scholarly journals Assessment of Knowledge About Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Paediatricians

Esculapio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4 (oct 2020 - dec 2020)) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Zia ◽  
Hafsa Qamar ◽  
Irum Aslam ◽  
Muhammad Asif Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Interaction Domain ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Domain 3

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of Paediatricians who have good knowledge for diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Methods: It is cross-sectional study conducted in department of Paediatric Medicine, Children Hospital, Lahore, Jinnah Hospital and Services Hospital Lahore, in 6 months duration, spanning from June 27, 2016 till December 27, 2016. A total of 89 doctors fulfilling the inclusion criteria were registered after informed consent. Demographic data (including age, sex, qualification and duration of clinical experience) was taken. Doctors were given a questionnaire to assess their knowledge of ASD. The questionnaire was a nineteen-item self-administered questionnaire divided into four domains namely, social interaction (Domain 1), impairment in communication (Domain 2), repetitive behavior (Domain 3), characteristics of autism as a disorder and its comorbidities (Domain 4). The KCAHW sore ≥ 15 was considered as good. Data was entered and analyzed in (SPSS) version 22.0. Results: The mean age of subjects was 30.67±2.80 years with 31(31%) physicians male and 69(69%) were females. The mean KCAHW score was 15.07±3.54 with minimum and maximum score of 7 and 19. According to operational definition a total of 62(62%) subjects had good knowledge while 38(38%) physician had score < 15. Conclusion: Though 68% of paediatricians had good knowledge about childhood autism according to our study. The physicians who had poor knowledge, must be considered for different educational activities to enhance their knowledge regarding ASD, which may help in early diagnosis and improving prognosis of children with ASD. Key Words: Paediatricians, Autism spectrum disorder How to Cite: Zia F, Qamar H, Aslam I, Siddiqui MA. Assessment of knowledge about autism spectrum disorder among paediatricians. Esculapio.2020;16(04):83-86.

Development and Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess Parent Reported Quality of Life Pre and Post Vision Therapy in a Population with Autism Spectrum Disorder

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-207
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Behavior ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Vision Therapy

Background: Autism spectrum disorder is characterized in part by atypical behavior in the communication, social, and visual domains. Success in vision therapy is judged not only by changes in optometric findings, but through improvement in quality of life involving communication, social behavior and visual behavior. It would therefore be beneficial to have a validated questionnaire to assess parent reported quality of life pre and post vision therapy specific to patients with autism spectrum disorder. To our knowledge, a questionnaire of this nature has not been previously published in the literature. Methods: Questionnaire items were generated through surveying medical literature based on symptoms in three different categories: visual behavior, social behavior and communication. A pool of 34 questions was developed initially and then with thorough discussion with other experts, a 20-point questionnaire was developed with each item reflected in the construct concept. A draft of 20 questions was then sent to 10 subject experts with clinical experience in the field for more than 20 years, to review the pooled items. Validity and reliability was established prior to assessing the psychometric properties of the ASD/QOL-VT. Prospective observational study was conducted for a duration of 18 months. The study included individuals undergoing vision therapy in the age range of 3 to 15 years who had been diagnosed with ASD. The questionnaire was administered to parents of these children prior to the start of vision therapy. All subjects completed a minimum of 60 vision therapy sessions. The questionnaire was readministered after completing 60 sessions of vision therapy. Results: Cronbach’s alpha value for this questionnaire was 0.93, which reflected very good internal consistency. Factorial analysis yielded four factors with an Eigen value exceeding 1.0 which accounted for 68% variation in the model. The Cronbach alpha value for subscales identified by factorial analysis is 0.97 indicating excellent internal reliability. The mean pre vision therapy social behavior, communication and visual behavior score was 12.0±3.21, 17.07±4.57 and 26.97±6.41 respectively. The mean post vision therapy scores for social behavior, communication and visual behavior was 8.27±4.16, 11.33±5.27 and 17.93±6.52 respectively. On paired t test, the mean difference in score was statistically significant with P<0.001 in all three subcategories. Conclusions: Our study presents the development of a valid and reliable parent questionnaire, the ASD/QOL-VT, that judges communication, social behavior, and visual behavior in autism. Results of the study conducted indicate that vision therapy can result in significant improvements in the quality of life of patients with ASD as judged by their parents. This is evidenced by statistically significant changes in psychometric properties of the ASD/QOL-VT in social behavior, communication and visual behavior.

