Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Christine M. Falter-Wagner, Carola Bloch, Marta Robles, Lea Horch, Kai Vogeley, Alexandra Livia Georgescu
Summary: This study investigates whether processing preferences and training can affect the performance of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in a figure-disembedding task. The results show that individuals with ASD outperform non-autistic individuals in the baseline task, and processing preferences and training do not modulate performance in either group. However, training improves the performance of non-autistic individuals to the level of the ASD group.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Natalie Libster, Azia Knox, Selin Engin, Daniel Geschwind, Julia Parish-Morris, Connie Kasari
Summary: Autistic girls are more likely than autistic boys and non-autistic girls to understand the meaning of friendship. However, during adolescence, they may face the redefinition of friendships and increased loneliness. While both autistic and non-autistic boys and girls can experience loneliness, some autistic girls and boys often feel lonely.
Review
Psychology, Biological
Meng-Chuan Lai
Summary: Mental health challenges significantly impact the well-being of autistic individuals. This review proposes a framework that considers social-contextual determinants, adverse life experiences, autistic cognitive features, and shared genetic and early environmental predispositions as contributing factors to personalized formulation for mental health support. Evidence-based interventions and ongoing development of support for specific mental health areas are emphasized. Tailored mental health support for autistic individuals should be informed by neurodivergence and align with the bio-psycho-social frameworks. The personalized formulation should take into account physical health, transdiagnostic neurodevelopmental factors, intellectual and communication abilities, as well as contextual-experiential determinants and their interactions with autistic cognition and biology, along with resilience. The well-being of families is integral, and mutual empathic understanding is crucial for creating an inclusive society.
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Azadeh Kushki, Robyn E. Cardy, Sina Panahandeh, Mahan Malihi, Christopher Hammill, Jessica Brian, Alana Iaboni, Margot J. Taylor, Russell Schachar, Jennifer Crosbie, Paul Arnold, Elizabeth Kelley, Muhammad Ayub, Robert Nicolson, Stelios Georgiades, Jason P. Lerch, Evdokia Anagnostou
Summary: The study discovered associations between social communication abilities and distributed cortical and subcortical networks implicated in social behaviors, language, attention, memory, and executive functions, as well as three data-driven, diagnosis-agnostic subgroups based on the patterns of association in these networks.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Amber Pryke-Hobbes, Jade Davies, Brett Heasman, Adam Livesey, Amy Walker, Elizabeth Pellicano, Anna Remington
Summary: This study compared the experiences of masking in the workplace for autistic, non-autistic neurodivergent, and neurotypical adults. The findings showed that workplace masking is considered an adaptive response to social challenges and potential negative outcomes. However, autistic and non-autistic neurodivergent participants reported experiencing unique pressures to mask, due to limited understanding of neurodiversity in workplaces and society.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Laurie-Anne Sapey-Triomphe, Lauren Pattyn, Veith Weilnhammer, Philipp Sterzer, Johan Wagemans
Summary: This study reveals that predictive mechanisms have an impact on behavior and perception at the neural level in both neurotypical and autistic adults, and are hierarchically encoded in the brain. These findings help to understand the neural specificities of atypical predictive processing in autism spectrum disorders.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Psychiatry
Troy Q. Boucher, Julia N. Lukacs, Nichole E. Scheerer, Grace Iarocci
Summary: Based on brief videos, this study found that non-autistic adults rated autistic children less favorably than non-autistic children in terms of first impressions, with audio playing a significant role. The rater's own characteristics such as social competence, autism stigma, and past experiences with autistic people were found to be related to the bias against autistic children. These negative judgments may contribute to the social exclusion experienced by autistic children.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mohammed Jarbou, Daehan Won, Jennifer Gillis-Mattson, Raymond Romanczyk
Summary: This article introduces the use of deep learning algorithms to predict school absenteeism in autistic students. The authors found that individual and demographic characteristics are not reliable predictors of absenteeism. The adopted Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) algorithms outperformed other machine learning algorithms in terms of accuracy and recall.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Psychiatry
Yi-Ling Chien, Chen-Chung Liu, Yen-Nan Chiu, Chao-Cheng Lin
Summary: This study aimed to compare the emotional features in Asian autistic adults without intellectual disability to non-autistic comparisons and schizophrenia. The results showed that autistic adults had difficulties in emotion perception and management, which were different from schizophrenia and correlated with autistic features. Autistic adults may need more support and services in emotion perception and management.
ASIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Natalie Libster, Azia Knox, Selin Engin, Daniel Geschwind, Julia Parish-Morris, Connie Kasari
Summary: The study found that autistic children are more likely to be bullied, while those with fewer social difficulties are more likely to report being bullied. Autistic boys and girls reported similar levels of bullying victimization, but qualitative analysis revealed differences in the underlying causes of peer conflict for each gender.
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Brianna E. Cairney, Stanley H. West, Eileen Haebig, Christopher R. Cox, Heather D. Lucas
Summary: This study created a database of 162 gesture videos and investigated the differences in processing and comprehension of co-speech gestures between individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical individuals. The results showed a high level of agreement between raters with and without ASD in terms of meaningfulness ratings. Autistic raters produced a more diverse set of verbal labels for each gesture, but there was no significant difference in within-gesture semantic similarity between the two groups.
BEHAVIOR RESEARCH METHODS
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Nicholas E. Fears, Stephanie A. Palmer, Haylie L. Miller
Summary: It is well-documented that autistic individuals have lower adaptive behavior scores compared to their intelligence scores, and motor skills may explain the variability in their adaptive behavior. This study found that motor skills, particularly hand coordination, were associated with adaptive behavior in autistic children and adolescents. Further understanding of the impact of motor skills on adaptive behavior is needed to provide effective support.
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Katharina Feil, Christine Adrion, Sylvia Boesch, Sarah Doss, Ilaria Giordano, Holger Hengel, Heike Jacobi, Thomas Klockgether, Thomas Klopstock, Wolfgang Nachbauer, Ludger Schoels, Katharina Marie Steiner, Claudia Stendel, Dagmar Timmann, Ivonne Naumann, Ulrich Mansmann, Michael Strupp
Summary: In this large multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical crossover trial, acetyl-DL-leucine was not found to be superior to placebo for the symptomatic treatment of certain types of ataxia. The drug was well tolerated, and further symptom-oriented trials are needed to evaluate the long-term effects of acetyl-DL-leucine for well-defined subgroups of cerebellar ataxia.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Martina Janikova, Karolina Mainerova, Iveta Vojtechova, Tomas Petrasek, Jan Svoboda, Ales Stuchlik
Summary: The study examined the impact of using 8-OH-DPAT to simulate OCD behavior on spatial learning, as well as the effects of memantine and riluzole in this model. The results showed that monotherapy with glutamate-modulating agents in the model group did not reduce cognitive symptoms but may exacerbate them.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Madeleine Harvery, Elspeth H. Froude, Kitty-Rose Foley, Julian N. Trollor, Samuel R. C. Arnold
Summary: This study aimed to describe and explore factors related to employment for Australian autistic adults, finding that those with more autistic traits and more social and workplace supports were more likely to be employed in jobs that better suited them. Appropriate workplace adjustments, a supportive environment, and adequate social supports may improve employment outcomes for autistic adults.