Background: Children with intellectual disability (ID), characterized by impairments in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, benefit from early identification and access to services. Previous U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProblem/condition: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Period Covered: 2016.
Description Of System: The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network is an active surveillance program that provides estimates of the prevalence of ASD among children aged 8 years whose parents or guardians live in 11 ADDM Network sites in the United States (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin).
Objective: Mothers of advanced maternal age (AMA) at childbirth (age ≥35 years) may have different perceptions of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk, independent of sociodemographic factors, that may affect ASD identification. We aimed to estimate associations between AMA and both age of a child's first evaluation noting developmental concerns and time from first evaluation to first ASD diagnosis.
Methods: We used data for 8-year-olds identified with ASD in the 2008 to 2012 Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network.
The Social Communication Questionnaire is one of the most commonly used screening tools for autism spectrum disorder. The Social Communication Questionnaire is a caregiver-reported questionnaire with 40 items based on questions from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised. This study collected Social Communication Questionnaire data from a community-based, multi-stage case identification design epidemiologic study in one socioeconomically disadvantaged county in Taiwan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUtilizing surveillance data from five sites participating in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, we investigated contributions of surveillance subject and census tract population sociodemographic characteristics on variation in autism spectrum disorder ascertainment and prevalence estimates from 2000 to 2008 using ordinal hierarchical models for 2489 tracts. Multivariable analyses showed a significant increase in ascertainment of autism spectrum disorder cases through both school and health sources, the optimal ascertainment scenario, for cases with college-educated mothers (adjusted odds ratio = 1.06, 95% confidence interval = 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLead, mercury, and arsenic are neurotoxicants with known effects on neurodevelopment. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder apparent by early childhood. Using data on 4486 children with ASD residing in 2489 census tracts in five sites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, we used multi-level negative binomial models to investigate if ambient lead, mercury, and arsenic concentrations, as measured by the US Environmental Protection Agency National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (EPA-NATA), were associated with ASD prevalence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrenatal and perinatal exposures to air pollutants have been shown to adversely affect birth outcomes in offspring and may contribute to prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For this ecologic study, we evaluated the association between ASD prevalence, at the census tract level, and proximity of tract centroids to the closest industrial facilities releasing arsenic, lead or mercury during the 1990s. We used 2000 to 2008 surveillance data from five sites of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network and 2000 census data to estimate prevalence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To examine associations between prenatal use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the odds of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other developmental delays (DDs).
Methods: A total of 966 mother-child pairs were evaluated (492 ASD, 154 DD, 320 typical development [TD]) from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study, a population-based case-control study. Standardized measures confirmed developmental status.
Serotonin, a neurotransmitter found throughout the brain and body, has long been of interest in autism. Repeated findings of elevated platelet serotonin levels in approximately one third of children with autism has led some to believe that dysfunctional serotonin signaling may be a causal mechanism for the disorder. Because serotonin is critical to fetal brain development, concerns have arisen regarding prenatal exposure to substances that manipulate serotonin levels, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPast research has shown that children with autism and their families have compromised quality of life (QOL) in several domains. This study examined QOL and parental concerns in children with autism during early childhood, childhood, and adolescence compared to children with Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) and to typical controls from a US national sample. Families with children diagnosed with autism reported more profound QOL effects than families of children with ADD/ADHD or unaffected controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to examine injury risk in children with autism, ADD/ADHD, learning disability, psychopathology, or other medical conditions. Children aged 3-5 years who participated in the National Survey of Children's Health were included. Six study groups were analyzed in this report: autism (n=82), ADD/ADHD (n=191), learning disability (n=307), psychopathology (n=210), other medical conditions (n=1802), and unaffected controls (n=13,398).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarlier studies found that recognition memory for object-place associations was impaired in patients with relatively selective hippocampal damage (Vargha-Khadem et al., Science 1997; 277:376-380), but was unaffected after selective hippocampal lesions in monkeys (Malkova and Mishkin, J Neurosci 2003; 23:1956-1965). A potentially important methodological difference between the two studies is that the patients were required to remember a set of 20 object-place associations for several minutes, whereas the monkeys had to remember only two such associations at a time, and only for a few seconds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF