scholarly journals Brief Report: The Broad Autism Phenotype in Swedish Parents of Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Conditions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bang ◽  
Maria Strömberg ◽  
Shoba S. Meera ◽  
Kajsa Igelström
Keyword(s):  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Genetic Load ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Broad Autism Phenotype ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Autism Phenotype

AbstractThe broad autism phenotype (BAP) is a set of characteristics often observed in typically developing people with a genetic load for autism, such as parents of autistic children. The Broad Autism Phenotypic Questionnaire (BAPQ) is a 36-item questionnaire developed to identify the BAP in first-degree relatives of autistic people. We translated the BAPQ into Swedish and examined its psychometric properties in a Swedish sample consisting of 45 parents of children with ASC and 74 parents of non-autistic children. We found support for the original 3-factor structure (aloof, pragmatic language and rigid), good internal consistency and convergent validity with the Autism Quotient. Thus, the Swedish BAPQ exhibits acceptable psychometric properties and may be useful for assessing the BAP in non-clinical populations.

Suicidality and Self-Harm in Autism Spectrum Conditions

2020 ◽  
pp. 348-368
Author(s):  
Jennifer N. Haddock ◽  
Louis P. Hagopian
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
General Population ◽  
Early Death ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Self Harm

Self-harm and suicidality in autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) have been underresearched. However, there is now convincing evidence that suicide is a leading cause of early death in the autistic community, and the prevalence of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and suicidal behaviors is significantly elevated in autistic children and adults compared to the general population and psychiatric groups. Less research is currently available exploring the reasons why (etiology), how to assess or measure self-harm and suicidality, or how to treat these difficulties in autistic people. This chapter will summarize existing evidence on this topic and provide recommendations for future research and clinical practice to improve understanding, assessment, and prevention of self-harm and suicidality in ASD.

scholarly journals Elevated polygenic burden for ASD is associated with the broad autism phenotype

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Nayar ◽  
J.M. Sealock ◽  
N. Maltman ◽  
L. Bush ◽  
E.H. Cook ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Protective Factor ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Disorder ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Broad Autism Phenotype ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Polygenic Scores ◽  
Genetic Overlap ◽  
Social Communicative ◽  
Autism Phenotype

AbstractBackgroundAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a multifactorial, neurodevelopmental disorder that encompasses a complex and heterogeneous set of traits. Subclinical traits that mirror the core features of ASD, referred to as the broad autism phenotype (BAP) have been documented repeatedly in unaffected relatives and are believed to reflect underlying genetic liability to ASD. The BAP may help inform the etiology of ASD by allowing the stratification of families into more phenotypically and etiologically homogeneous subgroups. This study explored polygenic scores related to the BAP.MethodsPhenotypic and genotypic information were obtained from 2,614 trios from Simons Simplex Sample. Polygenic scores of ASD (ASD-PGS) were generated across the sample to determine the shared genetic overlap between the BAP and ASD. Maternal and Paternal ASD-PGS was explored in relation to BAP traits and their child ASD symptomatology.ResultsMaternal pragmatic language was related to child’s social communicative atypicalities. In fathers, rigid personality was related to increased repetitive behaviors in children. Maternal (but not paternal) ASD-PGS was related to the pragmatic language and rigid BAP domains.ConclusionsDomain- and sex-specific associations emerged between parent and child phenotypes. ASD-PGS associations emerged with BAP in mothers only, highlighting the potential for a female protective factor, and implicating the polygenic etiology of ASD-related phenotypes in the BAP.

Broad Autism Phenotype Traits in Parents of Children with Language Impairments: A Comparative Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Lavanya Kiruthika D. ◽  
Shivani Tiwari
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Broad Autism Phenotype ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Diagnostic Features ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Autism Phenotype

