showed higher WPM but lower intelligibility. This discrepancy requires further examinations in future studies.

Tracking cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity in children with and without motor coordination problems.

Previous research has shown children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) have lower cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) than typically developing (TD) children. This has been hypothesized to be due to an activity deficit, whereby poor motor functioning discourages children from participating in physical activities, but this hypothesis has not been directly tested. In this study, we use longitudinal data to measure the extent to which physical activity explains differences in CRF between children with and without motor coordination deficits. Longitudinal observational study. The study sample is an open cohort of children, numbering 2278 at baseline (age 9-10), that was followed for up to 5 years (to age 13-14). Motor skills were assessed once over the study period. Children scoring at or below the 5th percentile (n=103) on the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-Short Form were considered to have possible DCD (pDCD). CRF (estimated peak VO2) was estimated from performance on the Léger 20m shuttle run test, and physical activity was measured with the Participation Questionnaire. Both fitness and physical activity were measured up to 7 times over the study period. Children with pDCD had significantly lower CRF than their TD peers at each time point. CRF declined for both groups, but this decline was steeper for children with pDCD. Physical activity explained only a small part of the difference in CRF. The activity deficit did not contribute to the persistent and gradually widening gap in CRF between children with and without possible DCD. Possible reasons for this and future directions are discussed.

Why do children with language impairment have difficulties with narrative macrostructure?

BackgroundResearch has produced conflicting findings about the effects of language impairment (LI) on narrative macrostructure outcomes. AimsThe present study investigated if children with LI perform weaker than typically developing (TD) controls on narrative macrostructure in different tasks, whether this changes over time and if between-group differences stem from linguistic or cognitive factors. Methods and proceduresA group of monolingual Dutch children with LI (n=84) and a TD control group (n=45) were tested with a story comprehension and a story generation task. All children were five or six at wave 1 and six or seven at wave 2. Information was collected on vocabulary, grammar, verbal memory and sustained attention. Outcomes and resultsAt wave 1, the LI group performed weaker than the TD group in both tasks. At wave 2, the groups performed similarly on story comprehension. On story generation, the TD group still outperformed the LI group. Sustained attention mediated the relationship between group and story generation. Conclusions and implicationsEffects of LI on narrative macrostructure are moderated by age and task and may stem from sustained attention weaknesses. These findings have implications for using narrative tasks in educational and diagnostic settings and may direct future interventions.

Epistemic uncertainty: Turkish children with specific language impairment and their comprehension of tense and aspect.

Impairments in tense morphology are characteristic of English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Recent studies have investigated the role that aspect plays in the difficulties found in tense morphology. It has been suggested that children with SLI are less sensitive to aspect and its interaction with tense than typically developing (TD) children. Profound impairment in past tense morphology compared with the present in this population was explained by a breakdown in the association between event completion information and past tense. To date, research on tense morphology in this population has not examined all three tense conditions in a single study. To examine whether monolingual Turkish-speaking children with SLI exhibit deficits in comprehending tense and aspect morphology, and, if so, whether these deficits are restricted to completed events (past tense) or also occur for incomplete non-past events (future and present tense). A sentence-picture matching task was administered to 36 monolingual Turkish-speaking children: 13 with SLI (mean age = 6;9 years) and 23 age-matched TD children (mean age = 6;5 years). Upon hearing a sentence, each child had to select between a target (past, present or future) and a distracter picture. Tense and aspect information could only be established from verb morphology. The SLI group had lower accuracy than the TD group on all test conditions. For both groups, present tense had the highest accuracy scores. Performance scores within the SLI group showed the following hierarchy from easy to difficult: present > future > past. Turkish children with SLI have deficits in comprehending tense and aspect morphology. Although comprehending past was more difficult than non-past (present and future), future was more difficult to comprehend than the present. This disassociation between two non-past incomplete events indicates that the underlying difficulties comprehending (past) tense-aspect is not restricted to event completion in past tense contexts. This finding raises the possibility that in children with SLI, non-temporal epistemic functions of verb morphology (i.e., certainty, probability or possibility of an event occurring) might play a role in efficient understanding of tense and aspect morphology. If so, children with SLI may benefit from language therapy focused on the epistemic functions of verb morphology to improve comprehension of tense and aspect.

