Speech Reception in Young Children with Autism Is Selectively Indexed by a Neural Oscillation Coupling Anomaly.

Communication difficulties are one of the core criteria in diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and are often characterized by speech reception difficulties, whose biological underpinnings are not yet identified. This deficit could denote atypical neuronal ensemble activity, as reflected by neural oscillations. Atypical cross-frequency oscillation coupling, in particular, could disrupt the joint tracking and prediction of dynamic acoustic stimuli, a dual process that is essential for speech comprehension. Whether such oscillatory anomalies already exist in very young children with ASD, and with what specificity they relate to individual language reception capacity is unknown. We collected neural activity data using electroencephalography (EEG) in 64 very young children with and without ASD (mean age 3; 17 females, 47 males) while they were exposed to naturalistic-continuous speech. EEG power of frequency bands typically associated with phrase-level chunking (δ, 1-3 Hz), phonemic encoding (low-γ, 25-35 Hz), and top-down control (ß, 12-20 Hz) were markedly reduced in ASD relative to typically developing (TD) children. Speech neural tracking by δ and θ (4-8 Hz) oscillations was also weaker in ASD compared with TD children. After controlling gaze-pattern differences, we found that the classical θ/γ coupling was replaced by an atypical ß/γ coupling in children with ASD. This anomaly was the single most specific predictor of individual speech reception difficulties in ASD children. These findings suggest that early interventions (e.g., neurostimulation) targeting the disruption of ß/γ coupling and the upregulation of θ/γ coupling could improve speech processing coordination in young children with ASD and help them engage in oral interactions.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Very young children already present marked alterations of neural oscillatory activity in response to natural speech at the time of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis. Hierarchical processing of phonemic-range and syllabic-range information (θ/γ coupling) is disrupted in ASD children. Abnormal bottom-up (low-γ) and top-down (low-ß) coordination specifically predicts speech reception deficits in very young ASD children, and no other cognitive deficit.

Application of Skeleton Data and Long Short-Term Memory in Action Recognition of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The recognition of stereotyped action is one of the core diagnostic criteria of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, it mainly relies on parent interviews and clinical observations, which lead to a long diagnosis cycle and prevents the ASD children from timely treatment. To speed up the recognition process of stereotyped actions, a method based on skeleton data and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is proposed in this paper. In the first stage of our method, the OpenPose algorithm is used to obtain the initial skeleton data from the video of ASD children. Furthermore, four denoising methods are proposed to eliminate the noise of the initial skeleton data. In the second stage, we track multiple ASD children in the same scene by matching distance between current skeletons and previous skeletons. In the last stage, the neural network based on LSTM is proposed to classify the ASD children's actions. The performed experiments show that our proposed method is effective for ASD children's action recognition. Compared to the previous traditional schemes, our scheme has higher accuracy and is almost non-invasive for ASD children.

Anthropometric Profile, Overweight/Obesity Prevalence, and Socioeconomic Impact in Moroccan Children Aged 6-12 Years Old with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

BACKGROUND: In addition to the inherent challenges of their condition, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are also susceptible to the global obesity epidemic. However, concerning the prevalence of obesity within the Moroccan ASD pediatric population, data remain scarce. METHODS: A total of 258 children (boys = 195) aged 6 to 12 years old (mean = 9.4 ± 1.4) diagnosed with ASD participated in this study. Besides the body mass and height, four significant anthropometric markers for assessing obesity were examined: body mass index (BMI), body surface area (BSA), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Each anthropometric marker was categorized into one of three cardiometabolic risk levels based on the Z-scores and their corresponding percentiles. The distribution was as follows: low risk (≤84th percentile), high risk (85th-94th percentile), and very high risk (≥95th percentile). Subsequently, a multiple regression analysis was employed to develop an algorithm that generates a composite risk score. This score incorporates all the anthropometric variables simultaneously, while also weighting their individual contributions to the cardiometabolic risk. RESULTS: Children with ASD exhibit an anthropometric profile that markedly increases their susceptibility to cardiometabolic issues. While roughly 11% of the general Moroccan child population is overweight or obese, this figure soars to nearly 60% among children with ASD when considering the central adiposity markers. Furthermore, children from middle-class socioeconomic backgrounds display a more than threefold greater risk of developing overweight or obesity compared to their counterparts from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. CONCLUSIONS: This study has, for the first time, provided an up-to-date overview of the cardiometabolic risk in Moroccan children with ASD using traditional anthropometric measurements. The primary risk factor is clearly linked to central (abdominal) adiposity, which is recognized as the most deleterious. This study highlights the need to include general and central obesity markers. This study underscores the importance of incorporating both general and central adiposity markers for a more comprehensive assessment, and it emphasizes the need for closer monitoring within this high-risk population.

