Non-linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills in autistic young adults, young adults with autistic traits and control young adults: Group differences and interrelatedness of skills.

Background: Despite increasing knowledge of social communication skills of autistic peole, the interrelatedness of different skills such as non-linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills is not much known about. A better understanding of the complex interplay between different domains of social communication helps us to develop assessment protocols for individuals with social communication difficulties.

Aims: To compare the performances of autistic young adults, young adults with autistic traits identified in childhood and control young adults in social communication tasks measuring non-linguistic comprehension, social inference and empathizing skills.

Autistic adults and adults with sub-clinical autistic traits differ from non-autistic adults in social-pragmatic inferencing and narrative discourse.

Previous social-pragmatic and narrative research involving autistic individuals has mostly focused on children. Little is known about how autistic adults and adults who have autistic traits but do not have a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interpret complex social situations and tell narratives about these situations. We asked 32 autistic young adults, 18 adults with autistic traits but no ASD diagnosis, and 34 non-autistic young adults to watch socially complex situations and freely tell narratives about what they thought was occurring in each situation.

Processing of pragmatic communication in ASD: a video-based brain imaging study.

Social and pragmatic difficulties in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are widely recognized, although their underlying neural level processing is not well understood. The aim of this study was to examine the activity of the brain network components linked to social and pragmatic understanding in order to reveal whether complex socio-pragmatic events evoke differences in brain activity between the ASD and control groups. Nineteen young adults (mean age 23.

Assessing social-pragmatic inferencing skills in children with autism spectrum disorder.

By utilizing the Pragma test this study investigated how sixteen five- to ten-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and sixteen typically developing (TD) children comprehended contextually challenging scenarios demanding 1) contextual inference with theory of mind (ToM), 2) contextual inference without ToM, 3) relevant use of language, 4) recognition of feelings, and 5) understanding false beliefs. The study also compared children's ability to explain their own correct answers. In addition, this study evaluated the sensitivity of three different methods for discriminating the children with ASD from the TD children: 1) the Pragma test, 2) the Social Interaction Deviance Composite (SIDC) of Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2), and 3) the Theory of Mind subtest of the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment, Second edition (NEPSY-II).

Noun Case Suffix Use by Children with Specific Language Impairment: An Examination of Finnish.

Finnish-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI, = 15, age = 5;2), a group of same-age typically developing peers (TD-A, = 15, age = 5;2) and a group of younger typically developing children (TD-Y, = 15, age = 3;8) were compared in their use of accusative, partitive, and genitive case noun suffixes. The children with SLI were less accurate than both groups of TD children in case marking, suggesting that their difficulties with agreement extend to grammatical case. However, these children were also less accurate in making the phonological changes in the stem needed for suffixation.

Linguistic and pragmatic aspects of narration in Finnish typically developing children and children with specific language impairment.

This study investigates narratives of Finnish children with specific language impairment (SLI) from linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, in order to get a comprehensive overview of these children's narrative abilities. Nineteen children with SLI (mean age 6;1 years) and 19 typically developing age-matched children participated in the study. Their picture-elicited narrations were analysed for linguistic productivity and complexity, grammatical and referential accuracy, event content, the use of mental state expressions and narrative comprehension.

Pragmatic use of language by children who develop schizophrenia in adult life.

At eleven years of age all children in a UK national birth cohort wrote short stories about the life they expected to be leading at age 25. Using a data linkage exercise, we identified those who later developed schizophrenia, affective psychosis, or other non-psychotic psychiatric disorders in later life based on the PSE CATEGO diagnostic system. The majority of these had completed the written essays.

Pragmatic language development in language impaired and typically developing children: incorrect answers in context.

This study focussed on young children's incorrect answers to pragmatically demanding questions. Children with specific language impairment (SLI), including a subgroup with pragmatic language difficulties (PLD) and typically developing children answered questions targeting implicatures, based on a storybook and short verbal scenarios. Ninety-seven children participated in this study: 30 children with SLI of whom 12 had PLD, 32 typically developing children aged 5-6 years and 35 aged 7-11 years.

Children with specific language impairment in Finnish: the use of tense and agreement inflections.

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) vary widely in their ability to use tense/agreement inflections depending on the type of language being acquired, a fact that current accounts of SLI have tried to explain. Finnish provides an important test case for these accounts because: (1) verbs in the first and second person permit null subjects whereas verbs in the third person do not; and (2) tense and agreement inflections are agglutinating and thus one type of inflection can appear without the other. Probes were used to compare the verb inflection use of Finnish-speaking children with SLI, and both age-matched and younger typically developing children.

Long-term effects of growth hormone therapy on patients with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Aim: To assess the effects of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) treatment in children with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Design: A 1-year study and an observational follow-up visit 10 years later.

Methods: In 20 patients with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS): clinical assessment, laboratory tests, body composition analysis by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, sleep polygraphy, health-related quality of life assessed by 16D.

Effects of long-term fenofibrate treatment on markers of renal function in type 2 diabetes: the FIELD Helsinki substudy.

Objective: Although fenofibrate was associated with less progression of albuminuria in the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD) study, it is unknown if it has any effect on renal function. We explored if there were changes in commonly available markers of renal function during fenofibrate treatment in the FIELD Helsinki cohort excluding statin users.

Research Design And Methods: One hundred and seventy subjects with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to micronized fenofibrate (200 mg/day) or placebo for 5 years.

ApoCIII-enriched LDL in type 2 diabetes displays altered lipid composition, increased susceptibility for sphingomyelinase, and increased binding to biglycan.

Objective: Apolipoprotein CIII (apoCIII) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but the molecular mechanisms involved are poorly understood. We investigated potential proatherogenic properties of apoCIII-containing LDL from hypertriglyceridemic patients with type 2 diabetes.

