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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.
There is now good evidence that behavioural signs of autism spectrum conditions (autism) emerge over the first two years of life. Identifying clear developmental differences early in life may facilitate earlier identification and intervention that can promote longer-term quality of life. Here we present a systematic review of studies investigating behavioural markers of later autism diagnosis or symptomology taken at 0-6 months.
Mother-infant interactions during the first year of life are crucial to healthy infant development. The infant-directed speech (IDS), and specifically pitch contours, used by mothers during interactions are associated with infant language and social development.
This study examined whether parent-reported atypical development in their child's first year was associated with age of diagnosis and age when parents first needed to consult a specialist about their child's development.
Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder may be at higher likelihood of experiencing poorer oral health and difficulties accessing dental health care. However, identifying which children on the autism spectrum may be more vulnerable to experiencing dental care difficulties is still unknown.
This population-based cohort study investigated dental procedures in the hospital setting in Western Australian children with or without intellectual disability (ID) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged up to 18 years.
Early parent-child interactions have a critical impact on the developmental outcomes of the child. It has been reported that infants with a family history of autism and their parents may engage in different patterns of behaviours during interaction compared to those without a family history of autism. This study investigated the association of parent-child interactions with child developmental outcomes of those with typical and elevated likelihood of autism.
With advances in perinatal care, we have achieved major reductions in mortality in premature and critically ill infants, but they still remain at increased risk of neurodevelopmental disability. In this context, recent advances in neuroimaging are perceived as an addition of significant value to current clinical developmental screening programs.
The aim of the present study was to compare scale and conditional reliability derived from item response theory analyses among the most commonly used, as well as several newly developed, observation, interview, and parent-report autism instruments.