OBJECTIVE To determine whether pre-school children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) interact differently with their peers with ASD compared to their typically developing (TD) peers, across three activities (free play, structured group time and semi-structured play) in an early intervention setting. METHODS We completed a series of non-experimental case studies involving 13 children with A...

PURPOSE To compare the results obtained in the Autism Behavior Checklist with those obtained in the Childhood Autism Rating Scale to identify and characterize children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. METHODS Participants were 28 children with psychiatric diagnosis within the autism spectrum that were enrolled in language therapy in a specialized service. These children were assessed according...

The ability of organisms to seamlessly ignore familiar, inconsequential stimuli improves their selective attention and response to salient features of the environment. Here, I propose that this fundamental but unexplained phenomenon substantially derives from the ability of any pattern of neural excitation to create an enhanced inhibitory (or "negative") image of itself through target-specific ...

In this article we use BEACH data to examine changes in the management rate of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) from 2001 to 2011 in children aged <18 years. We also look at encounters where autism was managed during 2006-2011.

The past few years have seen considerable interest in findings of abnormal brain connectivity in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We review recent work from neuroimaging and other sources, and argue that there is considerable convergent evidence suggesting that connectivity is disrupted in ASD. We point to evidence both of local over-connectivity and of long-distance under-connectivity, and...

Infants with older siblings with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD-sibs) are at risk for socioemotional difficulties. ASD-sibs were compared to infants with typically developing older siblings (TD-sibs) using the face-to-face/still-face (FFSF) at 6 months and the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS) at 8, 10, 12, 15, and/or 18 months. ASD-sibs smiled for a lower proportion of the FFSF than TD-s...

As part of a team, the authors developed a workshop to help parents and teams address the behavioural needs of children with autism using a positive behaviour support (PBS) approach. Teams received comprehensive training in PBS and completed weekly homework assignments. Measures of participant satisfaction, parent satisfaction and efficacy and child behaviour suggested this training as an effec...

In this article, we review a recent paper by Stevenson et al. (J Neurosci 34: 691-697, 2014). This paper illustrates the need to present different forms of stimuli in order to characterize the perceptual abilities of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Furthermore, we will discuss their behavioral results and offer an opposing viewpoint to the suggested neuronal drivers of ASD.