Examining indicators of psychosocial risk and resilience in parents of autistic children.

Background: Parents of autistic children experience increased levels of caregiver strain and adverse mental health outcomes, even in comparison to parents of children with other neurodevelopmental disabilities. Previous studies have largely attributed these increased levels of mental health concerns to their child behavioral concerns and autism symptomatology, but less attention has been given to other potential child factors, such as child adaptive functioning. Additionally, little is known about potential protective factors, such as parents' emotion regulation (ER) abilities, that may ameliorate the experience of caregiver strain, anxiety, and depression.

Remote PEERS for preschoolers: A pilot parent-mediated social skills intervention for young children with social challenges over telehealth.

Introduction: Social differences characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities are evident in early childhood and are associated with later difficulties. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of evidence-based interventions explicitly targeting social skills development for young children, few actively integrate parents and caregivers, and even fewer have remote models. The importance of providing accessible, tailored services for families in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompted the creation of a parent-mediated telehealth version of Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) for Preschoolers (P4P), a pre-existing, evidence-based social skills intervention for children 4-6 years focused on making and keeping friends.

PEERS® for Preschoolers preliminary outcomes and predictors of treatment response.

PEERS® for Preschoolers (P4P) is a social skills group program for young autistic children and their caregivers, which provides everyday tools for interacting and communicating with others. Twenty-two caregiver-child dyads participated and completed pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up measures (4-16 weeks after). Using single-subject analyses to examine social skills, 60% demonstrated post-treatment improvement, and 53.

A pilot study of PEERS® for Careers: A comprehensive employment-focused social skills intervention for autistic young adults in the United States.

Background: Autistic young adults are at elevated risk for poor employment/internship outcomes, despite having many strengths relevant to the workplace. Currently, very few employment interventions for this population comprehensively promote skills development and success across the various stages of employment.

Aims: To address this gap, the current study aimed to test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a novel college to career intervention program, PEERS® for Careers.

Examining Feasibility and Outcomes of the PEERS® for Preschoolers Program.

Social impairments characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are evident in early childhood and often worsen. There is a paucity of evidence-based interventions explicitly targeting social skill development for young children with ASD and few actively integrate caregivers. The PEERS® program, an evidence-based caregiver-assisted social skills program, was extended for young children with ASD (i.

An Initial Pilot Study Examining Child Social Skills, Caregiver Styles, and Family Functioning in the PEERS® for Preschoolers Program for Young Autistic Children and their Caregivers.

Background: Social impairments characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are evident in early childhood and worsen as the child matures. Though many interventions for young children exist, few specifically target social skills and involve caregivers.

Aims: This pilot study examined PEERS® for Preschoolers, focusing on temporal change in child social skills, caregiver style, and family functioning in the context of a caregiver-assisted social skills intervention.

Development of an interactive tool of early social responsiveness to track autism risk in infants and toddlers.

Aim: To evaluate the psychometric properties of a 4-minute assessment designed to identify early autism spectrum disorder (ASD) status through evaluation of early social responsiveness (ESR).

Method: This retrospective, preliminary study included children between 13 and 24 months (78 males, 79 females mean age 19.4mo, SD 3.

Emotion regulation, emotionality, and expression of emotions: A link between social skills, behavior, and emotion problems in children with ASD and their peers.

This study aimed to investigate differences between emotion regulation (ER), emotionality, and expression of emotions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their typically developing (TD) peers; and to examine the potential links between these areas of development with social skills in both groups, as well as with behavioral, emotional, and social problems in ASD. Forty-four children (40 males and 4 females, ages 3 to 7 years) with ASD (n = 22) and their TD peers (n = 22) were included in this study. Mothers reported about their children's ASD symptoms, social, emotional, and behavioral functioning.

A Meta-analytic Review of the Five Minute Speech Sample as a Measure of Family Emotional Climate for Youth: Relations with Internalizing and Externalizing Symptomatology.

The Five Minute Speech Sample's (FMSS) measure of parental expressed emotion (EE), defined as criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), has been increasingly used to measure family emotional climate in relation to youth psychopathological development. As CRIT and EOI were defined based on adults, a meta-analysis and systematic review was conducted to analyze the presence and strength of an effect among maternal CRIT and EOI with youth internalizing and externalizing problems. A random effects model was used to analyze the 42 studies on families of youth (aged 1.

Teaching emotion regulation to children with autism spectrum disorder: Outcomes of the Stress and Anger Management Program (STAMP).

