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How important is the sensory system?

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Most people with autism have some sort of sensory dysfunction: hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity or sensory avoiding behaviors to touch, smell, sound, light. But a new study looking at kids from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED) suggest that it may be more important than you think. In fact, it was the only feature to unify those with autism compared to those with developmental delay. Are there treatments outside of environmental supports to help sensory issues? There could be: a drug that tried and failed to treat other features of autism called arbacolfen supports the idea that this drug target could be helpful in treating sensory issues.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34985973/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34967132/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34873147/

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What works and does not work for wandering and sleep

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This week a new study showed that kids with autism wander as early as toddlers, so parents keep a close eye on your kids no matter what their age.  Medications do not work, but behavioral interventions do seem to help.  This podcast gives some examples.   Also, another study shows the efficacy and safety of melatonin for helping kids with ASD fall asleep and stay asleep, even after 2 years.   Melatonin may not be the magic bullet we need for sleep problems, but it doesn’t seem to hurt either.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31977588

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30838492

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31982581

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The causes of social communication deficits in ASD

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This week, former ASF fellow Katherine Stavropoulos from UC Riverside and Leslie Carver published data investigating what is the core cause of social communication deficits in autism.  Do people with autism show deficits in this area because they have a lack of motivation for social cues, or are social interactions just too overwhelming on their senses?  It turns out, both are true and this has direct implications for intervention methods.  Also, parents and siblings of people with autism show subtle symptoms of ASD without having a diagnosis.  This is called the broader autism phenotype, and a study by the Study to Explore Early Development led by Dr. Eric Rubenstein, demonstrated that parents of children with a particular group of symptoms are more likely to show this phenotype than other groupings.  You can read the full studies here:

 

https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0189-5

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29376397

 

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This type of autism is not like the other – and here is data to show it

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Identifying subtypes for autism and narrowing down the heterogeneity of symptoms has been considered the holy grail of autism research.  If one person with autism is not like another person with autism, can they at least be put into groups to speed up studies into causes, intervention and services?  And how?  This podcast explains two different studies that used the same statistical method but different children with autism to identify different groups.  One of the things that helped define these groups was verbal ability and IQ.  For the first time, comorbid symptoms like medical issues and psychiatric diagnoses  are being taken into account.  Already, this approach is helping scientists better understand why fever improves symptoms in some people with autism.