Video Modeling Use in Work Occupations for People With Autism: A Systematic Review.

Importance: Occupational therapy practitioners should use evidence-based practices, such as video modeling, to address work occupations supporting people with autism spectrum disorder, including those with co-occurring intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Objective: To examine the evidence and relevance of video modeling supporting engagement in work occupations for people with autism and to translate these findings to occupational therapy practice.

Data Sources: Cochrane Collection Plus, CINAHL, PubMed, ERIC, ProQuest, and peer-reviewed occupational therapy literature from 2008 to 2018.

A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Low-Dose Sertraline in Young Children With Fragile X Syndrome.

Objective: Observational studies and anecdotal reports suggest that sertraline, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, may improve language development in young children with fragile X syndrome (FXS).

Methods: The authors evaluated the efficacy of 6 months of treatment with low-dose sertraline in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 52 children with FXS aged 2 to 6 years.

Results: Eighty-one subjects were screened for eligibility, and 57 were randomized to sertraline (27) or placebo (30).

Imitation in fragile X syndrome. Implications for autism.

To address the specific impairment of imitation in autism, the imitation abilities of 22 children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) with and without autism were compared. Based on previous research, we predicted that children with FXS and autism would have significantly more difficulty with non-meaningful imitation tasks. After controlling for full-scale IQ and age, the groups did not differ in their overall imitation accuracy scores, but analysis of error patterns revealed that children with FXS and autism made more groping errors and additional movements than the comparison group.

Gross motor development, movement abnormalities, and early identification of autism.

Gross motor development (supine, prone, rolling, sitting, crawling, walking) and movement abnormalities were examined in the home videos of infants later diagnosed with autism (regression and no regression subgroups), developmental delays (DD), or typical development. Group differences in maturity were found for walking, prone, and supine, with the DD and Autism-No Regression groups both showing later developing motor maturity than typical children. The only statistically significant differences in movement abnormalities were in the DD group; the two autism groups did not differ from the typical group in rates of movement abnormalities or lack of protective responses.