scholarly journals Leveraging telehealth to evaluate infants with prodromal autism spectrum disorder characteristics using the telehealth evaluation of development for infants

Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132110455
Author(s):  
Meagan R Talbott ◽  
Sarah Dufek ◽  
Greg Young ◽  
Sally J Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
First Year ◽  
Early Evaluation ◽  
Infant Sibling ◽  
Developmental Domains ◽  
First Year Of Life

This study investigated the feasibility of recruiting and assessing infants with prodromal autism characteristics in the first year of life via telehealth. Participants included 41 infants (Mage = 10.51 months, 51.2% female, 80.5% White) whose parents had concerns about social communication delays or autism. All infants met concerns criteria on a social communication screener. Infants were subsequently assessed via telehealth using the Telehealth Evaluation of Development for Infants protocol, wherein parents are coached through a series of semi-structured interactions from which key measures of autism characteristics, communication, developmental level, and clinical best estimates of autism spectrum disorder likelihood are scored. Parents completed online questionnaires and surveys measuring the acceptability of the telehealth visits. Across both parent report and examiner-derived measures, infants demonstrated high scores on measures of purported autism traits, decreased communication skills, and delayed achievement of developmental milestones. Caregivers’ acceptability ratings were uniformly positive. Results highlight the potential for telehealth to expand the scope of studies of emerging autism beyond infant sibling designs and to increase families’ access to early evaluation services. Lay abstract Many families seeking early evaluations for autism spectrum disorder face long waitlists, must often travel to centers with appropriate expertise, and are frequently told by providers to “wait and see.” This results in significant stress for families and delayed supports to infants and their caregivers who could benefit. This study evaluated whether telehealth could be used to identify and evaluate infants with early autism spectrum disorder characteristics in the first year of life. In this study, we evaluated 41 infants via telehealth using a standard set of probes and scored behavior related to social communication, play, imitation, and other developmental domains. We found the majority of infants demonstrated elevated likelihood of autism spectrum disorder on both parent-reported questionnaires and examiner-rated behavior. Caregiver ratings of the overall utility of the protocol used in this study were high. Overall, this study demonstrates the feasibility for telehealth-based approaches to evaluate infants’ with elevated likelihood of autism spectrum disorder in the first year of life, which could help to improve families’ access to care and to expand our capacity to conduct studies evaluating possible intervention supports.

scholarly journals Early Motor Differences in Infants at Elevated Likelihood of Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (12) ◽  
pp. 4367-4384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannath Begum Ali ◽  
◽  
Tony Charman ◽  
Mark H. Johnson ◽  
Emily J. H. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
Attention Deficit ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
First Year ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
Midline Crossing ◽  
First Year Of Life

AbstractWe investigated infant’s manual motor behaviour; specifically behaviours crossing the body midline. Infants at elevated likelihood of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) produced fewer manual behaviours that cross the midline compared to infants with a typical likelihood of developing these disorders; however this effect was limited to 10-month-olds and not apparent at age 5 and 14 months. Although, midline crossing did not predict ASD traits, it was related to ADHD traits at 2 years of age. We rule out motor ability and hand dominance as possible explanations for this pattern of behaviour, positing that these results may be a consequence of multisensory integration abilities, and the neurobehavioural shift period, in the first year of life.

scholarly journals Understanding the nature of face processing in early autism: A prospective study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Tye ◽  
Giorgia Bussu ◽  
Teodora Gliga ◽  
Mayada Elsabbagh ◽  
Greg Pasco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
First Year ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Individual ◽  
First Year Of Life

AbstractDimensional approaches to psychopathology interrogate the core neurocognitive domains interacting at the individual level to shape diagnostic symptoms. Embedding this approach in prospective longitudinal studies could transform our understanding of the mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. Such designs require us to move beyond traditional group comparisons and determine which domain-specific atypicalities apply at the level of the individual, and whether they vary across distinct phenotypic subgroups. As a proof of principle, this study examines how the domain of face processing contributes to a clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We used an event-related potentials (ERPs) task in a cohort of 8-month-old infants with (n=148) and without (n=68) an older sibling with ASD, and combined traditional case-control comparisons with machine-learning techniques like supervised classification for prediction of clinical outcome at 36 months and Bayesian hierarchical clustering for stratification into subgroups. Our findings converge to indicate that a broad profile of alterations in the time-course of neural processing of faces is an early predictor of later ASD diagnosis. Furthermore, we identified two brain response-defined subgroups in ASD that showed distinct alterations in different aspects of face processing compared to siblings without ASD diagnosis, suggesting that individual differences between infants contribute to the diffuse pattern of alterations predictive of ASD in the first year of life. This study shows that moving from group-level comparisons to pattern recognition and stratification can help to understand and reduce heterogeneity in clinical cohorts, and improve our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to later neurodevelopmental outcomes.General Scientific SummaryThis study suggests that neural processing of faces is diffusely atypical in Autism Spectrum Disorder, and that it represents a strong candidate predictor of outcome at an individual level in the first year of life.

scholarly journals Eating Behaviors of Children with Autism—Pilot Study

Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2687
Author(s):  
Anna Brzóska ◽  
Beata Kazek ◽  
Karolina Kozioł ◽  
Agnieszka Kapinos-Gorczyca ◽  
Małgorzata Ferlewicz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Bottle Feeding ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Control Group ◽  
First Year ◽  
Healthy Children ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
First Year Of Life