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The broad autism phenotype (BAP) comprises milder language and cognitive deficits seen in the nonautistic relatives of individuals with autism. BAP represents the range of individuals with a higher number of these characteristics than average but a lower number than would point to a diagnosis of autism. The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) is one of the efficient and reliable tools to explore and measure BAP traits, namely, aloofness, pragmatic language, and rigid personality, which represent a few of the diagnostic features of autism. Against the background of positive familial history and common causes across the developmental disorders, this study aimed to compare BAP traits in the parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI), and social communication disorder (SCD) by means of the BAPQ. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A total of 120 parents (60 mothers and 60 fathers) of children with ASD, SCD, and SLI participated in the study. All mothers filled in the self-report version and fathers filled in the informant version of BAPQ simultaneously in the communication intervention setting. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Obtained data was analyzed with the <i>t</i> test and ANOVA to compare self-ratings, informant ratings, and BAPQ scores across groups. The results of the study revealed no statistically significant difference for the overall BAPQ scores (except on the Pragmatic Language subscale). Furthermore, mothers in all 3 groups presented with BAP traits, with pragmatic language deficits being common. These observations point towards an overlap of BAP traits in the mothers of children with language disorders. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> These findings indicate the value of a detailed assessment of BAP in parents of children with developmental disorders.

Initial Evidence for Increased Weather Salience in Autism Spectrum Conditions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Bolton ◽  
William G. Blumberg ◽  
Lara K. Ault ◽  
H. Michael Mogil ◽  
Stacie H. Hanes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Physical Disability ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Weather Information ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Neurological Functioning ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Logical Rules ◽  
Attention To Detail

Weather is important to all people, including vulnerable populations (those whose circumstances include cognitive processing, hearing, or vision differences, physical disability, homelessness, and other scenarios and factors). Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect information-processing and areas of neurological functioning that potentially inhibit the reception of hazardous weather information, and is of particular concern for weather messengers. People on the autism spectrum tend to score highly in tests of systemizing, a psychological process that heavily entails attention to detail and revolves around the creation of logical rules to explain things that occur in the world. This article reports the results of three preliminary studies examining weather salience–psychological attention to weather–and its potential relationships with systemizing in autistic people. Initial findings suggest that enhanced weather salience exists among autistic individuals compared to those without the condition, and that this may be related to systemizing. These findings reveal some possible strategies for communicating weather to autistic populations and motivate future work on a conceptual model that blends systemizing and chaos theory to better understand weather salience.

Shorter average look durations to dynamic social stimuli are associated with higher levels of autism symptoms in young autistic children

Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132110564
Author(s):  
Samantha Major ◽  
Dmitry Isaev ◽  
Jordan Grapel ◽  
Todd Calnan ◽  
Elena Tenenbaum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Information ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Autism Symptoms ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Dynamic Stimulus ◽  
Clinical Measures

Prior eye-tracking studies involving autistic individuals have focused on total looking time or proportion of looking time to key regions of interest. These studies have not examined another important feature, the ability to sustain attention to stimuli. In particular, the ability to sustain attention to a dynamic social stimulus might reflect more advanced self-regulatory skills that may enhance engagement with and comprehension of social information. In a sample of 155 autistic children (2–8 years of age), we examined children’s average look duration while they viewed a complex, dynamic stimulus containing both social and nonsocial elements. After accounting for children’s age and intelligence quotient, we found that shorter average look duration was associated with increased autism spectrum disorder severity across multiple clinical measures. To calculate average look duration, we divided the length of total looking time in seconds by the total number of uninterrupted looks to the video media. Thus, the ability to sustain attention while viewing complex dynamic information could be important for comprehending dynamic social information. Lay Abstract Many studies of autism look at the differences in how autistic research participants look at certain types of images. These studies often focus on where research participants are looking within the image, but that does not tell us everything about how much they are paying attention. It could be useful to know more about how well autistic research participants can focus on an image with people in it, because those who can look at images of people for longer duration without stopping may be able to easily learn other skills that help them to interact with people. We measured how long autistic research participants watched the video without breaking their attention. The video sometimes had a person speaking, and at other times had toys moving and making sounds. We measured the typical amount of time autistic research participants could look at the video before they looked away. We found that research participants with more severe autism tended to look at the video for shorter amounts of time. The ability to focus without stopping may be related to social skills in autistic people.

