Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input.

Purpose: Autistic individuals often face challenges perceiving and expressing emotions, potentially stemming from differences in speech prosody. Here we explore how autism diagnoses between groups, and measures of social competence within groups may be related to, first, children's speech characteristics (both prosodic features and amount of spontaneous speech), and second, to these two factors in mothers' speech to their children.

Methods: Autistic (n = 21) and non-autistic (n = 18) children, aged 7-12 years, participated in a Lego-building task with their mothers, while conversational speech was recorded.

Brief Report: Alexithymia Trait Severity, Not Autistic Trait Severity, Relates to Caregiver Reactions to Autistic Children's Negative Emotions.

Alexithymia impacts an individual's ability to recognize and understand emotions and frequently co-occurs with autism. This study investigated the relationship between children's alexithymia, autistic traits, and caregiver reactions to their child's negative emotions. Caregivers of 54 autistic and 51 non-autistic children between the ages of 7 and 12 years rated their child's alexithymia and autistic trait severity and their reactions to their child's negative emotions.

Systematic review of factors that may influence the outcomes and generalizability of parent-mediated interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Parent mediated interventions have the potential to positively influence the interactions and developmental outcomes of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, a range of factors relating to children, parents and caregivers, and study design may impact on outcomes and thus the generalizability of these interventions to the broader community. The objective of this review was to examine factors that may influence the feasibility, appropriateness, effectiveness, and generalizability of parent mediated interventions for children with ASD.

Child impairment and parenting self-efficacy in relation to mothers' views of ADHD treatments.

Objective: This study assessed the relations of child impairment and parenting self-efficacy with parental views of the acceptability and effectiveness of behavioral, medication, and combined treatments for child ADHD. Child impairment and parenting self-efficacy were also assessed in relation to the effectiveness views of specific behavioral treatment strategies.

Method: Ninety-five mothers of children with ADHD completed questionnaires assessing child impairment, parenting self-efficacy, perceptions of the overall acceptability and effectiveness of ADHD treatments, and views of the effectiveness of specific behavioral treatment strategies.