Impact of autism in adolescents on parental quality of life.

Purpose: To study the impact of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) on parental quality of life (QoL) at adolescence using the parental-developmental disorders-quality of life scale (Par-DD-QoL).

Methods: One hundred and fifty-two mothers of adolescents with ASD completed Par-DD-QoL. This scale assesses the following dimensions: emotional, daily disturbance and global QoL.

Developmental trajectories of adaptive behaviors from early childhood to adolescence in a cohort of 152 children with autism spectrum disorders.

This study examines change in 152 children over an almost 10-year period (T1: 4.9 (± 1.3) years; T2: 8.

Outcome of young children with autism: does the amount of intervention influence developmental trajectories?

The study aims were to identify developmental trajectories of young children with autism and investigate their prognostic factors. The participants were 208 children, assessed first at the age of 5 years, followed longitudinally, and reassessed 3 years later. The children's clinical characteristics and the interventions received were recorded.

Severe asthma and adherence to peak flow monitoring: longitudinal assessment of psychological aspects.

Background: Adherence in severe asthma is a difficult health problem. Although psychosocial factors may be responsible for non-adherence, few longitudinal studies have investigated their link with adherence, with most studies having focused on pharmacology.

Methods: Sixty patients with severe asthma were recruited.

[Autism and pain - a literature review].

The purpose of the present article was to assess the available literature concerning pain and autism. First, authors summarized the published articles on pain reactivity in people with autism. Second, the hypotheses envisaged to explain the presence of expressive particularities in people with autism spectrum disorders were reviewed; these included endogenous opioid excess theory, sensorial abnormalities and sociocommunicative deficit.

Pain expression in children with an intellectual disability.

Background: Children with an intellectual disability (ID) are sometimes unable to verbalize and describe their painful experience; therefore family members and health carers can assess the intensity of the pain only from the behaviour exhibited by the children.

Aim And Method: The purpose of this descriptive and exploratory study was to examine the behavioural pain expression in 30 children with ID aged from 5 to 18 years in a surgical context. Children were matched with 30 typically developing children of the same chronological age and 30 typically developing children of the same developmental age.

Vocal and verbal expression of postoperative pain in preschoolers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the development and construction of vocal and verbal expression of postoperative pain in young children with limited linguistic abilities. The main objective was to highlight specific pain vocalizations, which may lead to easy and quick detection and assessment of postoperative pain relative to the age of the suffering child. Forty-seven children aged 1 to 6 years were observed during two periods of surgical hospitalization: a preoperative and a postoperative period.

Initial characteristics of psychological development and evolution of the young autistic child.

This longitudinal study assessed multidisciplinary data on 219 children with autistic spectrum disorders from the median age of 5 (Time 1) to 8 years old (Time 2). The evolution of psychological and adaptive data was subjected to cluster analysis. Four clinically meaningful clusters emerged.

Attentional flexibility and perseveration: developmental aspects in young children.

Whereas a growing interest in the development of attentional flexibility (AF) and in perseverative behavior, being one marker of this component, exists in neuropsychological studies and in the domain of developmental psychopathology (e.g., PKU, infantile schizophrenia, autism and Parkinson's disease) (Pennington & Ozonoff, 1996; Stahl & Pry, 2002), only a few studies have concerned themselves with this subject in normal children.

Relationship between age of recognition of first disturbances and severity in young children with autism.

Autism is now thought to be present right from birth. Although usually not officially diagnosed until after the child's second birthday, parents often report disturbances before then. The age of detection of disturbances varies and may be linked to differences in the severity of the autism and its associated retardation.

Joint attention and set-shifting in young children with autism.

Executive function deficits in autism have been consistently found in many studies, using a wide range of measures, but usually involving older children and adults and those of higher IQ. The interpretation of executive function deficits is difficult because the concept itself is poorly defined (inhibition of prepotent responses, set-shifting, action planning etc.).