Improving visual perspective-taking performance in children with autism spectrum conditions: Effects of embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies

Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136236132094935
Author(s):  
Pingping Ni ◽  
Lingfeng Xue ◽  
Jiajing Cai ◽  
Minjie Wen ◽  
Jie He
Keyword(s):  
Mental Rotation ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Visual Perspective ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Visual Perspective Taking ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Embodied Self ◽  
Rotation Strategy

Visual perspective-taking is the ability to perceive the world from another person’s perspective, and research on visual perspective-taking ability in children with autism spectrum conditions yielded inconsistent results. To solve a visual perspective-taking task, people can mentally rotate themselves to another person’s location (embodied self-rotation strategy) or else rotate the object toward themselves (object-based mental rotation strategy). Previous interventions for autistic individuals have mainly focused on embodied self-rotation strategy, the visual perspective-taking mechanism in neurotypicals. This study examined the effects of both embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies in improving visual perspective-taking performance in 34 autistic children and 34 ability-matched neurotypical children. All children completed three tasks: one measuring baseline visual perspective-taking performance, while the other two measuring visual perspective-taking performance after instructions in embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies. The results indicated that autistic children had difficulty in baseline visual perspective-taking tasks. After a brief strategy learning period, autistic children benefited similarly from both embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation instructions, suggesting that there are various possible ways to improving autistic children’s perspective taking, and that further interventions for autistic children could consider combining different strategies that better suit their autistic traits. Lay abstract When answering how the same object might appear to others in different locations, people can provide answers by mentally putting themselves into another person’s location using the embodied self-rotation strategy or by rotating the target object toward themselves using the object-based mental rotation strategy. In this study, after learning the embodied self-rotation or object-based mental rotation strategies, autistic children improved their visual perspective-taking performance, which is believed to be impaired or delayed in autistic individuals. We recruited 34 autistic children and an equal number of ability-matched typical children and examined their visual perspective-taking performance at baseline and after learning the embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies. As previous visual perspective-taking and other social cognition interventions for autistic individuals have primarily focused on the embodied self-rotation strategy, showing moderate effectiveness and limited generalizability, we explored the effects of both embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies for improving perspective-taking performance and discussed their implications in this study. The results showed that autistic children had a lower performance at baseline compared with typical children; however, they were still sensitive to both embodied self-rotation and object-based mental rotation strategies. Unlike typical children, who gained more from the embodied self-rotation strategy, autistic children benefited similarly from the two strategies. This suggests that there are multiple ways to helping autistic children overcome their difficulty in perspective-taking tasks. Future interventions for autistic children could consider combining various strategies that better suit their autistic traits.

The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire: Mothers Versus Fathers of Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ifat Seidman ◽  
Nurit Yirmiya ◽  
Shahaf Milshtein ◽  
Richard P. Ebstein ◽  
Shlomit Levi
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Broad Autism Phenotype ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Autism Phenotype

scholarly journals Development and Validation of the Suicide Behaviours Questionnaire – Autism Spectrum Conditions in Autistic, Possibly Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Cassidy ◽  
Louise Bradley ◽  
Heather Cogger-Ward ◽  
Jacqui Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Autistic Traits ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Measurement Properties ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Autistic Adults ◽  
Development And Validation

Abstract Background: Autistic people and those with high autistic traits are at high risk of experiencing suicidality. Yet, there are no suicidality assessment tools developed or validated for these groups.Methods: A widely used and validated suicidality assessment tool developed for the general population (SBQ-R), was adapted using feedback from autistic adults. The adapted tool was refined through 9 interviews, and an online survey with 251 autistic adults, to establish clarity and relevance of the items. Subsequently, 308 autistic, 113 possibly autistic, and 268 non-autistic adults completed the adapted tool online, alongside self-report measures of autistic traits (AQ), camouflaging autistic traits (CAT-Q), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (ASA-A), thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness (INQ-15), lifetime non-suicidal self-injury, and the original version of the suicidality assessment tool (SBQ-R). Analyses explored the appropriateness and measurement properties of the adapted tool between the groups.Results: There was evidence in support of content validity, structural validity, internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity, test retest validity, sensitivity and specificity (for distinguishing those with or without lifetime experience of suicide attempt), and hypothesis testing of the adapted tool (SBQ-ASC) in each group. The structure of the SBQ-ASC was equivalent between autistic and possibly autistic adults, regardless of gender, or use of visual aids to help quantify abstract rating scales.Limitations: The samples involved in the development and validation of the adapted tool were largely female, and largely diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, which is not representative of the wider autistic population. The SBQ-ASC has been developed for use in research and is not recommended to assess risk of future suicide attempts and/or self-harm.Conclusions: The SBQ-ASC is a brief self-report suicidality assessment tool, developed and validated with and for autistic adults, without co-occurring intellectual disability. The SBQ-ASC is appropriate for use in research to identify suicidal thoughts and behaviours in autistic and possibly autistic people, and model associations with risk and protective factors.

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