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Query: UMLS:C0004352 (autism)
 32,579 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by severe communication, social and behavioral abnormalities. Over the past several years a fair amount of evidence has accumulated suggesting that some cases of autism may be associated with immune abnormalities and with products of the HLA complex including the C4B gene located in the class III region of HLA. This study sought additional evidence for an association of autoimmune processes with autism by investigating the presence of activated T cells in 26 autistic subjects. Fourteen of the autistic subjects had DR+ T cells, an indicator of activated T cells, but none of the autistic subjects had T cells expressing the interleukin-2 receptor, another indicator of T cell activation. Similar findings of incomplete or partial T cell activation have been reported in autoimmune disorders and in a recent study of autism. In the current investigation, the DR+ T cells were not found to be associated with age of the autistic patients but were inversely correlated with a decreased plasma level of the C4B protein. In conclusion, this study provides additional evidence for the involvement of an autoimmune mechanism in autism.
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PMID:DR-positive T cells in autism: association with decreased plasma levels of the complement C4B protein. 776 Sep 85

The effects of task size on rate of responding and on-task behavior as well as on nontask-related behaviors of students with autism and mental retardation on a repetitive task under conditions of no reinforcement for responding was analyzed. Task size, defined as the presence of either 36 or 250 beads in a container at the onset of the session, was compared in an alternating treatment design. The small-task condition resulted in higher on-task behavior for all participants and in higher work rate for four of the five participants. For the four participants who engaged in inappropriate use of task materials, higher levels of this behavior occurred in the large-task conditions. Other nontask-related behaviors were higher in the large-task condition for all participants with the exception of stereotypy, which was higher in the small-task condition for one participant. Better work-related behavior occurred for these participants in small- than in large-task conditions even though no tangible reinforcement was provided for task responding. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of arranging workplace environments to maximize productivity of persons with developmental disabilities.
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PMID:Effects of task size on work-related and aberrant behaviors of youths with autism and mental retardation. 779 11

The use of effective instructional strategies in small groups was investigated to determine learning effects for 24 elementary age students with autism and developmental disabilities. Effective strategies included (a) the use of choral responding; (b) the use of student-to-student responding; (c) the rotation of materials every 5 minutes during the 30-minute group while teaching 2 to 3 concepts; and (d) the use of random, unpredictable trials for student responding. Thirty-minute language groups were targeted to teach receptive and expressive skills using pictures and common objects across five categories (e.g., household items, foods). Results showed increased opportunities to respond, increased levels of responding and academic engagement, higher gains on weekly criterion-referenced pre- and posttests, and decreased passive and inappropriate student behavior during interventions.
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PMID:Enhanced small group instruction using choral responding and student interaction for children with autism and developmental disabilities. 794 54

Tactile defensiveness (TD) is characterized by behaviors such as rubbing, scratching, negative expressions, withdrawal, or avoidance in response to tactile stimulation. An inhibition deficit has been implied in the literature and is the focus of this study. School-aged children with developmental disabilities were first assessed for level of TD using three measures. Later, the children were presented with a repeated tactile stimulus while engaged in a computer game. Intensity, duration, and latency of the responses were recorded on each trial. It was hypothesized that higher levels of TD would be associated with (a) greater responsiveness and (b) slower habituation rates to the tactile stimulus. Correlations of three separate TD measures and a series of 3 x 10 (Level of TD by Responsiveness across trials) repeated measures ANOVAs were used to test the two hypotheses. Children who demonstrated higher levels of TD on some of the preliminary measures also showed higher responsiveness in the experimental situation. There was no general habituation effect, and the limited group by trials interactions were not interpretable. We conclude that there is evidence for a differential sensitivity in TD, but not an inhibition deficit. Another significant finding included a negative correlation between TD and developmental age.
J Autism Dev Disord 1994 Aug
PMID:Tactile defensiveness in children with developmental disabilities: responsiveness and habituation. 796 30

Documented the number and types of opportunities for communication provided by teachers in seven classrooms for children with developmental disabilities and by teachers of nonhandicapped preschoolers in a day care center. In the special education settings, less than 14% of the more than 6,000 observation intervals contained an opportunity for communication. Most opportunities involved naming an object or event followed in frequency by opportunities to request, answer, and imitate. Similar results were obtained in the day care center. In the special education classrooms, a strong positive correlation was found between a child's existing communication skills and the number of opportunities received. Results suggest that these teachers did incorporate opportunities for communication into classroom activities.
J Autism Dev Disord 1994 Jun
PMID:Opportunities for communication in classrooms serving children with developmental disabilities. 805 Sep 81