Deficits in executive functions among youths with autism spectrum disorders: an age-stratified analysis.

Impaired executive function (EF) is suggested to be one of the core features in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); however, little is known about whether the extent of worse EF in ASD than typically developing (TD) controls is age-dependent. We used age-stratified analysis to reveal this issue. We assessed 111 youths with ASD (aged 12.5 ± 2.8 years, male 94.6%) and 114 age-, and sex-matched TD controls with Digit Span and four EF tasks of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): Spatial Span (SSP), Spatial Working Memory (SWM), Stockings of Cambridge (SOC), and Intradimensional/Extradimensional Shift Test (I/ED). Compared to TD controls, youths with ASD performed poorer on the Digit Span, SWM, SOC, and I/ED tasks. The performance of all the tasks improved with age for both groups. Age-stratified analyses were conducted due to significant age × group interactions in visuospatial planning (SOC) and set-shifting (I/ED) and showed that poorer performance on these two tasks in ASD than TD controls was found only in the child (aged 8-12 years) rather than the adolescent (aged 13-18 years) group. By contrast, youths with ASD had impaired working memory, regardless of age. The increased magnitude of group difference in visuospatial planning (SOC) with increased task demands differed between the two age groups but no age moderating effect on spatial working memory. Our findings support deficits in visuospatial working memory and planning in youths with ASD; however, worse performance in set-shifting may only be demonstrated in children with ASD.

Longitudinal examination of objectively-measured physical activity and sedentary time among children with and without significant movement impairments

BackgroundChildren with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) tend to be less active than typically-developing (TD) children. Current evidence, however, is based on cross-sectional and self-reported activity, and little is known about sedentary time among children with significant movement impairments such as DCD. The current study examines the longitudinal patterns of objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time in children with and without possible DCD (pDCD). MethodsData is from a longitudinal nested case-control study, with 103 participants (n=60 males ages=12 and 13 at baseline). Participants averaging ⩽16th percentile on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children were considered having significant movement impairments and pDCD (n=49). All participants wore accelerometers for seven days. ResultsThere were significant main effects for time (Estimate=−23.98, p<.01) and gender (Estimate=59.86, p<.05) on total physical activity, and time spent being sedentary (Estimate=15.58, p<.05). Significant main effects for pDCD (Estimate=−5.38, p<.05) and gender (Estimate=26.89, p<.01), and time by gender interaction (Estimate=−7.50, p<.05) were found for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Sedentary time did not differ between children with and without DCD. ConclusionsResults suggest children with pDCD engaged in less MVPA compared to TD children. Consistent patterns of MVPA over time, however, suggest that the divergence in MVPA occurs earlier in childhood. Further longitudinal research following a younger cohort is necessary to identify the specific point that differences in MVPA emerge.

Brief Report: Imitation of Object-Directed Acts in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) imitate less than typically developing (TD) children; however, the specific features and causes of this deficit are still unclear. The current study investigates the role of joint engagement, specifically children's visual attention to demonstrations, in an object-directed imitation task. This sample was recruited from an early ASD screening study, which allows for an examination of these behaviors prior to formal diagnosis and ASD-specific intervention. Children with ASD imitated less than TD children; children with other developmental delays showed no significant difference from the two other screen-positive groups. Additionally, only the ASD group showed decreased visual attention, suggesting that early visual attention plays a role in the social learning of children with ASD.

