Maltreatment-associated neurodevelopmental disorders: a co-twin control analysis

Background: Childhood maltreatment (CM) is strongly associated with psychiatric disorders in childhood and adulthood. Previous findings suggest that the association between CM and psychiatric disorders is partly causal and partly due to familial confounding, but few studies have investigated the mechanisms behind the association between CM and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Our objective was to determine whether maltreated children have an elevated number of NDDs and whether CM is a risk factor for an increased NDD ‘load’ and increased NDD symptoms when controlling for familial effects. Methods: We used a cross-sectional sample from a population-representative Swedish twin study, comprising 8,192 nine-year-old twins born in Sweden between 1997 and 2005. CM was defined as parent-reported exposure to emotional abuse/neglect, physical neglect, physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse. Four NDDs were measured with the Autism–Tics, AD/HD, and other comorbidities inventory. Results: Maltreated children had a greater mean number of NDDs than nonmaltreated children. In a co-twin control design, CM-discordant monozygotic twins did not differ significantly for their number of NDDs, suggesting that CM is not associated with an increased load of NDDs when genetic and shared environmental factors are taken into account. However, CM was associated with a small increase in symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder in CM-discordant MZ twins, although most of the covariance of CM with NDD symptoms was explained by common genetic effects. Conclusions: Maltreated children are at higher risk of having multiple NDDs. Our findings are, however, not consistent with the notion that CM causes the increased NDD load in maltreated children. Maltreated children should receive a full neurodevelopmental assessment, and clinicians should be aware that children with multiple NDDs are at higher risk of maltreatment

Pengelolaan Teacher Capacity Building (Tcb) Untuk Meningkatkan Profesionalitas Guru (Studi Kasus Guru SMPN 2 Dan SMP Darul Hikam Bandung)

Teacher Capacity Building (TCB) is a key point for a quality education service provided by a school. In the reality, schools have no standardize TCB system to ensure that their TCB is conducted effectivity and efficiently. The research was conducted to figure out the answers to four main questions related to the steps taken in determining the TCB policy at school, the TCB management, the quality assurance system, and the impacts of TCB either for the teacher as an individual, for learning quality, or for school quality. The location of the research were SMPN 2 Bandung and SMP Darul Hikam Bandung as the representation of school with their own school policy on TCB. The reasearch was a qualitative reaserch with descriptive method. The data was callected using three major techniques: observation, indeepth interview, and documentary study. The research revealed that the TCB in SMP Darul Hikam is basen on need analysis, the power of the leader, the tandardized recruitment, and teacher performance assessment. In SMPN 2 Bandung the TCB is empowered by the networking and a very health atmosphere for the teacher to show their best performances. The research also found that the aspects needs to be improved in the implementation of the TCB in both schools are the documentary and the quality assurance

Effect of co-twin gender on neurodevelopment symptoms : a twin register study

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are neurodevelopmental disorders thought to have both genetic and environmental causes. It has been hypothesized that exposure to elevated levels of prenatal testosterone is associated with elevated traits of ASD and ADHD. Assuming that testosterone levels from a dizygotic male twin fetus may lead to enhanced testosterone exposure of its co‐twins, we aimed to test the prenatal testosterone hypothesis by comparing same‐sex with opposite‐sex dizygotic twins with respect to neurodevelopmental symptoms. Methods: Neuropsychiatric traits were assessed in a population‐based twin cohort from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS). Parental interviews were conducted for 16,312 dizygotic twins, 9 and 12 years old, with the Autism–Tics, ADHD, and other Comorbidities inventory (A‐TAC). Results: Girls with a female co‐twin had an increased risk of reaching the cut‐off score for ADHD compared with girls with a male co‐twin. Both boys and girls with a female co‐twin displayed a larger number of traits related to attention deficit and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors than those with a male twin. In girls, this also extended to social interaction and the combined measures for ASD and ADHD, however with small effect sizes. Conclusions: Our results are reverse to what would have been expected from the prenatal testosterone hypothesis but consistent with a previous study of ASD and ADHD traits in dizygotic twins. The seemingly protective effect for girls of having a twin brother may be an effect of parent report bias, but may also be an unexpected effect of sharing the intrauterine environment with a male co‐twin.The Swedish Research CouncilThe Brain FoundationBertil Hållsten’s FoundationSöderström’s foundationThe Swedish Council for Health, Working Life and WelfareStockholm County Council (ALF)The Söderström-Königska FoundationManuscrip

