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

Impaired social cognition is a core feature of autism. There is much evidence showing people with autism use a different cognitive style than controls for face-processing. We tested if people with autism would show differential activation of social brain areas during a face-processing task. Thirteen adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) and 13 matched controls. We used fMRI to investigate 'social brain' activity during perception of fearful faces. We employed stimuli known to reliably activate the amygdala and other social brain areas, and ROI analyses to investigate brain areas responding to facial threat as well as those showing a linear response to varying threat intensities. We predicted: (1) the HFA/AS group would show differential activation (as opposed to merely deficits) of the social brain compared to controls and (2) that social brain areas would respond to varied intensity of fear in the control group, but not the HFA/AS group. Both predictions were confirmed. The controls showed greater activation in the left amygdala and left orbito-frontal cortex, while the HFA/AS group showed greater activation in the anterior cingulate gyrus and superior temporal cortex. The control group also showed varying responses in social brain areas to varying intensities of fearful expression, including differential activations in the left and right amygdala. This response in the social brain was absent in the HFA/AS group. HFA/AS are associated with different patterns of activation of social brain areas during fearful emotion processing, and the absence in the HFA/AS brain of a response to varying emotional intensity.
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PMID:Differential activation of the amygdala and the 'social brain' during fearful face-processing in Asperger Syndrome. 1680 12

The effectiveness of a social skills training group for adolescents with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism (AS/HFA) was evaluated. Parents of six groups of adolescents (n = 46, 61% male, mean age 14.6) completed questionnaires immediately before and after the 12-week group. Parents and adolescents were surveyed regarding their experience with the group. Significant pre- to post-treatment gains were found on measures of both social competence and problem behaviors associated with AS/HFA. Effect sizes ranged from .34 to .72. Adolescents reported more perceived skill improvements than did parents. Parent-reported improvement suggests that social skills learned in group sessions generalize to settings outside the treatment group. Larger, controlled studies of social skills training groups would be valuable.
J Autism Dev Disord 2007 Nov
PMID:Social skills training for adolescents with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. 1721 59

This paper reviews the literature examining social skills training (SST) programs for youth with AS/HFA, with an emphasis on critically evaluating efficacy and highlighting areas of future research. The review highlights the disparity between SST programs described in the extant literature, including lack of a universal definition of social skills, various levels of intensity and duration of treatment, divergent theoretical backgrounds, and variety in services provided in clinic or classroom settings. Overall, it is clear that, despite their widespread clinical use, empirical support for SST programs for children with AS/HFA is minimal at this time. Based on this critical review, a "roadmap" for future research, consistent with recommendations put forth by a leading group of autism researchers, is presented.
J Autism Dev Disord 2008 Feb
PMID:Social skills interventions for children with Asperger's syndrome or high-functioning autism: a review and recommendations. 1764 62

The goal of the current study was to evaluate presetting, response inhibition, set shifting, and a priori planning in autism: abilities that can be lumped together under the term cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility is an aspect of executive functioning, which in turn is mediated by the prefrontal cortical lobes. A group of adults with high-functioning autism (HFA; n = 23) were compared with a normal control group (n = 32), by using a computerized variant of the Sternberg response bias paradigm. Contrary to the results of earlier studies, no deficit was found in presetting, response inhibition, set shifting, and a priori planning in participants with autism, even when the medication factor was taken into account. Methodological issues that could be explanatory for this difference are discussed. An additional finding was, that individuals with HFA (especially those on medication) were slow in reacting. Possible origins and consequences of this slowness, also for cognitive flexibility, are discussed.
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PMID:Cognitive flexibility in adults with high functioning autism. 1785 90

'Fortune of others' emotions, such as envy and gloating over the other's misfortune, are complex emotions experienced in situations where events are presumed to be desirable or undesirable for another person. The present paper explores the notion that individuals with AS and HFA are impaired in understanding of envy and gloating. We tested the ability of adults with AS/HFA to understand envy and gloating and compared their performance to that of age-matched healthy controls. The 'fortune of others' emotion task and an additional theory-of-mind (ToM) task were based on a task designed to assess ToM on the basis of eye gaze direction. Individuals with AS and HFA showed no difficulty on basic ToM conditions, but were impaired in their ability to identify envy and gloating. Furthermore, the ability to recognize these emotions was related to scores on a self-rating scale of perspective-taking ability and the ToM task.
J Autism Dev Disord 2008 Sep
PMID:Recognition of 'fortune of others' emotions in Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism. 1816 Oct 15

