Provider perspectives and reach of an evidence-based intervention in community services for toddlers.

Expert recommendations for toddlers who are likely to develop autism include caregivers being actively involved in the services children receive. However, many services available in the community may not follow these recommendations. Evidence suggests that an intervention named Project ImPACT for Toddlers demonstrates positive parent and child outcomes for families in the community.

Brief Report: Sex/Gender Differences in Adolescents with Autism: Socialization Profiles and Response to Social Skills Intervention.

Females with autism have unique socialization profiles, but less is known about sex/gender differences in the context of socialization interventions. This study utilized a combination of behavioral and survey measures to examine sex/gender differences in 32 autistic adolescents (10 females, 22 males) before and after participation in the 20-week START socialization program. At intake, males self-reported superior social skills use while parents endorsed that females demonstrated superior social competencies.

Lyme Disease Frontiers: Reconciling Biology and Clinical Conundrums.

Lyme disease is a complex tick-borne zoonosis that poses an escalating public health threat in several parts of the world, despite sophisticated healthcare infrastructure and decades of effort to address the problem. Concepts like the true burden of the illness, from incidence rates to longstanding consequences of infection, and optimal case management, also remain shrouded in controversy. At the heart of this multidisciplinary issue are the causative spirochetal pathogens belonging to the Lyme complex.

A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial of an Enhanced Pivotal Response Treatment Approach for Young Children with Autism: The PRISM Model.

The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder are conceptualized to alter the quality of parent-children interactions, exposure to social learning exchanges, and ultimately the course of child development. There is evidence that modifying the procedures of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) to explicitly target social motivation enhances child engagement and parent-child synchrony in moment-by-moment exchanges. However, it is unclear if these within session improvements ultimately yield favorable developmental outcomes over time.

Social conversation skill improvements associated with the Social Tools And Rules for Teens program for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: Results of a randomized controlled trial.

There has been a significant increase in the development of interventions to improve the social competence and success of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. The current investigation used direct observation and coding of social conversations as a rigorous method to further assess the efficacy of the Social Tools And Rules for Teens socialization intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in the context of a randomized controlled trial. A total of 35 adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder were randomized to either a treatment or waitlist control group.

Effect of Urea on G-Quadruplex Stability.

G-quadruplexes represent a class of noncanonical nucleic acid structures implicated in transcriptional regulation, cellular function, and disease. An understanding of the forces involved in stabilization and destabilization of the G-quadruplex conformation relative to the duplex or single-stranded conformation is a key to elucidating the biological role of G-quadruplex-based genomic switches and the quest for therapeutic means for controlled induction or suppression of a G-quadruplex at selected genomic loci. Solute-solvent interactions provide a ubiquitous and, in many cases, the determining thermodynamic force in maintaining and modulating the stability of nucleic acids.

Social Tools And Rules for Teens (The START Program): Program Description and Preliminary Outcomes of an Experiential Socialization Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Experiential learning is an essential process in the development of core social competencies. Unfortunately, adolescents with autism spectrum disorders often do not possess the prerequisite skillset and motivation to sustain the level of social immersion needed to benefit from this learning process. These persisting social vulnerabilities can limit their long-term relational success and associated quality of life, creating a need for comprehensive social programming.

Visual Evoked Potentials as a Readout of Cortical Function in Infants With Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.

Tuberous sclerosis complex is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder that confers a high risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. Studies have demonstrated specific delays in visual reception skills that may predict the development of autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. Based on evidence for alterations in the retinogeniculate pathway in animal models of tuberous sclerosis complex, we asked whether children with tuberous sclerosis complex demonstrate alterations in early visual processing that may undermine the development of higher-level visual behaviors.

Early developmental trajectories associated with ASD in infants with tuberous sclerosis complex.

Objective: We performed a longitudinal cohort study of infants with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), with the overarching goal of defining early clinical, behavioral, and biological markers of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in this high-risk population.

Methods: Infants with TSC and typically developing controls were recruited as early as 3 months of age and followed longitudinally until 36 months of age. Data gathered at each time point included detailed seizure history, developmental testing using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, and social-communication assessments using the Autism Observation Scale for Infants.