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Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Amygdala, autism and clinical impairment: Whe... - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...m-and-clinical-impairment.html

amygdala autism high functioning autism Asperger's Disorder asperger

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • The amygala serves a critical function in emotion recognition and processing, and thus it has been implicated in the neurophysiology of autism. For example, individuals with autism have been found to display atypical amygdala growth processes from childhood into adolescence (see for example Nacewiz et al., 2006. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63,12).
  • The Amygdale's bilateral biochemical functioning was obtained via magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Four metabolites were measured: N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), creatine/Phosphocreatine (Cre), choline (Cho), and myoinositol (ml).
  • The authors did not find any differences in the concentrations of any of the metabolites when comparing the HFA and the control groups
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  • However, among the individuals with HFA, NAA was significantly associated with communication impairments, as measured by the ADI. In addition, Cre and NAA were associated with restrictive interests, and Cre alone was associated with social difficulties. The results therefore, indicate that those with the lowest concentrations of these metabolites tended to have more severe clinical symptoms as reported by the ADI.
  • The results of this study provide support for the need to conduct examinations that go beyond simple group comparisons.
  • key metabolites, while observed at normative levels, play a key role in the clinical presentation of the disorder.
  • presence of normative functioning in a particular domain or brain process (when compared to typical peers) does not necessarily indicate that such domain is not implicated in the phenomenology of the condition.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Mar 09
     
    Amygdala, autism and clinical impairment: When group comparisons are not enough. The results of this study provide support for the need to conduct examinations that go beyond simple group comparisons. In this case, the authors found no differences in any of the metabolites between the two groups, which could easily lead one to conclude that such metabolites may not play a role in autism. Yet, the results were strong in indicating that key metabolites, while observed at normative levels, play a key role in the clinical presentation of the disorder.
Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Language and Autism: Do kids with autism make... - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...and-autism-grammaticality.html

autism

shared by Tero Toivanen on 12 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • The ASD performed worse than the typically developing group across the entire grammaticality judgment task. However, the authors noted that the groups did NOT differ when the sentences were short or medium length. That is, the apparent relative weaker performance among the ASD group was mostly during long sentences. In addition, these group differences were more pronounced when the error was located at the end of long sentences. This indicates that the group differences may be due to difficulty in working memory and attention among the autism group.
  • However, it is unlikely that these findings are only attributable to working memory problems. Specifically, the ASD groups showed impaired performance only to some type grammatical errors but not others. That is, the ASD group had difficulty identifying omissions and substitution errors, but did not show difficulty identifying order or insertion errors. This suggests that attention and working memory difficulties interact with some unique deficits in grammaticality judgment.
  • Tero Toivanen on 12 Mar 09
     
    Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Language and Autism: Do kids with autism make grammatical errors when sentences are long?
Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Autism, neurofeedback , and the processing of... - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...eedback-and-processing-of.html

autism neurofeedback novel distracters

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • Children with autism show increased reaction time and unique brain wave patters during tasks that include novel distracters.
  • Children with autism show increased reaction time and unique brain wave patters during tasks that include novel distracters.
  • The participants completed an Odd-Ball task. In this task, the participants are asked to press a key when they see the target letter ( "X" ) on a computer screen. This target letter is presented 25% of the trials. For 50% of the trials a common distracter (the letter "O") is presented instead. For the remaining 25%, a set of novel distracters are presented (different symbols). The researchers recorded the reaction time, accuracy, and brain electrical functioning during the task.
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  • The results showed that participants with autism were slower to press on the key when the target X was presented than typically developing peers. However, the groups did not differ in accuracy of responding.
  • That is, both groups were equally accurate in responding to the X target, but the group with autism showed a slower patter of responses. The group with autism also showed a different pattern of brain activation when confronted with the novel distracters. Their differences were observed in both hemispheres, but were stronger in the right frontal regions. The pattern of responses observed (longer latencies and higher amplitudes) suggest greater effort when processing novel stimuli. This finding is intriguing because the brain response patterns to the other stimuli (target X and the common distracter O) were identical between the groups. These results suggest that the group with autism had difficulty processing and disengaging from novel distracting stimuli.
  • In neurofeedback, the person receives real-time feedback on their brain functioning and is taught how to progressively modify their responses. However, the debate regarding the effectiveness of neurofeedback is ongoing as the research is limited and highly contradictory.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 Mar 09
     