We examined social anxiety and internalizing symptoms using the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C), the Social Anxiety Scale for Children -Revised (SASC-R), and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) in a sample of fifty-four high-functioning subjects with autism or Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS) (M = 11.2 +/- 1.7 years) and 305 community subjects (M = 12.2 +/- 2.2 years). Children and adolescents completed the SPAI-C and SASC-R, and their parents completed the CBCL Internalizing scale. Adolescents with HFA/AS scored higher than the community sample on all measures. Behavioural avoidance and evaluative social anxiety increased by age within the HFA/AS group, whereas behavioural avoidance decreased by age in control participants. Data support that HFA/AS in adolescents may be associated with clinically relevant social anxiety symptoms.
J Autism Dev Disord 2008 Oct
PMID:Social anxiety in high-functioning children and adolescents with Autism and Asperger syndrome. 1832 61

Twenty-nine youth with autism spectrum disorders and 26 with typical development between 12 and 18 years of age were engaged in structured interviews (ADOS). The interviews were videotaped and rated for atypical conversational behaviors by trained raters, using the Pragmatic Rating Scale (Landa et al. Psychol Med 22:245-254, 1992). The ASD group was divided into AS and HFA/PDD-NOS subgroups. Significant differences were found among groups on approximately one-third of the PRS items. These items involved primarily the management of topics and information, reciprocity, intonation, and gaze management. The only differences to reach significance between the AS and HFA/PDD-NOS group were a greater tendency for overly formal speech on the part of the AS group, and more difficulty with gaze management on the part of the group with HFA/PDD-NOS. The implications of these findings for understanding and treating conversational deficits in ASD are discussed.
J Autism Dev Disord 2009 Jan
PMID:Conversational behaviors in youth with high-functioning ASD and Asperger syndrome. 1860 8

Autism is associated with an inability to identify and distinguish one's own feelings. We assessed this inability using alexithymia and empathy questionnaires, and used fMRI to investigate brain activity while introspecting on emotion. Individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS) were compared with matched controls. Participants rated stimuli from the International Affective Picture System twice, once according to the degree of un/pleasantness that the pictures induced, and once according to their color balance. The groups differed significantly on both alexithymia and empathy questionnaires. Alexithymia and lack of empathy were correlated, indicating a link between understanding one's own and others' emotions. For both groups a strong relationship between questionnaire scores and brain activity was found in the anterior insula (AI), when participants were required to assess their feelings to unpleasant pictures. Regardless of self-reported degree of emotional awareness, individuals with HFA/AS differed from controls when required to introspect on their feelings by showing reduced activation in self-reflection/mentalizing regions. Thus, we conclude that difficulties in emotional awareness are related to hypoactivity in AI in both individuals with HFA/AS and controls, and that the particular difficulties in emotional awareness in individuals with HFA/AS are not related to their impairments in self-reflection/mentalizing.
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PMID:Levels of emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study. 1863 52

Theory of mind was assessed in 32 adults with HFA, 29 adults with Asperger syndrome and 32 neurotypical adults. The HFA and Asperger syndrome groups were impaired in performance of the Strange stories test and the Faux-pas test and reported more theory of mind problems than the neurotypical adults. The three groups did not differ in performance of the Eyes test. Furthermore, correlations between the Eyes test and the three other theory of mind tests were low or absent. Therefore one can question the ability of the Eyes test to measure theory of mind. Of all theory of mind tests used, the self-report questionnaire had the largest discriminating power in differentiating the two disorder groups from the neurotypical group.
J Autism Dev Disord 2010 Mar
PMID:Theory of mind in adults with HFA and Asperger syndrome. 1976 8

There are two LD definitions, learning disabilities and learning disorders. We used "learning disabilities" as the educational and legal concepts. The government has conducted a survey on the number of children with LD, ADHD and high functioning autism in Japanese public schools. It was reported 4.5% (LD), 2.5% (ADHD), 0.8% (HFA), 6.3% (total) in 2003. The results of this survey had the big wave on Japanese special education. In 2006, the resource room for LD was started all over the country. The most important thing is that children with LD suffer from not only learning problems but also secondary psychological problems. If children cannot learn the way we teach them, then we must teach them the way they learn.
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PMID:[Care continuity for patients with learning disabilities]. 2007 2


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