Examining the efficacy of dance movement and music mixed treatment on social communication impairment in children with autism - Based on family parent-child situation.

Despite impairments in social communication in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), existing studies only examine the effects of either MT or DMT interventions. In the family setting, few studies have investigated interventions for social communication impairments in children with ASD. This study designed and tested a mixed intervention program of both MT and DMT through a 3-month intervention and training for children with ASD in the family setting including parent and child. A pre-test and post-test were conducted in the experimental and control groups, and the childhood autism rating scale (CARS) and autism treatment evaluation checklist (ATEC) scales were used to assess the severity of ASD symptoms and the effects of intervention. A t-test and analysis of variance were performed based on the experimental results. The results indicated that the experimental and control groups did not differ significantly on the CARS pre-test (t = 1.218, p > 0.05) and that there was no significant difference in the ATEC pre-test (t = 0.546, p > 0.05; F = 0.074, p > 0.05, partial η2 = 0.003). There was no significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores for the CARS in the control group (t = 0.635, p > 0.05), and there was no significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores for the ATEC in the control group (t = 0.027, p > 0.05; F = 5.251, p > 0.05, partial η2 = 0.313). There was a significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores on the CARS in the experimental group (t = 4.327, p > 0.05) and the pre- and post-test scores on the ATEC in the experimental group (t = 5.763, p > 0.01; F = 32.615, p > 0.01, partial η2 = 0.759), with the post-test scores being lower than the pre-test scores. This demonstrates that the mixed intervention of MT and DMT in the family parent-child setting can reduce autism and improve social communication impairment in children with ASD.

Social Support and Subjective Well-Being in Chinese Parents of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Mediating Role of Perceived Discrimination.

The present research was done to examine whether social support was related to subjective well-being on Chinese parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and how perceived discrimination affected this relationship. Two hundred four parents with ASD children were investigated by Inventory of Social Support Behavior, Perceived Discrimination Scale for Parents of Children With ASD, Subjective Well-being Scale. The results showed that perceived discrimination was negatively associated with social support and subjective well-being, and social support was positively related to subjective well-being. Furthermore, perceived discrimination played a partial mediating role between social support and subjective well-being. All the findings suggest that social support can directly influence subjective well-being of parents of ASD children and indirectly influence subjective well-being through perceived discrimination.

The Association between Parenting Stress, Positive Reappraisal Coping, and Quality of Life in Parents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Children: A Systematic Review.

Parents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children generally suffer from poor coping and an impaired quality of life (QoL). This systematic review investigates parenting stress, positive reappraisal coping, and QoL in parents with ASD children. A literature search was carried out for publications written in English on the selected investigation topics using five databases, namely, Scopus, PubMed, Wiley, ScienceDirect Online, and EBSCO. Only studies investigating or measuring parenting stress, positive reappraisal coping, and QoL in ASD were included. Our results indicate that parents with ASD children have high stress levels. This is associated with the ineffective use of coping strategies and a low QoL. Adaptive coping strategies are related to a higher QoL, whereas maladaptive coping techniques are related to a worse QoL. Positive reappraisal coping is negatively correlated to meaningfulness, and it is used by parents to change their daily routines in order to motivate themselves towards new and evolving goals in life. Finally, we found a significant negative correlation between parenting stress, positive reappraisal coping, and the QoL of parents with ASD children. Positive reappraisal coping as a strategy helps parents adapt to stress and was found to be a potential mediatory function between parental stress and QoL.