Increased Surface Area, but not Cortical Thickness, in a Subset of Young Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The Autism Phenome Project is the largest, single site, longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous analyses from this cohort have shown that the children with autism have a total brain volume at time 1 (∼3 years of age) that is 6% larger than typically developing (TD) children. This finding is driven primarily by 15% of the boys with ASD that have disproportionate megalencephaly (ASD-DM) or brain size that is 1.5 standard deviations above what would be expected for the child's height. In the current study, cerebral cortical grey matter volume, thickness, and surface area were assayed from MRI scans of 112, 3-year-old boys with ASD and 50 age-matched TD boys. The boys with ASD-DM (n = 17) were analyzed separately from the boys with normal brain size (ASD-N, n = 95). Previous studies of cortical thickness and surface area for ASD children in this age range have come to diametrically different conclusions concerning the significance of cortical thickness vs. surface area. Current analyses indicate that cortical thickness was comparable across the ASD and TD groups. However, surface area was significantly greater in the ASD group compared to the TD group. This result was driven largely by the children with ASD-DM. Even in the ASD-DM group, not all cortical regions demonstrated increased surface area. These results provide strong evidence that the early cortical overgrowth associated with ASD is due primarily to increased surface area and not to increased cortical thickness.

Speed and complexity characterize attention problems in children with localization-related epilepsy.

Children with epilepsy (EPI) have a higher rate of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; 28-70%) than typically developing (TD) children (5-10%); however, attention is multidimensional. Thus, we aimed to characterize the profile of attention difficulties in children with epilepsy. Seventy-five children with localization-related epilepsy ages 6-16 years and 75 age-matched controls were evaluated using multimodal, multidimensional measures of attention including direct performance and parent ratings of attention as well as intelligence testing. We assessed group differences across attention measures, determined if parent rating predicted performance on attention measures, and examined if epilepsy characteristics were associated with attention skills. The EPI group performed worse than the TD group on timed and complex attention aspects of attention (p < 0.05), whereas performance on simple visual and simple auditory attention tasks was comparable. Children with EPI were 12 times as likely as TD children to have clinically elevated symptoms of inattention as rated by parents, but ratings were a weak predictor of attention performance. Earlier age of onset was associated with slower motor speed (p < 0.01), but no other epilepsy-related clinical characteristics were associated with attention skills. This study clarifies the nature of the attention problems in pediatric epilepsy, which may be under-recognized. Children with EPI had difficulty with complex attention and rapid response, not simple attention. As such, they may not exhibit difficulty until later in primary school when demands increase. Parent report with standard ADHD screening tools may under-detect these higher-order attention difficulties. Thus, monitoring through direct neuropsychological performance is recommended.

"Look who's talking!" Gaze Patterns for Implicit and Explicit Audio-Visual Speech Synchrony Detection in Children With High-Functioning Autism.

Conversation requires integration of information from faces and voices to fully understand the speaker's message. To detect auditory-visual asynchrony of speech, listeners must integrate visual movements of the face, particularly the mouth, with auditory speech information. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder may be less successful at such multisensory integration, despite their demonstrated preference for looking at the mouth region of a speaker. We showed participants (individuals with and without high-functioning autism (HFA) aged 8-19) a split-screen video of two identical individuals speaking side by side. Only one of the speakers was in synchrony with the corresponding audio track and synchrony switched between the two speakers every few seconds. Participants were asked to watch the video without further instructions (implicit condition) or to specifically watch the in-synch speaker (explicit condition). We recorded which part of the screen and face their eyes targeted. Both groups looked at the in-synch video significantly more with explicit instructions. However, participants with HFA looked at the in-synch video less than typically developing (TD) peers and did not increase their gaze time as much as TD participants in the explicit task. Importantly, the HFA group looked significantly less at the mouth than their TD peers, and significantly more at non-face regions of the image. There were no between-group differences for eye-directed gaze. Overall, individuals with HFA spend less time looking at the crucially important mouth region of the face during auditory-visual speech integration, which is maladaptive gaze behavior for this type of task.

Total Reaction Time Performance of Individuals with Autism after a Virtual Reality Task

Evidence suggests that people with autism perform simple reaction time (RT) tasks differently than typically developing (TD) individuals. The current study examines this possibility by investigating the simple total reaction time (TRT) performance and examined effects of practice on a virtual reality motor task (VRMT) in participants with autism. Twenty-seven participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and twenty-seven TD participants completed a TRT test alternated with a VRMT. Significant increases in TRT measures were found postpractice with the VRMT only in the female autistic group. These findings suggest that the VRMT is a promising tool for improving visual RT functioning in autistic individuals.