Reviewed the psychometric properties, treatment utility, and conceptual basis of psychometric instruments used to identify the functions of aberrant behaviors in people with developmental disabilities. The instruments reviewed are the Motivational Assessment Scale (Durand & Crimmins, 1992), the Motivation Analysis Rating Scale (Weisheler, Hanson, Chamberlain, & Thompson, 1985), the Functional Analysis Interview Form (O'Neill, Horner, Albin, Storey, & Sprague, 1990), and the Functional Analysis Checklist (Van Houten & Rolider, 1991). Recurrent problems in this area include the lack of replicability of the reliability of these instruments, difficulties in summarizing the information from these assessment devices, difficulties in translating the assessment into treatment packages, strong individual differences in the functions of behavior problems, and, finally, issues relating to the concurrent validity, both across these instruments and across other assessment methods.
J Autism Dev Disord 1994 Jun
PMID:Assessing the functions of aberrant behaviors: a review of psychometric instruments. 805 Sep 83

We designed an investigation to differentiate two types of challenging behaviors occurring in teaching situations: those evoked by task stimuli (i.e., task avoidance), and those evoked by social stimuli present in teaching situations (i.e., social avoidance). Four students with developmental disabilities who exhibited challenging behaviors in teaching situations were exposed to social interaction in a play situation and task demands in a teaching situation. Results indicated that the students exhibited two distinct behavior patterns. Two of the students exhibited a behavior pattern consistent with task avoidance and the other two students exhibited a behavior pattern consistent with social avoidance. Implications concerning task versus social avoidance and the need for more fine-grained analyses of the stimuli associated with escape behavior are discussed.
J Autism Dev Disord 1994 Jun
PMID:Escape behavior in task situations: task versus social antecedents. 805 Sep 86

Childhood autism with its difficulties in relating to others has been for a long time imputed to conscious or unconscious educative errors of the mother. Clinical and biological data can be opposed to this conception. Familial movies analysis exhibits early disorders in attention, perception, intention, limitation and muscular tone. Later, recording of cerebral reactivity to auditory stimulations confirms deficiencies in attention, perception, association ... and shows a diminution of the responses in the left hemisphere. Abnormalities in the development of the cerebellum are also described. Modifications of main neurotransmitters as Dopamine and Serotonin and their derivatives are often present. A recent study of the genes which control enzymes regulating metabolism of these transmitters does not show evident modifications by polymorphism analysis. On the contrary a peculiarity in the Harvey-RAS gene allows to differentiate in a significant way an autistic and a normal group. This gene is involved in the regulation of growth factor and/or differentiation of neural cells. These observations support the hypothesis considering autism as a relating deficiency due to a developmental disorder of central nervous system.
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PMID:[Childhood autism: a relating deficiency due to a developmental disorder of the central nervous system]. 819 47

Child autism is a serious and early-forming developmental disorder and its nosography is evolving quickly. Classifications of autism have been produced since the works of Kanner in 1943 and especially in the last fifteen years, or so in order to respond to the needs of clinical practice and of research. Because of the presence of borderline or various uncommon clinical forms and, more generally, considering the heterogeneousness of clinical conditions concerning autism, it appears necessary to break up autism into better defined sub-groups. Moreover, the existing systems do not apply very well before the age of two or three, when the diagnosis and investigations nevertheless begin. Progress is achieved today by using simultaneously multidimensional and quantitative evaluations, an example of which is presented. In the future, a knowledge of etiological factors and/or the identification of biological markers will guide the classification of developmental disorders.
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PMID:[Nosography of autism. Critical discussion of current classifications]. 826 29

We used a graduated guidance procedure to teach 4 boys with autism to follow photographic activity schedules to increase on-task and on-schedule behavior. The multiple baseline across participants design included baseline, teaching, maintenance, resequencing of photographs, and generalization to novel photographs phases. The results indicated that photographic activity schedules (albums depicting after-school activities) produced sustained engagement, and skills generalized to a new sequence of photographs and to new photographs. The acquisition of schedule-following skills enabled these children with severe developmental disabilities to display lengthy response chains, independently change activities, and change activities in different group home settings in the absence of immediate supervision and prompts from others.
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PMID:Teaching children with autism to use photographic activity schedules: maintenance and generalization of complex response chains. 847 61


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