scholarly journals Implication of the Sensory Environment in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Perspectives from School

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (14) ◽  
pp. 7670
Author(s):  
Ana Gentil-Gutiérrez ◽  
José Luis Cuesta-Gómez ◽  
Paula Rodríguez-Fernández ◽  
Jerónimo Javier González-Bernal
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sensory Profile ◽  
School Factors ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Children With Asd

(1) Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently have difficulties in processing sensory information, which is a limitation when participating in different contexts, such as school. The objective of the present study was to compare the sensory processing characteristics of children with ASD in the natural context of school through the perception of professionals in the field of education, in comparison with neurodevelopmental children (2) Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study as conducted with study population consisting of children between three and ten years old, 36 of whom were diagnosed with ASD and attended the Autismo Burgos association; the remaining 24 had neurotypical development. The degree of response of the children to sensory stimuli at school was evaluated using the Sensory Profile-2 (SP-2) questionnaire in its school version, answered by the teachers. (3) Results: Statistically significant differences were found in sensory processing patterns (p = 0.001), in sensory systems (p = 0.001) and in school factors (p = 0.001). Children with ASD who obtained worse results. (4) Conclusions: Children with ASD are prone to present sensory alterations in different contexts, giving nonadapted behavioral and learning responses.

scholarly journals A Deep Learning Approach to Predict Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Multisite Resting-State fMRI

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3636
Author(s):  
Faria Zarin Subah ◽  
Kaushik Deb ◽  
Pranab Kumar Dhar ◽  
Takeshi Koshiba
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Resting State ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Resting State Fmri ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Bootstrap Analysis ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Art Methods ◽  
The Mean

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex and degenerative neuro-developmental disorder. Most of the existing methods utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect ASD with a very limited dataset which provides high accuracy but results in poor generalization. To overcome this limitation and to enhance the performance of the automated autism diagnosis model, in this paper, we propose an ASD detection model using functional connectivity features of resting-state fMRI data. Our proposed model utilizes two commonly used brain atlases, Craddock 200 (CC200) and Automated Anatomical Labelling (AAL), and two rarely used atlases Bootstrap Analysis of Stable Clusters (BASC) and Power. A deep neural network (DNN) classifier is used to perform the classification task. Simulation results indicate that the proposed model outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy. The mean accuracy of the proposed model was 88%, whereas the mean accuracy of the state-of-the-art methods ranged from 67% to 85%. The sensitivity, F1-score, and area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) score of the proposed model were 90%, 87%, and 96%, respectively. Comparative analysis on various scoring strategies show the superiority of BASC atlas over other aforementioned atlases in classifying ASD and control.

scholarly journals Parental evaluation of a revised autism spectrum disorder diagnostic process for children under 36 months of age

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Lemay ◽  
Shauna Langenberger ◽  
Scott McLeod
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Early Intervention ◽  
Parent Education ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Diagnostic Process ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
High Level

