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Factors That Influence Heterogeity and How

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Understanding factors that make each person with autism different has been a challenge, affecting diagnosis, interventions and the way we think about autism in general. Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy, used computers to see how language, intellectual ability, motor and adaptive functioning grouped individuals into different categories. It turns out there are two groups – one group that improves over time and outperforms the other group consistently even in early life. The other group continues to struggle. These factors are not autism-specific, but do influence the creation of these different groups that are different biologically as well as behaviorally. This week’s podcast is an interview with the researchers on what it means for the future of understanding what might help what person at what time in their life.

The publication is open access and includes the model so their findings can be replicated widely: https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-024-00613-5

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Learn about your infant’s development from your own home

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Are you the parent of an infant? Are you wondering how you can get assessments on your child without having to struggle with your pediatrician’s time at a well- baby checkup? Are you interested in how your baby is thinking or communicating but your doctor says “it’s too early to tell?” A new study based out of Duke University is using remote computer based assessments to understand the very earliest markers of language and cognition to better predict later social development. The twist? It’s all done remotely. You can participate in research, get a gift card, and learn about your baby’s development all without leaving the house. This has been a struggle for many families and this may open the door for more video-based, but thorough, assessments.

Children Helping Science

sites.duke.edu/risebattery

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The full semantic toolbox referring to autism

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Last week a publication (see below) was published as a commentary in the journal Autism Research. It states that researchers, parents, clinicians, educators and the overall community should not be limited in their use of language to describe the broad condition of autism. Some people experience impairments, deficits, and have limitations. Not only is it true, we should be talking about it. This podcast describes the motivation for the paper and the potential consequences of mandating the use terms that may not accurately reflect the diversity of experiences. While some papers have been published with the opposite sentiments, it’s important to understand both sides of this debate. We hope this paper leads to further conversation about this topic.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.2876

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Autism means different things to different people

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At this year’s International Society of Autism Research meeting in Austin, TX, there was a variety of themes explored. From early development and milestones, to intervention and supports, to different features like sensory issues, treatment, and how to solve the problem of heterogeneity. It comes down to this: Autism means different things to different people. This is just a small subset of everything that was presented at #INSAR2022 and I hope that if you want to see more, you advocate to have the presentations posted online or even have the program book made available publicly. In the meantime, enjoy the 30 minute summary.

www.autism-insar.org

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Infant motor issues and later autism diagnosis

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Everyone knows the way to study infants with autism is through thorough testing of younger siblings of those with a diagnosis, who have a 15x greater chance of have a diagnosis themselves.   Through these methods, new ways of identifying and predicting autism  later on have been developed.  On this week’s podcast:   two very influential and recent papers on the study of motor issues in 6 month olds who go on to be diagnosed with autism, and those  who don’t have an autism diagnosis but have signs and symptoms of ASD.  Are motor issues related to an ASD diagnosis or ASD symptoms?  And what about core symptoms of autism like language?   Can early motor behaviors be used to predict who goes on to receive an autism diagnosis or has language problems?  What should parents do?  How should this influence an early intervention plan?  Learn more this week!

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30628809

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30557704

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Children are not small adults

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Cathy Lord and her colleagues have been studying a group of people with autism from age 2, all the way through adulthood, at age 19.  Her colleague and first author Vanessa Hus-Bal who is leading the efforts to study adults at a new institute at Rutgers University, talks about the findings and what they mean for people with autism as they get older, and points out the implications on intervention.  Also, the stress response is different in autistic people, but is it different in adolescents and adults, and does it change as people get older?  A social stressor is used to identify how they are different and what it means for treatment.

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Help for children with minimal language

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About 25-30% of children with autism show language impairment or no language at all, and these families often use assisted communication devices like picture exchange to help their children communicate.  Recently, electronic communication devices like the iPad have revolutionized the way that people communicate, but little research has been done on how and if they are really effective.    This week, a multidisciplinary group of researchers added an assisted communication device, an iPad, to behavioral intervention for a 9 month trial.  As it turns out, the group with all 3 (language intervention, behavioral intervention and the communication device) showed the greatest gains in language and speech, but only when the intervention was intense.  This new study shows that in the right context, these devices can help those who do not communicate with words, and provides preliminary proof that this technology is indeed helpful.