Exploring spatial working memory performance in individuals with Williams syndrome: The effect of presentation format and configuration

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with an impaired capacity for visuospatial representation. Individuals with WS have a specific weakness in spatial processing, while visual components are relatively well preserved. This dissociation is apparent in working memory function too. The present study aimed to further investigate spatial working memory performance in individuals with WS, analyzing whether their impaired WM performance regards both simultaneous and sequential spatial formats, and whether presenting configurations differently might reduce their difficulties. These issues were examined by administering simultaneous and sequential spatial tasks, in which the information to be recalled was presented in random or arranged configurations. Our results showed that individuals with WS performed less well than typically developing (TD) children in the spatial-simultaneous task, but not in the spatial-sequential one. The presence of a pattern enhanced the performance of both groups, but the difference between the two groups' performance in the spatial simultaneous task remained, albeit to a lesser degree.

Role of aspect in understanding tense: an investigation with adolescents with SLI.

Morphosyntax has been well researched in specific language impairment (SLI) and there is general agreement that children with SLI have particular difficulties with tense-marking. Less well researched is the role that aspect plays in the difficulties found in tense-marking, especially as tense and aspect are often confounded in English. Initial investigation of the understanding of aspect in preschool children with SLI suggests that they are less sensitive to aspect and its interaction with tense than typically developing (TD) children. It is unclear, however, what is the developmental trajectory of their understanding of aspect and its interaction with tense and whether these difficulties are still found in older children and adolescents with SLI. To investigate comprehension of the grammatical aspect contrast between completed events using the simple past tense -ed/irregular (perfective grammatical aspect) and ongoing events using the past progressive (imperfective grammatical aspect). The role of lexical aspect was also investigated through the balanced use of verbs that were inherently telic (i.e. have a natural end-point) and verbs that required the addition of prepositional phrase for a telic interpretation when used in the perfective aspect condition. A sentence-picture matching task was administered to 10 participants with SLI (aged 12;10-16;8 years) and 30 language ability matched TD children who were split into three groups (mean ages: 5;10, 7;4 and 9;2). Adult-like performance was found by all groups on the perfective aspect condition, but only by the oldest group of TD children on the imperfective aspect condition. The performance of the group with SLI was consistent with their much younger language ability matched TD children in their understanding of the progressive -ing when used to describe ongoing events that have taken place in the past. The lexical aspect of the telicity of the verbs was not found to have any significant effect on performance. Although further investigation of the understanding of aspect (both comprehension and production) is needed, the results have implications for therapy. The past progressive -ing construction is important, particularly for providing context and background information in narratives, but it is not explicitly taught in schools. Therefore, some focus on the temporal nature of tense-marking in therapy may be beneficial to individuals with SLI in understanding the temporal nature of events and how aspect interacts with tense.

Verbal problem-solving difficulties in autism spectrum disorders and atypical language development.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) adopt less efficient strategies than typically developing (TD) peers on the Twenty Questions Task (TQT), a measure of verbal problem-solving skills. Although problems with the TQT are typically associated with executive dysfunction, they have also been reported in children who are deaf, suggesting a role for atypical language development. To test the contribution of language history to ASD problem solving, TQT performance was compared in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and TD children. The HFA group used significantly less efficient strategies than both AS and TD children. No group differences were evident on tests of question understanding, planning or verbal fluency. Potential explanations for differences in verbal problem-solving skill are discussed with reference to the development of inner speech and use of visual strategies in ASD.

Effect of familiarity on reward anticipation in children with and without autism spectrum disorders.