The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions

PURPOSE: Population-based studies on violent crime and background factors may provide an understanding of the relationships between susceptibility factors and crime. We aimed to determine the distribution of violent crime convictions in the Swedish population 1973–2004 and to identify criminal, academic, parental, and psychiatric risk factors for persistence in violent crime. METHOD: The nationwide multi-generation register was used with many other linked nationwide registers to select participants. All individuals born in 1958–1980 (2,393,765 individuals) were included. Persistent violent offenders (those with a lifetime history of three or more violent crime convictions) were compared with individuals having one or two such convictions, and to matched non-offenders. Independent variables were gender, age of first conviction for a violent crime, nonviolent crime convictions, and diagnoses for major mental disorders, personality disorders, and substance use disorders. RESULTS: A total of 93,642 individuals (3.9 %) had at least one violent conviction. The distribution of convictions was highly skewed; 24,342 persistent violent offenders (1.0 % of the total population) accounted for 63.2 % of all convictions. Persistence in violence was associated with male sex (OR 2.5), personality disorder (OR 2.3), violent crime conviction before age 19 (OR 2.0), drug-related offenses (OR 1.9), nonviolent criminality (OR 1.9), substance use disorder (OR 1.9), and major mental disorder (OR 1.3). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by a small number of persistent violent offenders, typically males, characterized by early onset of violent criminality, substance abuse, personality disorders, and nonviolent criminality

Understanding the relationship between asthma and autism spectrum disorder : a population-based family and twin study

Background: There is some evidence that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently co-occurs with immune-mediated conditions including asthma. We aimed to explore the familial co-aggregation of ASD and asthma using different genetically informed designs. Methods: We first examined familial co-aggregation of asthma and ASD in individuals born in Sweden from 1992 to 2007 (n = 1 569 944), including their full- and half-siblings (n = 1 704 388 and 356 544 pairs) and full cousins (n = 3 921 890 pairs), identified using Swedish register data. We then applied quantitative genetic modeling to siblings (n = 620 994 pairs) and twins who participated in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (n = 15 963 pairs) to estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the co-aggregation. Finally, we estimated genetic correlations between traits using linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC). Results: We observed a within-individual association [adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1.33, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.28-1.37] and familial co-aggregation between asthma and ASD, and the magnitude of the associations decreased as the degree of relatedness decreased (full-siblings: OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.38-1.50, maternal half-siblings: OR 1.28, 95% CI 1.18-1.39, paternal half-siblings: OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.96-1.15, full cousins: OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.03-1.09), suggesting shared familial liability. Quantitative genetic models estimated statistically significant genetic correlations between ASD traits and asthma. Using the LDSC approach, we did not find statistically significant genetic correlations between asthma and ASD (coefficients between -0.09 and 0.12). Conclusions: Using different genetically informed designs, we found some evidence of familial co-aggregation between asthma and ASD, suggesting the weak association between these disorders was influenced by shared genetics.Swedish Research Council (project grant 2018-02640)Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM) framework (grant no 340-2013-5867)Stockholm County Council (ALF-projects)Strategic Research Program in Epidemiology at Karolinska InstituteSwedish Heart-Lung FoundationSwedish Asthma and Allergy Association's Research FoundationPublishe

"Recovery" from the diagnosis of autism - and then?

