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The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of children's autism characteristics, sensory profiles and feeding difficulties on caregiver-reported impact at mealtimes.
Maternal immune activation and prenatal maternal stress are well-studied risk factors for psychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia. Animal studies have proposed the gut microbiome as a mechanism underlying this association and have found that risk factor-related gut microbiome alterations persist in the adult offspring.
There is a common mischaracterisation that autistic individuals have reduced or absent empathy. Measurement issues may have influenced existing findings on the relationships between autism and empathy, and the structure of the empathy construct in autism remains unclear.
Researchers do not know much about what autistic adults, parents and professionals think about support goals for young autistic children. People's views of support goals might also be influenced by their beliefs about early support more generally. This survey involved 87 autistic adults, 159 parents of autistic children and 80 clinical professionals living in New Zealand and Australia.
While theory supports bidirectional effects between caregiver sensitivity and language use, and infant language acquisition-both caregiver-to-infant and also infant-to-caregiver effects-empirical research has chiefly explored the former unidirectional path. In the context of infants showing early signs of autism, we investigated prospective bidirectional associations with 6-min free-play interaction samples collected for 103 caregivers and their infants (mean age 12-months; and followed up 6-months later).
Researchers from The Kids Research Institute Australia, working with the Autism CRC, have led the development of the National Guideline for the Assessment and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Australia which was launched today.
If there’s one thing modern researchers and health professionals now understand, it’s that for so many diseases and conditions affecting children and adolescents, early intervention is crucial.
Congratulations to Dr Gail Alvares and Dr Rachel Foong, who have been awarded funding from the Raine Medical Research Foundation.
Australia’s first draft national guideline for autism diagnosis has today been released for public consultation.
Professor Andrew Whitehouse awarded the most prestigious award in the country for young researchers – the 3M Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in Science.