Research Design And Methods: LDL was isolated from control subjects, subjects with type 2 diabetes, and apoB transgenic mice.

Long-term effects of fenofibrate on carotid intima-media thickness and augmentation index in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Objectives: The aim of this substudy was to ascertain whether long-term treatment with fenofibrate reduces surrogate measures of atherosclerosis, biomarkers of inflammation, and endothelial activation in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Background: Some fibrates may decrease cardiovascular events, improve endothelial function, and reduce levels of acute-phase proteins. In the FIELD (Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes) study, fenofibrate failed to decrease the primary end point of coronary events in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Cognitive approach to assessing pragmatic language comprehension in children with specific language impairment.

Background: Pragmatic language impairment in children with specific language impairment has proved difficult to assess, and the nature of their abilities to comprehend pragmatic meaning has not been fully investigated.

Aims: To develop both a cognitive approach to pragmatic language assessment based on Relevance Theory and an assessment tool for identifying a group of children with pragmatic language impairment from within an specific language impairment group.

Methods & Procedures: The authors focused on Relevance Theory's view of the role of context in pragmatic language comprehension using questions of increasing pragmatic complexity in different verbal contexts (scenarios with and without pictures and a story with supporting pictures).

Answering questions and explaining answers: a study of Finnish-speaking children.

This research explores, within the framework of Relevance Theory, how children's ability to answer questions and explain their answers develops between the ages of 3 and 9 years. Two hundred and ten normally developing Finnish-speaking children participated in this study. The children were asked questions requiring processing of inferential meanings and routines, and were asked to explain their correct answers to elicit understanding about their awareness of how they had derived the answers from the context.

Answering contextually demanding questions: pragmatic errors produced by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism.

Unlabelled: This study examined irrelevant/incorrect answers produced by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism (7-9-year-olds and 10-12-year-olds) and normally developing children (7-9-year-olds). The errors produced were divided into three types: in Type 1, the child answered the original question incorrectly, in Type 2, the child gave a correct answer, but when asked a follow-up question, he/she explained the answer incorrectly, and in Type 3, the child first gave a correct answer or explanation, but continued answering, which ultimately led to an irrelevant answer. Analyses of Type 1 and 2 errors indicated that all the children tried to utilize contextual information, albeit incorrectly.

Use of context in pragmatic language comprehension by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism.

Utilizing relevance theory, this study investigated the ability of children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA) to use context when answering questions and when giving explanations for their correct answers. Three groups participated in this study: younger AS/HFA group (age 7-9, n=16), older AS/HFA group (age 10-12, n=23) and a normally functioning control group (age 7-9, n=23). The results indicated that the younger AS/HFA group did less well when answering contextually demanding questions compared to the control group, and the performance of the older AS/HFA group fell in between the younger AS/HFA group and the control group.

Decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) particle size, prebeta-, and large HDL subspecies concentration in Finnish low-HDL families: relationship with intima-media thickness.

Objective: High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol correlates inversely with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). The precise antiatherogenic mechanisms of HDL subspecies are not thoroughly elucidated. We studied the relationship between carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and HDL subspecies distribution in Finnish families with low HDL cholesterol and premature CHD.

Alterations of lipids and apolipoprotein CIII in very low density lipoprotein subspecies in type 2 diabetes.

Aims/hypothesis: Very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) particles are heterogeneous, comprising two main subspecies, VLDL 1 (Sf 60-400) and VLDL 2 (Sf 20-60). The aim of the study was to examine the distribution and composition of VLDL subspecies in type 2 diabetes.

Subjects, Materials And Methods: We studied the composition and concentration of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRLs) in 217 type 2 diabetic patients and 93 control subjects between 50 and 75 years of age.

Use of context in question answering by 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children.

This study investigates, within the theory of relevance of Sperber & Wilson (1995), how3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (n = 45) use context when answering questions. The children were required to answer questions that placed differing contextual and processing demands on them, as predicted by the theory. The results indicate that an increasing ability to use complex contextual information was related to age and was reflected in the children's ability to answer questions appropriately.

Normal and language-impaired children's use of reference: syntactic versus pragmatic processing.

The present study investigates children's syntactic and pragmatic processing when specifying referents presented in short video clips. Within Relevance theory, the assumption of 'optimal relevance' implies that utterances are intended to involve the least processing effort on the part of the listener. In the present context, lexically specified NPs are assumed to be more in line with optimal relevance than pronouns.

Insulin resistance and adiposity correlate with acute-phase reaction and soluble cell adhesion molecules in type 2 diabetes.

Objective: To investigate the relationship of inflammation and endothelial activation with insulin resistance and adiposity in type 2 diabetes.

Methods And Results: Hundred and thirty-four (45 female) type 2 diabetic subjects aged 50-75 in the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes Study in Helsinki were examined before fenofibrate intervention. Fasting levels of circulating intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) (vascular cell adhesion molecule), ultra-sensitive C-reactive protein (CRP), human serum amyloid A (hSAA), interleukin-6 (IL-6), macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF), secretory phospholipase A(2) IIA (PLA(2)), total, HDL and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, P-glucose, HbA1c, and serum free insulin were determined.

Reduced IGFBP-1 is associated with thickening of the carotid wall in type 2 diabetes.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to assess the role of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system and lipids in predicting the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in type 2 diabetes.

Research Design And Methods: A total of 239 type 2 diabetic participants in the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD) Study (76 women) aged 50-75 years were examined before fenofibrate intervention. Patients underwent carotid ultrasonography for determination of IMT.

High dose intravenous methylprednisolone pulse therapy versus oral prednisone for thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy.

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of intravenous (i.v.) methylprednisolone pulse therapy and oral prednisone when used as the initial treatment of patients with mild or moderate thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy.