Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders When School Closures Were Lifted

Human activities have been changing in conjunction with the status of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with school closures and activity cancellations becoming commonplace. As such, the COVID-19 pandemic likely also has had a detrimental impact on the behavioral problems of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). In Japan, the government issued a stay-at-home order causing children to stop participating in school activities following the first declaration of a state of emergency (April 7 to May 25, 2020). During winter 2020, the stay-at-home order and school closures were lifted. Using longitudinal data of children with NDD, we compared the behavioral problems of children with NDD between October 1 and December 31, 2020 (i.e., winter 2020) with their behavioral problems before the COVID-19 pandemic (pre-COVID-19). In this study, 143 caregivers of children with NDD evaluated their behavioral problems using the Japanese version of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC-J) in the pre-COVID-19 period and winter 2020. We found no scores that were higher in winter 2020 compared to pre-COVID-19. Moreover, irritability and hyperactivity scores were significantly lower in winter 2020 compared to pre-COVID-19. These findings suggest weak negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the behavioral problems of children with NDD. In schools and clinical practice, children learned knowledge about COVID-19 and related preventive behaviors. Therefore, these practices may have alleviated the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children with NDD.

Direct Measures of Medication Effects: Exploring the Scientific Utility of Behavior-Analytic Assessments

The purpose of the current study was to explore the scientific utility of two behavior analytic assessments (i.e., progressive ratio and demand assessments) for psychotropic medication evaluation. For a sample of 23 children with disabilities who were prescribed medication, we conducted a series of generalizability and optimization studies to identify sources of score variance and conditions in which stable estimates of behavior can be obtained. To inform construct validity, we calculated correlations between scores from each assessment and those from a standardized behavior rating scale (Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Second Edition; ABC-2). Results offer initial support for the scientific utility of progressive ratio scores. More research is needed to evaluate sensitivity to change and construct validity of scores from these and other behavior analytic assessments.

Psychiatric Characteristics Across Individuals With PTEN Mutations

Germline heterozygous PTEN mutations have been associated with high prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and elevated rates and severity of broadly defined behavioral problems. However, limited progress has been made toward understanding whether PTEN mutation is associated with specific psychiatric co-morbidity profiles when compared to idiopathic ASD. The current study aimed to utilize a cross-measure approach to compare concurrent psychiatric characteristics across children and adolescents with PTEN mutation with (PTEN-ASD; n = 38) and without ASD (PTEN-No ASD; n = 23), and ASD with macrocephaly but no PTEN mutation (macro-ASD; n = 25) using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC). There were significant group effects for the CBCL Internalizing and Externalizing broad symptom score, the majority of specific CBCL syndrome scores, and all ABC subscale scores. Post-hoc comparisons revealed greater behavioral symptoms in the ASD groups (PTEN-ASD and macro-ASD) compared to the PTEN-no ASD group on nearly all subtest scores examined. There were no statistically significant differences between the PTEN-ASD and macro-ASD groups; however, there was a trend for the macro-ASD group showing higher levels of aggressive behaviors. Our findings provide evidence of specific behavior profiles across PTEN-No ASD, PTEN-ASD, and macro-ASD groups and highlight the importance of early identification of behavioral vulnerabilities in individuals with PTEN mutations in order to provide access to appropriate evidence-based interventions.