BACKGROUND Both the use of antidepressant medication during pregnancy and the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder have increased during recent years. A causal link has recently been suggested, but the association may be confounded by the underlying indication for antidepressant use. We investigated the association between maternal use of antidepressant medication in pregnancy and autism, con...

Autism spectrum disorders are developmental disorders characterised as deficits in social and communication skills, and they affect both verbal and non-verbal communication. Previous works measured differences in children with and without autism spectrum disorders in terms of linguistic and acoustic features, although they do not mention automatic identification using integration of these featu...

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...

Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur in youth with autism spectrum disorders. In addition to developing efficacious treatments for anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorders, it is important to examine the transportability of these treatments to real-world settings. Study aims were to (a) train clinicians to deliver Facing Your Fears: Group Therapy for Managing Anxiety in Children with...

Objective: The present study was carried out to study the relationship between sensation seeking and social skills in two groups of school age patients Down-Syndrome (DS) and Autism Disorder (DS).  Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic and correlation study in which all participants were of primary school age (10 to 13 years) with Down-Syndrome and Autism Disorder of autism spectrum disord...

Smith-Magenis syndrome (SMS; OMIM 182290) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a well-defined pattern of anomalies. The majority of cases are due to a common deletion in chromosome 17p11.2 that includes the RAI1 gene. In children with SMS, autistic-like behaviors and symptoms start to emerge around 18 months of age. This study included 26 individuals (15 females and 11 males), with...

BACKGROUND Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders present with unusual or odd-sounding prosody. Despite this widely noted observation, prosodic ability in autism spectrum disorders is often perceived as an under-researched area. AIMS This review seeks to establish whether there is a prosodic disorder in autism, what generalizations can be made about its various manifestations and whe...

BACKGROUND The number of children receiving services for autism spectrum disorders in Wisconsin and nationally has steadily increased in recent years. The Wisconsin Surveillance of Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities System was developed to study the prevalence of and risk factors for autism spectrum disorders. This analysis of Wisconsin surveillance data examined whether autism prevale...