    Children with autism show increased reaction time and unique brain wave patters during tasks that include novel distracters.
Tero Toivanen

Early intervention for toddlers with autism highly effective, study finds - 1 views

www.physorg.com/news178781035.html

autism toddlers study IQ language ability social interaction

shared by Tero Toivanen on 17 Dec 09 - Cached
  • The study, published online today in the journal Pediatrics, examined an intervention called the Early Start Denver Model, which combines applied behavioral analysis (ABA) teaching methods with developmental 'relationship-based' approaches.
  • The five-year study took place at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and was led by Dawson, then a professor of psychology and director of the university's Autism Center, in partnership with Rogers. It involved therapy for 48 diverse, 18- to 30-month-old children with autism and no other health problems.
  • At the conclusion of the study, the IQs of the children in the intervention group had improved by an average of approximately 18 points, compared to a little more than four points in the comparison group. The intervention group also had a nearly 18-point improvement in receptive language (listening and understanding) compared to approximately 10 points in the comparison group. Seven of the children in the intervention group had enough improvement in overall skills to warrant a change in diagnosis from autism to the milder condition known as 'pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified,' or PDD-NOS. Only one child in the community-based intervention group had an improved diagnosis.
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  • In this study, the intervention was provided in a toddler's natural environment (their home) and delivered by trained therapists and parents who received instruction and training as part of the model.
  • Parents are taught strategies for capturing their children's attention and promoting communication. By using these strategies throughout the day, the children were offered many opportunities to learn to interact with others.
  • Tero Toivanen on 17 Dec 09
     
    A novel early intervention program for very young children with autism - some as young as 18 months - is effective for improving IQ, language ability, and social interaction, a comprehensive new study has found.
Tero Toivanen

Sensory processing in autism - 0 views

aut.sagepub.com/...215

autism sensory processing Sensory Profile

shared by Tero Toivanen on 24 May 09 - Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 24 May 09
     
    Furthermore, analysis of the patterns of sensory processing impairments revealed striking within-group variability in the ASD group, suggesting that individuals with ASD could experience very different, yet similarly severe, sensory processing abnormalities. These results suggest that unusual sensory processing in ASD extends across the lifespan and have implications regarding both the treatment and the diagnosis of ASD in adulthood.
Tero Toivanen

Autism finding could lead to simple urine test for the condition - 0 views

www.physorg.com/news194764448.html

autism urine test research bacteria guts gut bacteria gastrointestinal

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Jun 10 - Cached
  • The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and the University of South Australia, suggest that their findings could ultimately lead to a simple urine test to determine whether or not a young child has autism.
  • People with autism are also known to suffer from gastrointestinal disorders and they have a different makeup of bacteria in their guts from non-autistic people.
  • Today's research shows that it is possible to distinguish between autistic and non-autistic children by looking at the by-products of gut bacteria and the body's metabolic processes in the children's urine. The exact biological significance of gastrointestinal disorders in the development of autism is unknown.
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  • The distinctive urinary metabolic fingerprint for autism identified in today's study could form the basis of a non-invasive test that might help diagnose autism earlier. This would enable autistic children to receive assistance, such as advanced behavioural therapy, earlier in their development than is currently possible.
  • The researchers suggest that their new understanding of the makeup of bacteria in autistic children's guts could also help scientists to develop treatments to tackle autistic people's gastrointestinal problems.
  • Professor Jeremy Nicholson, the corresponding author of the study, who is the Head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London, said: "Autism is a condition that affects a person's social skills, so at first it might seem strange that there's a relationship between autism and what's happening in someone's gut. However, your metabolism and the makeup of your gut bacteria reflect all sorts of things, including your lifestyle and your genes. Autism affects many different parts of a person's system and our study shows that you can see how it disrupts their system by looking at their metabolism and their gut bacteria.
  • We hope our findings might be the first step towards creating a simple urine test to diagnose autism at a really young age
  • A urine test might enable professionals to quickly identify children with autism and help them early on," he added.
  • The researchers reached their conclusions by using H NMR Spectroscopy to analyse the urine of three groups of children aged between 3 and 9: 39 children who had previously been diagnosed with autism, 28 non-autistic siblings of children with autism, and 34 children who did not have autism who did not have an autistic sibling. They found that each of the three groups had a distinct chemical fingerprint. Non-autistic children with autistic siblings had a different chemical fingerprint than those without any autistic siblings, and autistic children had a different chemical fingerprint than the other two groups.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Jun 10
     