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with emotion regulation (ER), which is developmentally preceded by lability/negative affect (L/N), and their parents face unique challenges to parenting and providing assistance. The Stress and Anger Management Program (STAMP) is a cognitive-behavioral treatment designed to address ER deficits in young children with ASD through child skill-building and parent training. The current study evaluated child L/N, ER, and parental confidence outcomes in 4- to 7-year-old children with ASD ( = 23; 19 boys) and their parents randomly assigned to a treatment ( = 12) or a waitlist control group ( = 11).

Maternal Affect During a Challenging Mother-Child Interaction: The Effects of Broad Autism Phenotype and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Reactivity in Mothers of Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is proposed to index cognitive and behavioral inflexibility. Broad autism phenotype (BAP) traits are prevalent in family members of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study investigated whether RSA and BAP traits in mothers of typically developing (TD) children and mothers of children with ASD influence maternal affect.

How Do Graduate Teaching Assistants Perceive and Understand Their Autistic College Students?

Background: As autistic college students increase in number, it is important to identify how to best support them. Beyond the increased academic demands of higher education, many autistic young adults struggle with social interactions, time management, emotion regulation, and routine changes. Having an accurate understanding of Graduate Teaching Assistants' (GTAs') knowledge of neurodiverse learners could inform improvements to GTA training programs.

All in the Family: A Systematic Review of the Effect of Caregiver-Administered Autism Spectrum Disorder Interventions on Family Functioning and Relationships.

A number of intervention models aimed at addressing Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)-related behaviors require caregivers to perform intensive and oftentimes extended protocols (Bearss et al. in Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 18(2):170-182, 2015). Though a number of research findings describe how characteristics of the child with ASD affect the mental health and stress experienced by caregivers and family members (Davis and Carter in J Autism Dev Disord 38(7):1278-1291, 2008; Tomanik et al.

A Machine Learning Strategy for Autism Screening in Toddlers.

Objective: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) screening can improve prognosis via early diagnosis and intervention, but lack of time and training can deter pediatric screening. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised (M-CHAT-R) is a widely used screener but requires follow-up questions and error-prone human scoring and interpretation. We consider an automated machine learning (ML) method for overcoming barriers to ASD screening, specifically using the feedforward neural network (fNN).

Marching to the beat of your own drum?: A proof-of-concept study assessing physiological linkage in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulty in dynamically adjusting behavior to interact effectively with others, or social reciprocity. Synchronization of physiological responses between interacting partners, or physiological linkage (PL), is thought to provide a foundation for social reciprocity. In previous work we developed a new technique to measure PL using dynamic linear time series modeling to assess cardiac interbeat interval (IBI) linkage in typically developing same-sex unacquainted dyads (Scarpa et al.

Gender differences in restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests in youth with autism.

Previous work has found gender differences in restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests (RRBI) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to girls, affected boys have increased stereotyped and restricted behaviors; however much less is known about gender differences in other areas of RRBI. This study aims to identify whether specific RRBI (i.

The Association of the Broader Autism Phenotype with Emotion-Related Behaviors in Mothers of Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Traits.

Broader autism phenotype (BAP) characteristics (pragmatic language deficits, aloofness, and rigidity) are prevalent in families of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and may influence emotion-related behaviors. The current study analyzed associations among BAP characteristics with emotion-related behaviors in mothers of children with and without ASD. Twenty-seven mothers completed BAP and emotion regulation (ER) questionnaires.

Child Autism Spectrum Disorder Traits and Parenting Stress: The Utility of Using a Physiological Measure of Parental Stress.

Caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) report greater stress due to unique parenting demands (e.g.; Estes et al.

Does the Presence of Anxiety and ADHD Symptoms Add to Social Impairment in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience internalizing and externalizing problems at higher rates than typically developing children, which could worsen social impairment. The present study compared impairment scores (social responsiveness scale, 2nd edition; SRS-2 scores) in 57 children (3-17 years, 82.5% male) with ASD, either with or without heightened levels of anxiety or ADHD symptoms, all per parent report.

Brief Report: Insistence on Sameness, Anxiety, and Social Motivation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

While the function of restricted repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is unclear, RRBs may function as anxiety reduction strategies (Joosten et al. J Autism Dev Disord 39(3):521-531, 2009. Moreover, anxiety in ASD is associated with low social motivation (Swain et al.

Psychosocial treatments for individuals with autism spectrum disorder across the lifespan: new developments and underlying mechanisms.

Researchers have studied many interventions to address the core impairment in social interactions in autism spectrum disorder. We reviewed the social skills intervention literature over the past two years (2012-2014). Social skills intervention studies have increased by 35% over our previous review of 2010-2012.