Abstract Background The Alberta Children’s Hospital-Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnostic Clinic (ACH-ASDC) was restructured due to long wait times and unsustainable clinic workflow. Major changes included the initiation of pre- and post-ASD parent education sessions and distinct ASD screening appointments before the ASD diagnostic appointment. Methods We conducted a parental program evaluation in summer 2018 of the ACH-ASDC. We used a cross-sectional survey to evaluate key outcomes including parental satisfaction, and the percentage of families obtaining access to government supports and early intervention programs. Results For the 101 eligible patients diagnosed with ASD under 36 months of age 70 (69.3%) parents agreed to participate. The mean diagnostic age of the children diagnosed with ASD was 30.6 months (SD=4.1 months). There were no statistically significant age differences between biological sexes. Ninety-three per cent of parents felt that ASD educational sessions were useful, and 92% of parents were satisfied to very satisfied with the overall ASD diagnostic process. Ninety per cent of parents had access to at least one of the key resources available for ASD early intervention in our province following diagnosis. Parents reported a positive impact on intervention provided to their child in the areas of communication, social interaction, and behaviour. Conclusion Parents of children diagnosed with ASD expressed a high level of satisfaction with the restructured ACH-ASDC process. Implementing parent education sessions was well received and met parents’ needs. Parents were able to access intervention services following diagnosis and reported positive impacts for their child. Re-envisioning program approaches to incorporate novel strategies to support families should be encouraged.

scholarly journals Assessment of racial and ethnic bias in autism spectrum disorder prevalence estimates from a US surveillance system

Autism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1927-1935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Imm ◽  
Tiffany White ◽  
Maureen S Durkin
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Healthcare Access ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
Monitoring Network ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Prevalence Estimates

This study assessed potential under-ascertainment of autism spectrum disorder due to missing administrative information for Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black children within the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. We analyzed data from two Network sites (Colorado and Wisconsin) for surveillance years 2012 and 2014 to determine whether children excluded from autism spectrum disorder prevalence estimates due to missing residency and other information differed from those included by race and ethnicity. We used multiple approaches to impute missing information to evaluate impacts on racial and ethnic disparities in autism spectrum disorder prevalence. Compared with confirmed autism spectrum disorder cases, those excluded due to missing residency were more than twice as likely to be Hispanic (19% vs 44%; p < 0.002), yet the number of cases excluded due to missing residency information was too small to account for prevalence differences. Confirmation of autism spectrum disorder case status was more likely for children with relevant health records than for those with school records only. Moreover, relevant health records were more likely to be missing for Black and Hispanic children than for White children. Observed disparities in autism spectrum disorder prevalence were not accounted for by missing demographic data, but may reflect disparities in healthcare access for developmental evaluations.

scholarly journals Development of Auditory Evoked Responses in Normally Developing Preschool Children and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 430-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia M. Stephen ◽  
Dina E. Hill ◽  
Amanda Peters ◽  
Lucinda Flynn ◽  
Tongsheng Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Tone Burst ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Auditory Evoked Potential ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Evoked Responses ◽  
Auditory Evoked Responses ◽  
Cortical Responses ◽  
The Mean

The cortical responses to auditory stimuli undergo rapid and dramatic changes during the first 3 years of life in normally developing (ND) children, with decreases in latency and changes in amplitude in the primary peaks. However, most previous studies have focused on children >3 years of age. The analysis of data from the early stages of development is challenging because the temporal pattern of the evoked responses changes with age (e.g., additional peaks emerge with increasing age) and peak latency decreases with age. This study used the topography of the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) to identify the auditory components in ND children between 6 and 68 months (n = 48). The latencies of the peaks in the AEF produced by a tone burst (ISI 2 ± 0.2 s) during sleep decreased with age, consistent with previous reports in awake children. The peak latencies of the AEFs in ND children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were compared. Previous studies indicate that the latencies of the initial components of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) and the AEF are delayed in children with ASD when compared to age-matched ND children >4 years of age. We speculated whether the AEF latencies decrease with age in children diagnosed with ASD as in ND children, but with uniformly longer latencies before the age of about 4 years. Contrary to this hypothesis, the peak latencies did not decrease with age in the ASD group (24-62 months, n = 16) during sleep (unlike in the age-matched controls), although the mean latencies were longer in the ASD group as in previous studies. These results are consistent with previous studies indicating delays in auditory latencies, and they indicate a different maturational pattern in ASD children and ND children. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm whether the AEF latencies diverge with age, starting at around 3 years, in these 2 groups of children.