    This is interesting finding. Hope it will give results!
Tero Toivanen

Autism Therapy: pivotal response training | Healing Thresholds - 0 views

autism.healingthresholds.com/...pivotal-response-training

autism therapy Pivotal Response Training PRT ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis

shared by Tero Toivanen on 29 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Future research may allow therapists to know in advance which type of applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) is most likely to work for any given child with autism.
  • This study of six children was designed to see if it is possible to predict which type of ABA therapy will work for which child with autism.
  • The authors were able to predict which children would respond to pivotal response training, but not which ones would respond to discrete trial training. The authors note that all children were first exposed to pivotal response training and then to discrete trial training and this may have influenced the results. Children who liked toys were more likely to respond to pivotal response training than children who did not like toys.
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  • This study looked at whether or not a type of applied behavior analysis (pivotal response training) could be used to teach play skills to children with autism.
  • . Both children in the study improved their social skills during recess time.
  • Tero Toivanen on 29 Dec 09
     
    Type of training in which certain behaviors are assumed to be crucial for other behaviors. These pivotal behaviors are then targeted so that the behaviors that depend upon them can change as well.
Graeme Wadlow

CiteULike: Group: Inclusion - library 88 articles - 0 views

www.citeulike.org/...title,,

RPC CiteULike inclusion

shared by Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12
     
    Sorted alphabetically
Graeme Wadlow

CiteULike: Group: Special Education - library 225 articles - 0 views

www.citeulike.org/...year,,

RPC sped CiteULike inclusion Special Education

shared by Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12 - Cached
  • Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12
     
    Sorted by year of publication
Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Eyes aversion in autism may affect face recog... - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...in-autism-may-affect-face.html

autism eyes aversion face recognition

shared by Tero Toivanen on 20 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • A brief review of Annaz, D., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Johnson, M., & Thomas, M. (2009). A cross-syndrome study of the development of holistic face recognition in children with autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102 (4), 456-486 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2008.11.005
  • 33 kids with autism
  • 15 children with Williams syndrome
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 15 children with down’s syndrome
  • 25 typically developing children
  • The authors found that all three diagnostic groups showed anomalies in the development of face recognition when compared to typically developing kids.
  • The children with low (but not high) functioning autism show a disadvantage for identifying eyes but an advantage for identifying mouths. In addition, they were better at identifying eyes and noses when the these were upside down than when they were upside up. This is the opposite of what is expected in typically developing children.
  • The authors discussed how this may be due to an aversion to looking directly at eyes, especially in upright faces. Therefore, the observed deficiencies in face recognition among the low functioning autism group may not be due to problems in the development of whole face recognition processes per se, but instead this weakness may be due to a natural aversion to stare at the eyes area of the face.
  • Tero Toivanen on 20 Mar 09
     
    Eyes aversion in autism may affect face recognition
Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Sensory sensitivity as early sign of autism: ... - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...sitivity-as-early-sign-of.html

autism sensory sensivity

shared by Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • When compared to children with non-ASD developmental delays, children with autism had significantly more tactile sensitivity, auditory anomalies (low response), and taste/smell sensitivity.
  • in this study the authors wanted to determine whether sensory abnormalities would differentiate between children with ASD and children with other developmental conditions.
  • When compared to the children with non-ASD developmental delays, the children with autism had significantly more tactile sensitivity, auditory anomalies (low response), and taste/smell sensitivity. The authors did not find differences between the two groups in visual or auditory over-sensitivity.
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  • results provide indirect support for the common clinical practice of considering signs of sensory sensitivities as one factor when determining whether a child has an ASD, a developmental delay, or a language delay.
  • early sensory sensitivity should be one of the factors examined by pediatricians during healthy baby checkups.
  • results do not tell us whether the levels of sensory anomalies observed in the non-ASD group are higher than what is expected among typically developing children.
  • Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 09
     