BackgroundPrevious research on the reward system in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) suggests that children with ASD anticipate and process social rewards differently than typically developing (TD) children—but has focused on the reward value of unfamiliar face stimuli. Children with ASD process faces differently than their TD peers. Previous research has focused on face processing of unfamiliar faces, but less is known about how children with ASD process familiar faces. The current study investigated how children with ASD anticipate rewards accompanied by familiar versus unfamiliar faces.MethodsThe stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) of the event-related potential (ERP) was utilized to measure reward anticipation. Participants were 6- to 10-year-olds with (N = 14) and without (N = 14) ASD. Children were presented with rewards accompanied by incidental face or non-face stimuli that were either familiar (caregivers) or unfamiliar. All non-face stimuli were composed of scrambled face elements in the shape of arrows, controlling for visual properties.ResultsNo significant differences between familiar versus unfamiliar faces were found for either group. When collapsing across familiarity, TD children showed larger reward anticipation to face versus non-face stimuli, whereas children with ASD did not show differential responses to these stimulus types. Magnitude of reward anticipation to faces was significantly correlated with behavioral measures of social impairment in the ASD group.ConclusionsThe findings do not provide evidence for differential reward anticipation for familiar versus unfamiliar face stimuli in children with or without ASD. These findings replicate previous work suggesting that TD children anticipate rewards accompanied by social stimuli more than rewards accompanied by non-social stimuli. The results do not support the idea that familiarity normalizes reward anticipation in children with ASD. Our findings also suggest that magnitude of reward anticipation to faces is correlated with levels of social impairment for children with ASD.

Hemodynamic response of children with attention-deficit and hyperactive disorder (ADHD) to emotional facial expressions

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have difficulty recognizing facial expressions. They identify angry expressions less accurately than typically developing (TD) children, yet little is known about their atypical neural basis for the recognition of facial expressions. Here, we used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to examine the distinctive cerebral hemodynamics of ADHD and TD children while they viewed happy and angry expressions. We measured the hemodynamic responses of 13 ADHD boys and 13 TD boys to happy and angry expressions at their bilateral temporal areas, which are sensitive to face processing. The ADHD children showed an increased concentration of oxy-Hb for happy faces but not for angry faces, while TD children showed increased oxy-Hb for both faces. Moreover, the individual peak latency of hemodynamic response in the right temporal area showed significantly greater variance in the ADHD group than in the TD group. Such atypical brain activity observed in ADHD boys may relate to their preserved ability to recognize a happy expression and their difficulty recognizing an angry expression. We firstly demonstrated that NIRS can be used to detect atypical hemodynamic response to facial expressions in ADHD children.

Visual motion processing deficits in infants with the fragile X premutation.

BackgroundFragile X syndrome (FXS) results from a trinucleotide repeat expansion (full mutation >200 cytosine-guanine-guanine (CGG) repeats) in the FMR1 gene, leading to a reduction or absence of the gene’s protein product, fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), ultimately causing cognitive and behavioral impairments that are characteristic of the syndrome. In our previous work with infants and toddlers with FXS, we have been able to describe much about their cognitive and visual processing abilities. In light of recent work on the mild cognitive deficits and functional and structural brain differences that are present in adults with the fragile X (FX) premutation, in the present study we examined whether some of the low-level visual processing deficits we have observed in infants with FXS would also be present in infants with the FX premutation (55–200 CGG repeats).MethodsWe chose a contrast detection task using second-order motion stimuli on which infants with FXS previously showed significantly increased detection thresholds (Vision Res 48:1471–1478, 2008). Critically, we also included a developmental delay comparison group of infants with Down syndrome (DS), who were matched to infants with FXS on both chronological and mental age, to speak to the question of whether this second-order motion processing deficit is a FX-specific phenomenon.ResultsAs reported previously, infants with the FX full mutation showed motion contrast detection threshold levels that were significantly higher than age-matched typically developing control infants. Strikingly, the motion detection contrast levels of FX premutation infants were also significantly higher than typically developing (TD) infants and not significantly different from the group of infants with FXS or with DS.ConclusionsThese results, which are in keeping with a growing body of evidence on the mild cognitive and perceptual processing deficits and functional and structural brain differences that are present in adults and older children with the FX premutation, underscore the pressing need to study and describe the processing capabilities of infants and toddlers with the FX premutation.