A cross-sectional descriptive analysis of portrayal of autism spectrum disorders in YouTube videos: A short report

Autism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica L Bellon-Harn ◽  
Vinaya Manchaiah ◽  
Lekeitha R Morris
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Short Report ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Youtube Videos

Professionals have expressed concerns about the quality of autism-related information available from Internet-based sources. The purpose of this study was to examine the source, content, usability, and actionability of autism spectrum disorder–related information contained in 100 different videos directed to families of children with autism spectrum disorder uploaded to YouTube. Upload sources were identified, and video content was coded. Understandability and actionability of the videos were examined using Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials. The collective number of views of the videos was almost 100 million. The length of videos was 691.17 min (i.e. 11.5 h) with the shortest video being 30 s and the longest video being 37.36 min. The YouTube videos related to autism spectrum disorder covered a range of issues, although much of the content was focused on signs and symptoms. No difference in content reporting was noted based on sources for most categories, although differences were noted in some categories (e.g. professionals mentioned diagnosis and resources more frequently). Poor understandability and actionability scores (i.e. below 70%) were reported for all videos regardless of video source. However, the videos generated by the professionals were superior in terms of understandability. Study implications and recommendations for further research are discussed.

scholarly journals Tensions in Maternal Care for Children, Youth, and Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233339362090758
Author(s):  
David B. Nicholas ◽  
Radha MacCulloch ◽  
Wendy Roberts ◽  
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum ◽  
Patricia McKeever
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Maternal Caregiving ◽  
Recommendations For Practice ◽  
Care Demands

This study explored the experiences of mothers caring for an individual with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) ranging from 5 to 25 years of age, and examined pervasive tensions in caregiving. Guided by ethnographic methods, a retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted. Interviews with 85 mothers were analyzed inductively. Prevalent tensions in maternal caregiving were identified: (a) difficulties obtaining, yet resistance to, an ASD diagnosis; (b) identified giftedness of the child versus notions of deficit imposed by others; (c) disability-related behaviors erroneously interpreted as ‘poor parenting’; (d) contradictory considerations in diagnosis disclosure; (e) the invisibility yet pervasiveness of ASD; (f) extensive need for, yet the lack of, accessible services; (g) ASD-related care demands versus other pressing responsibilities; (h) arguments for inclusive versus exclusive services; and (i) aims of nurturing independence versus managing safety risk. Tensions were heightened by insufficient supports relative to need. Implications and recommendations for practice and policy are offered.

Increased Dendritic Orientation Dispersion in the Left Occipital Gyrus is Associated with Atypical Visual Processing in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 5617-5625
Author(s):  
Kiwamu Matsuoka ◽  
Manabu Makinodan ◽  
Soichiro Kitamura ◽  
Masato Takahashi ◽  
Hiroaki Yoshikawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sensory Profile ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Abstract In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the complexity-specific hypothesis explains that atypical visual processing is attributable to selective functional changes in visual pathways. We investigated dendritic microstructures and their associations with functional connectivity (FC). Participants included 28 individuals with ASD and 29 typically developed persons. We explored changes in neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) and brain areas whose FC was significantly correlated with NODDI parameters in the explored regions of interests. Individuals with ASD showed significantly higher orientation dispersion index (ODI) values in the left occipital gyrus (OG) corresponding to the secondary visual cortex (V2). FC values between the left OG and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were significantly negatively correlated with mean ODI values. The mean ODI values in the left OG were significantly positively associated with low registration of the visual quadrants of the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP), resulting in a significant positive correlation with passive behavioral responses of the AASP visual quadrants; additionally, the FC values between the left OG and the left MTG were significantly negatively associated with reciprocal social interaction. Our results suggest that abnormal V2 dendritic arborization is associated with atypical visual processing by altered intermediation in the ventral visual pathway.

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