    When compared to children with non-ASD developmental delays, children with autism had significantly more tactile sensitivity, auditory anomalies (low response), and taste/smell sensitivity.
J B

Autism Training Solutions | Advanced online autism training for schools and service pro... - 0 views

www.autismtrainingsolutions.com

autism professional development ASD:trainings

shared by J B on 02 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • J B on 02 Apr 11
     
    In April, teachers & support staff train free! Use group code: 3yamA7uhe
Graeme Wadlow

Spoken language and arm gestures are controlled by the same motor control system - 0 views

www.tandfonline.com/...17470210701625683

RP1 cmcn Taylor & Francis Group gestures language motor control systems

shared by Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Graeme Wadlow on 04 Jan 12
     
    Taylor & Francis Online :: Spoken language and arm gestures are controlled by the same motor control system - The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology - Volume 61, Issue 6
Tero Toivanen

Autism Research Blog: Translating Autism: Vision problems in autism: Reduced convergence? - 0 views

www.translatingautism.com/...roblems-in-autism-reduced.html

autism vision problems reduced convergence

shared by Tero Toivanen on 06 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • The authors found that 11% of the typically developing children and 31% of the ASD had a documented visual impairment (myopia, astigmatism, etc). This difference was statistically significant. That is, children with ASD were significantly more likely than typically developing children to have these conditions. Children with autism also displayed significantly poorer visual acuity (but within normal limits), and lower convergence. Convergence refers to the process by which the eyes move towards each other to maintain focus on approaching or close-range objects.
  • The findings of reduced visual acuity in children with autism when compared to typically developing children contradict previous studies that have shown enhanced visual acuity in autism. This brings us to a major limitation of this study that was correctly noted by the authors.
  • Limited convergence therefore would be associated with more limited depth perception. I find this intriguing because the neuropsychological profile of children with high functioning autism is often very similar to what is observed in kids with non-verbal learning disabilities (including relative weaknesses in motor-visual functioning). In addition, many parents with children with ASD report that their kids have trouble with sports and other physical activities. I thus wonder how much the reduced convergence observed in ASD may affect the motor-visual functioning in autism.
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  • Clinically, I was also intrigued by the high rates of vision problems found among the ASD group. Although, as I mentioned, this may be due to a self-selection of the parents who agreed to participate, this is consistent with data suggesting that children with developmental disorders are more likely to have visual problems than typically developing children
  • Tero Toivanen on 06 Mar 09
     
    Analysis of visual functioning in children with autism suggests impairment in visual convergence. A brief review of: Elizabeth Milne, Helen Griffiths, David Buckley, Alison Scope (2009). Vision in Children and Adolescents with Autistic Spectrum Disorder: Evidence for Reduced Convergence Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders DOI: 10.1007/s10803-009-0705-8
Tero Toivanen

Research adds to evidence that autism is a brain 'connectivity' disorder - 1 views

www.physorg.com/news182327031.html

autism research autism spectrum autism spectrum disorders brain miswiring

shared by Tero Toivanen on 10 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Now, researchers led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children's Department of Neurology, provide evidence that mutations in one of the TSC's causative genes, known as TSC2, prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from finding their proper destinations in the developing brain.
  • Sahin and colleagues showed that when mouse neurons were deficient in TSC2, their axons failed to land in the right places.
  • Further investigation showed that the axons' tips, known as "growth cones," did not respond to navigation cues from a group of molecules called ephrins.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Although the study looked only at retinal connections to the brain, the researchers believe their findings may have general relevance for the organization of the developing brain. Scientists speculate that in autism, wiring may be abnormal in the areas of the brain involved in social cognition.
  • there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain
  • Tero Toivanen on 10 Jan 10
     
    Research evidence suggesting that autism spectrum disorders, which affect 25 to 50 percent of TSC patients, result from a miswiring of connections in the developing brain, leading to improper information flow.
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