27 research outputs found
Behavioral Profiles of Affected and Unaffected Siblings of Children with Autism: Contribution of Measures of MotherāInfant Interaction and Nonverbal Communication
We investigated whether deficits in social gaze and affect and in joint attention behaviors are evident within the first year of life among siblings of children with autism who go on to be diagnosed with autism or ASD (ASD) and siblings who are non-diagnosed (NoASD-sib) compared to low-risk controls. The ASD group did not differ from the other two groups at 6Ā months of age in the frequency of gaze, smiles, and vocalizations directed toward the caregiver, nor in their sensitivity to her withdrawal from interaction. However, by 12Ā months, infants in the ASD group exhibited lower rates of joint attention and requesting behaviors. In contrast, NoASD-sibs did not differ from comparison infants on any variables of interest at 6 and 12Ā months
The relationship between early neural responses to emotional faces at age 3 and later autism and anxiety symptoms in adolescents with autism
Both autism spectrum (ASD) and anxiety disorders are associated with atypical neural and attentional responses to emotional faces, differing in affective face processing from typically developing peers. Within a longitudinal study of children with ASD (23 male, 3 female), we hypothesized that early ERPs to emotional faces would predict concurrent and later ASD and anxiety symptoms. Greater response amplitude to fearful faces corresponded to greater social communication difficulties at age 3, and less improvement by age 14. Faster ERPs to neutral faces predicted greater ASD symptom improvement over time, lower ASD severity in adolescence, and lower anxiety in adolescence. Early individual differences in processing of emotional stimuli likely reflect a unique predictive contribution from social brain circuitry early in life