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to follow up the 17 children, from a total group of 208 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who "recovered from autism". They had been clinically diagnosed with ASD at or under the age of 4 years. For 2 years thereafter they received intervention based on applied behavior analysis. These 17 children were all of average or borderline intellectual functioning. On the 2-year follow-up assessment, they no longer met criteria for ASD. METHODS: At about 10 years of age they were targeted for a new follow-up. Parents were given a semistructured interview regarding the child's daily functioning, school situation, and need of support, and were interviewed using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) and the Autism - Tics, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), and other Comorbidities (A-TAC) telephone interview. RESULTS: The vast majority of the children had moderate-to-severe problems with attention/activity regulation, speech and language, behavior, and/or social interaction. A majority of the children had declined in their VABS scores. Most of the 14 children whose parents were A-TAC-interviewed had problems within many behavioral A-TAC domains, and four (29%) had symptom levels corresponding to a clinical diagnosis of ASD, AD/HD, or both. Another seven children (50%) had pronounced subthreshold indicators of ASD, AD/HD, or both. CONCLUSION: Children diagnosed at 2-4 years of age as suffering from ASD and who, after appropriate intervention for 2 years, no longer met diagnostic criteria for the disorder, clearly needed to be followed up longer. About 3-4 years later, they still had major problems diagnosable under the umbrella term of ESSENCE (Early Symptomatic Syndromes Eliciting Neurodevelopmental Clinical Examinations). They continued to be in need of support, educationally, from a neurodevelopmental and a medical point of view. According to parent interview data, a substantial minority of these children again met diagnostic criteria for ASD

Childhood neurodevelopmental disorders and violent criminality : a sibling control study

Introduction: The longitudinal relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and violent criminality has been extensively documented, while long-term effects of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), tic disorders (TDs), and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) on criminality have been scarcely studied.Methods: Using population-based registers of all child and adolescent mental health services in Stockholm, we identified 3,391 children, born 1984–1994, with neurodevelopmental disorders, and compared their risk for subsequent violent criminality with matched controls. Results: Individuals with ADHD or TDs were at elevated risk of committing violent crimes, no such association could be seen for ASDs or OCD. Conclusions: ADHD and TDs are risk factors for subsequent violent criminality, while ASDs and OCD are not associated with violent criminality.VetenskapsrådetFASAccepte

Assessing autism in females: The importance of a sex-specific comparison

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed more often in boys than girls. Here, we compared the degree of autism - and related disorders - symptomatology in boys and girls with a registered diagnosis of ASD. We used parent telephone interview A-TAC (Autism-Tics, ADHD and other Comorbidities) ratings of 30,392 twins aged 9 or 12 (including 308 boys and 122 girls with National Patient Register diagnoses of ASD) participating in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. We used z-scores for ASD-symptoms, standardized separately for boys and girls. Boys with a diagnosis of ASD had a higher raw mean score than girls with a diagnosis on the A-TAC ASD domain. However, utilizing the z-scores, girls with a diagnosis of ASD deviated further away from the female population mean than did the boys with ASD from the male population mean. Girls also had higher standardized mean values for symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disabilities and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The findings suggest that girls diagnosed with autism may represent an even more extreme end of the female population autistic features distribution, than diagnosed boys from the male population autistic features distribution. Future studies may benefit from examining the use of sex-specific cut-off scores

Interpersonal trauma and its relation to childhood psychopathic traits : what does ADHD and ODD add to the equation?

Acknowledgements Thank you to the parents and young people who participated in the CATSS-9 studies.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Association study between autistic-like traits and polymorphisms in the autism candidate regions RELN, CNTNAP2, SHANK3, and CDH9/10

The Swedish Research CouncilThe Swedish Council for Working Life and Social ResearchThe Petrus and Augusta Hedlund FoundationÅke Wiberg foundationÅhlens FoundationWilhelm and Martina Lundgren FoundationThe Sahlgrenska AcademyPublishe