Differences in the Severity and Variability of Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors in ASD Children With and Without Service Experiences.

BACKGROUND: Despite the importance of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific RRBs that distinguish children with ASD who are receiving services from those who have ASD but are unidentified and untreated until school age remain unclear. This study examined the differences in the severity and variability of RRBs among three groups (ASD with service experiences [ASDws], ASD without service experiences [ASDwos], and No ASD) and investigated specific RRBs predicting group membership. METHOD: A total of 296 children who screened positive for ASD completed confirmative diagnostic assessments. The severity and variability scores of RRBs were obtained using 16 items of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised. RESULTS: Both ASD groups had higher proportions of children with severe RRBs for the majority of RRBs and exhibited a greater number of RRBs than the No ASD group. However, discrepancies between the ASDwos and the No ASD groups were not as apparent as those between the ASDws and the No ASD groups. RRBs characterized by a repetitive motor/physical component and unusual sensory responses differentiated the ASDws group from the ASDwos group. Conversely, RRBs characterized by rigid adherence to routine, and ritualistic behavior increased the odds of membership in the ASDwos group over the No ASD group. CONCLUSIONS: Our results may improve the ability of clinicians and parents to detect ASD in the community by observing specific RRBs, especially in cognitively intact school-aged children who show significant compulsive/ritualistic behaviors and rigidity to routines/sameness RRBs, even in the absence of multiple RRBs or severe repetitive sensorimotor behaviors.

Is food refusal in autistic children related to TAS2R38 genotype?

Several studies suggest that atypical eating behaviors, in particular food selectivity, are more frequent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A link between bitter taste perception, namely PROP/PTC sensitivity and food preferences is known in healthy children. The aim of this study is to investigate whether genetic variants of the TAS2R38 taste receptor responsible for different bitter sensitivity could affect foods preferences and consequently food refusal in ASD children. We recruited 43 children with ASD and 41 with normotypic development (TD) with or without food selectivity, aged between 2 and 11 years. Children were characterized for bitter sensitivity by means of PROP strips and FACS analysis and genotyped for TAS2R38 polymorphisms. Food selectivity was assessed by a validated food preference questionnaire filled by parents. A statistically significant correlation between PROP sensitivity and food refusal was observed. Furthermore, a prevalence of the PAV-sensitive haplotype compared to the AVI-insensitive one was seen in ASD children with food selectivity. In agreement with the initial hypothesis the results show that food refusal in ASD children is mediated by bitter taste sensitivity thus suggesting that the bitter sensitivity test may be used as a device to orientate tailored food proposals for the practical management of food selectivity in ASD. Autism Res 2018, 11: 531-538. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: A variation of the gene TAS2R38, associated with bitter taste sensitivity, can cause a different perception of some foods. In particular, some children are hypersensitive to bitterness and show a more restricted repertoire of accepted foods. We evaluate bitter sensitivity in ASD children with or without food selectivity, through a simple bitter taste test with edible strips. The results show that food refusal in ASD children can be mediated by bitter taste sensitivity thus suggesting that the bitter sensitivity test may be used as a device to orientate tailored food proposals for the practical management of food selectivity in ASD.

Gut Microbiota and Fecal Metabolome Perturbation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The brain-intestinal axis concept describes the communication between the intestinal microbiota as an ecosystem of a number of dynamic microorganisms and the brain. The composition of the microbial community of the human gut is important for human health by influencing the total metabolomic profile. In children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the composition of the fecal microbiota and their metabolic products has a different configuration of the healthy child. An imbalance in the metabolite derived from the microbiota in children with ASD affect brain development and social behavior. In this article, we review recent discoveries about intestinal metabolites derived from microbiota based on high-yield molecular studies in children with ASD as part of the "intestinal brain axis".