Search results for "Autism spectrum"
showing 10 items of 239 documents
An Autistic Endophenotype and Testosterone Are Involved in an Atypical Decline in Selective Attention and Visuospatial Processing in Middle-Aged Women
2015
Mothers of offspring with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) could present mild forms of their children’s cognitive characteristics, resulting from prenatal brain exposure and sensitivity to testosterone (T). Indeed, their cognition is frequently characterized by hyper-systemizing, outperforming in tests that assess cognitive domains such as selective attention, and fine motor and visuospatial skills. In the general population, all these start to decline around the mid-forties. This study aimed to characterize whether middle-aged women who are biological mothers of individuals with ASD had better performance in the aforementioned cognitive skills than mothers of normative children (in both gro…
Declarative verbal memory impairments in middle-aged women who are caregivers of offspring with autism spectrum disorders: The role of negative affec…
2015
Caring for offspring diagnosed with a chronic psychological disorder such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is used in research as a model of chronic stress. This chronic stress has been reported to have deleterious effects on caregivers' cognition, particularly in verbal declarative memory. Moreover, such cognitive decline may be mediated by testosterone (T) levels and negative affect, understood as depressive mood together with high anxiety and anger. This study aimed to compare declarative memory function in middle-aged women who were caregivers for individuals with ASD (n = 24; mean age = 45) and female controls (n = 22; mean age = 45), using a standardised memory test (Rey's Auditory V…
Criss‐crossing autism spectrum disorder and adult neurogenesis
2021
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) comprises a group of multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorders primarily characterized by deficits in social interaction and repetitive behavior. Although the onset is typically in early childhood, ASD poses a lifelong challenge for both patients and caretakers. Adult neurogenesis (AN) is the process by which new functional neurons are created from neural stem cells existing in the post-natal brain. The entire event is based on a sequence of cellular processes, such as proliferation, specification of cell fate, maturation, and ultimately, synaptic integration into the existing neural circuits. Hence, AN is implicated in structural and functional brain plasti…
Neural-level associations of non-verbal pragmatic comprehension in young Finnish autistic adults
2021
This video-based study examines the pragmatic non-verbal comprehension skills and corresponding neural-level findings in young Finnish autistic adults, and controls. Items from the Assessment Battery of Communication (ABaCo) were chosen to evaluate the comprehension of non-verbal communication. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis of the functional magnetic resonance imaging data was used to reveal the synchrony of brain activation across participants during the viewing of pragmatically complex scenes of ABaCo videos. The results showed a significant difference between the ISC maps of the autistic and control groups in tasks involving the comprehension of non-verbal communication, there…
Autism is a prenatal disorder: Evidence from late gestation brain overgrowth.
2018
This retrospective study aimed to specify the critical period for atypical brain development in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using prenatal and postnatal head growth parameters. The sample consisted of 80 Caucasian, unrelated, idiopathic patients with ASD born after 1995. Fetal ultrasound parameters (head circumference [HC], abdominal circumference, and femur length) were obtained during the second and third trimesters of gestation. HC at birth and postnatal parameters at 12 and 24 months of age were also collected. Head overgrowth, assessed by HC, was highlighted during the second (20-26 weeks of amenorrhea) and third (28-36 weeks of amenorrhea) trimesters. Normal growth…
Highly resilient coping entails better perceived health, high social support and low morning cortisol levels in parents of children with autism spect…
2013
The negative consequences of caring for people with developmental disabilities have been widely described. However, the ability to bounce back from the stress derived from care situations has been less studied. Those caregivers who have shown this ability are considered as resilient. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between resilience and self-reported health and cortisol awakening response (CAR) in a sample of caregivers of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It also aims to evaluate the role of social support as a mediator in the association between resilience and health. Caregivers with higher resilience show better perceived health, lower morning cortisol levels, an…
The Use of Testosterone/Cortisol Ratio in Response to Acute Stress as an Indicator of Propensity to Anger in Informal Caregivers
2016
AbstractCaring for an offspring diagnosed with a psychological chronic disorder is used in research as a model of chronic stress. Indeed, it is usually associated with disturbances in the salivary cortisol (Csal) levels of the caregiver. An imbalance between salivary testosterone (Tsal) and Csal levels is a marker of proneness to social aggression. Given this, we aimed to establish whether the salivary testosterone/cortisol (Tsal/Csal) ratio response to acute stress could be employed as a marker of proneness to anger in informal caregivers of offspring with autism spectrum (ASD). Tsal/Csal ratio and anger responses to a set of different cognitive tasks as well as anger trait and expression …
Sensory processing in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Relationship with non-verbal IQ, autism severity and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Di…
2015
Abstract The main objective of this study was to analyze in a sample of children with ASD the relationship between sensory processing, social participation and praxis impairments and some of the child's characteristics, such as non-verbal IQ, severity of ASD symptoms and the number of ADHD symptoms (inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity), both in the home and main-classroom environments. Participants were the parents and teachers of 41 children with ASD from 5 to 8 years old ( M = 6.09). They completed the Sensory Processing Measure (SPM) to evaluate sensory processing, social participation and praxis; the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS-2) to evaluate autism severity; and a set of i…
A comparative study of sensory processing in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder in the home and classroom environments.
2015
Sensory processing and higher integrative functions impairments are highly prevalent in children with ASD. Context should be considered in analyzing the sensory profile and higher integrative functions. The main objective of this study is to compare sensory processing, social participation and praxis in a group of 79 children (65 males and 14 females) from 5 to 8 years of age (M=6.09) divided into two groups: ASD Group (n=41) and Comparison Group (n=38). The Sensory Processing Measure (SPM) was used to evaluate the sensory profile of the children: parents reported information about their children's characteristics in the home environment, and teachers reported information about the same cha…
Oral manifestations in a group of adults with autism spectrum disorder
2011
Objective: A number of studies have evaluated the oral health of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), though most have involved children, and no specific oral manifestations have been described. The present study describes the buccodental disorders and hygiene habits in a group of adults with ASD. Study Design: A prospective case-control study was made of a group of patients with ASD (n=30), with a mean age of 27.7 +/- 5.69 years, and of a healthy age-and gender-matched control group (n=30). An evaluation was made of the medical history, medication, oral hygiene habits and oral diseases, with determination of the CAOD, CAOS and OHI-S oral hygiene scores. Results: Most of the patien…