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the most recognized neuropsychiatric disorder of childhood. Comorbid conditions (such as feeding disorders) are more common among people with autism than among the general population. The most frequent somatic disorders in autistic children include the gastrointestinal disorders observed in 46–91% of patients. The purpose of this study was the evaluation of the nutrition of children with autism, with particular emphasis placed on feeding in the first year of life, in comparison to the group of healthy peers. Participants included 75 Caucasian children (41 children diagnosed with pure autism, and the control group consisting of 34 children without autistic traits). The analysis was performed based on a questionnaire of own design with the first part devoted to the eating practices of the early infancy. Results: Autistic children, as compared to the healthy peers, presented a shortened time of breastfeeding (the children fell asleep at the breast) (p = 0.04), a delayed introduction of dairy products (p = 0.001), the need of more trials to introduce new foods (p = 0.006), a delayed introduction of foods with solid and lumpy structure (p = 0.004), a longer duration of bottle feeding (p = 0.005), delayed attempts to eating using own hands (p = 0.006) and needed a greater support of parents to divert their attention from food during eating (p = 0.05). Conclusions: 1. The dietary problems are more common among children with the autism spectrum disorder than among the population of healthy children, during the first year of life from the time of introducing the complementary foods. 2. The autistic children experience difficulties with eating and require their parents’ additional involvement significantly more often than their healthy peers.

Validation of the Pictorial Infant Communication Scale for preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine S Ghilain ◽  
Meaghan V Parlade ◽  
Matthew T McBee ◽  
Drew C Coman ◽  
Taylor Owen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Communication Scale ◽  
Preschool Aged Children

Joint attention, or the shared focus of attention between objects or events and a social partner, is a crucial milestone in the development of social communication and a notable area of deficit in children with autism spectrum disorder. While valid parent-report screening measures of social communication are available, the majority of these measures are designed to assess a wide range of behaviors. Targeted assessment of joint attention and related skills is primarily limited to semi-structured, examiner-led interactions, which are time-consuming and laborious to score. The Pictorial Infant Communication Scale is an efficient parent-report measure of joint attention that can be used as a complement to structured assessments in fully characterizing early social communication development. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Pictorial Infant Communication Scale. Results revealed a high degree of internal consistency and strong intercorrelations between subscales. Additionally, confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor model of joint attention. Furthermore, significant correlations between the Pictorial Infant Communication Scale and direct clinical measures of child joint attention, language skills, and autism spectrum disorder symptom severity were suggestive of concurrent validity. Findings suggest that the Pictorial Infant Communication Scale is a promising tool for measuring joint attention skills in preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorder.

scholarly journals Functional Connectivity in the First Year of Life in Infants at Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder: An EEG Study

PLoS ONE ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. e105176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Righi ◽  
Adrienne L. Tierney ◽  
Helen Tager-Flusberg ◽  
Charles A. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Of Life

Construct validity of the First-Year Inventory (FYI Version 2.0) in 12-month-olds at high-risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136236132094732
Author(s):  
Helen Y Lee ◽  
Cheryl Vigen ◽  
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum ◽  
Isabel M Smith ◽  
Jessica Brian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Construct Validity ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
First Year ◽  
Infant Behavior ◽  
High Risk Infant ◽  
Observation Scale

This study examines the construct validity of the First-Year Inventory 2.0 with respect to other established instruments in a sample of high-risk infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The First-Year Inventory 2.0 is a parent-report screening instrument designed to identify 12-month-old infants at risk for an eventual diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and consists of two domains: Social-Communication and Sensory-Regulatory. Although the First-Year Inventory 2.0’s screening psychometrics have been examined, its construct validity has not been investigated. In a sample of 112 high-risk 12-month-olds, we examined the First-Year Inventory 2.0’s associations with the Autism Observation Scale for Infants, an observer-based Autism Spectrum Disorder screener, and with other developmental instruments measuring similar areas in social communication and regulatory functioning in young children. Findings generally supported the First-Year Inventory 2.0 associations with other instruments in expected ways. The First-Year Inventory 2.0 Social-Communication domain was notably associated with the Autism Observation Scale for Infant’s total score and with language and communication domains of the Vineland and the Mullen. The Sensory-Regulatory domain showed minimal associations with other instruments that only had a few sensory items. Considering different objectives and strengths of assessments, researchers and clinicians are encouraged to utilize a variety of instruments in a comprehensive evaluation of a child. Lay abstract The First-Year Inventory 2.0 is a parent-report screening instrument designed to identify 12-month-old infants at risk for an eventual diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. This instrument focuses on Social-Communication and Sensory-Regulatory areas of infant behavior. Although the First-Year Inventory 2.0 screening performance has been previously studied, its validity has not been examined. Establishing validity of an instrument is important because it supports the effectiveness and the reliability of the instrument. In this study, we examined relationship between the First-Year Inventory 2.0 (Social-Communication and Sensory-Regulatory areas) and other instruments that measure similar areas of infant behavior in a sample of high-risk infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. These other instruments share some common aims and theoretical areas with the First-Year Inventory 2.0: the Autism Observation Scale for Infants, the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-II, and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire. Findings generally supported the validity of the First-Year Inventory 2.0 with other instruments. In particular, the Social-Communication area of the First-Year Inventory 2.0 showed greater commonality with other instruments than in the Sensory-Regulatory area. The Sensory-Regulatory area seemed to be a unique feature of the First-Year Inventory 2.0 instrument. Considering different aims and strengths of assessments, researchers and clinicians are encouraged to utilize a variety of instruments in a comprehensive evaluation of a child.

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