Everyday executive function issues from the perspectives of autistic adolescents and their parents: Theoretical and empirical implications.

Autism researchers have a long-time interest in a set of skills called executive function. These skills include planning, inhibition, and switching between one activity and another. There was a theory that these skills explained the social and thinking difficulties autistic people might have.

Autistic adults' views on the design and processes within randomised controlled trials: The APRiCoT study.

Large randomised controlled trials are used to test healthcare treatments. Yet there are no large randomised controlled trials on effective treatments for common mental health issues affecting autistic adults. The purpose of this study was to learn what autistic adults think about randomised controlled trials in preparation for a randomised controlled trial testing a medication for anxiety.

Lockdown Experiences and Views on Future Research Participation of Autistic Adults in the UK During the First 6 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in large-scale public health restrictions and lockdowns across many countries. There is an increasing literature on the varied impact of such lockdowns in autistic adults. However, there is very little research on how the pandemic and related public health measures may impact the willingness of autistic people in engaging and taking part in research.

'The key to this is not so much the technology. It's the individual who is using the technology': Perspectives on telehealth delivery for autistic adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic meant that a lot of healthcare services had to move online, such as to video-calls, or to telephone. However, not many studies have looked at how autistic adults feel about this kind of service delivery. It is important to know this, as autistic people may have poorer health than non-autistic people, and they may also struggle to access services more than non-autistic people.

Improving Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Autistic Individuals: A Delphi Survey with Practitioners.

There is emerging evidence of the effectiveness of individual and group cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for autistic individuals, in particular to address anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. Many CBT studies have incorporated relatively stringent standards, with regards to participant inclusion/exclusion criteria, delivery of manualised approaches and assurance of therapist training and oversight. We know less about what happens in routine CBT practice and, importantly, how service provision can be improved for autistic individuals.

Comparing the Executive Function Ability of Autistic and Non-autistic Adolescents with a Manualised Battery of Neuropsychological Tasks.

Performance on a single executive function (EF) task (e.g., a card sorting task) is often taken to represent ability on the underlying subcomponent of EF (e.

Patterns of Continuity and Change in the Psychosocial Outcomes of Young Autistic People: a Mixed-Methods Study.

Long-term longitudinal studies have consistently demonstrated that the outcomes of autistic individuals are highly variable. Yet, these studies have typically focused on aspects of functioning deemed to be critical by non-autistic researchers, rather than autistic people themselves. Here, we uniquely examined the long-term psychosocial outcomes of a group of young autistic people (n = 27; M age = 17 years; 10 months; 2 female) followed from childhood using a combination of approaches, including (1) the standard, normative approach, which examined changes in diagnostic outcomes, autistic features and adaptive functioning over a 9-year period and (2) a qualitative approach, which involved semi-structured interviews to understand young people's own subjective experiences of their current functioning.

'I definitely feel more in control of my life': The perspectives of young autistic people and their parents on emerging adulthood.

Long-term outcomes studies often paint a discouraging picture of the lives lived by autistic adults. Yet, their outcomes are often measured against normative markers of traditional adult roles, which may not apply to autistic people making the transition to adulthood. Here, we investigated the transition experiences of a group of young autistic people who were followed from childhood.

Childhood Executive Function Predicts Later Autistic Features and Adaptive Behavior in Young Autistic People: a 12-Year Prospective Study.

Longitudinal studies of autistic people show that the behavioral features of autism generally endure into adulthood. Yet the prognostic indicators remain far from certain, especially for cognitively able individuals. Here, we test the predictive power of specific cognitive skills, namely theory of mind and executive function, measured in childhood, on young people's autistic features and adaptive behavior 12 years later.

GPs' confidence in caring for their patients on the autism spectrum: an online self-report study.

Background: In the UK, GPs play a key role in the identification and management of children, young people, and adults on the autism spectrum, but there is a paucity of research on GPs' perceptions of working with these patients.

Aim: To understand GPs' perceived self-efficacy in identifying and managing their patients on the autism spectrum, and the factors affecting this.

Design And Setting: An online self-report survey was developed for completion by GPs across the UK.

'The dots just don't join up': Understanding the support needs of families of children on the autism spectrum.

Much research has documented the elevated levels of stress experienced by families of autistic children. Yet remarkably little research has examined the types of support that these families perceive to be beneficial to their lives. This study, co-produced by researchers and school-based professionals, sought to establish these families' support needs from their own perspectives.

Drawing Firmer Conclusions: Autistic Children Show No Evidence of a Local Processing Bias in a Controlled Copying Task.

Drawing tasks are frequently used to test competing theories of visuospatial skills in autism. Yet, methodological differences between studies have led to inconsistent findings. To distinguish between accounts based on local bias or global deficit, we present a simple task that has previously revealed dissociable local/global impairments in neuropsychological patients.

The Relationship between Social and Motor Cognition in Primary School Age-Children.

There is increased interest in the relationship between motor skills and social skills in child development, with evidence that the mechanisms underlying these behaviors may be linked. We took a cognitive approach to this problem, and examined the relationship between four specific cognitive domains: theory of mind, motor skill, action understanding, and imitation. Neuroimaging and adult research suggest that action understanding and imitation are closely linked, but are somewhat independent of theory of mind and low-level motor control.

Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community.

Recent public discussions suggest that there is much disagreement about the way autism is and should be described. This study sought to elicit the views and preferences of UK autism community members - autistic people, parents and their broader support network - about the terms they use to describe autism. In all, 3470 UK residents responded to an online survey on their preferred ways of describing autism and their rationale for such preferences.