Extreme Birth Weights Tied to Autism in Swedish Study

Newborns who weigh much more or less than average may be at risk for disorder, researchers say

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- A much larger or much smaller birth weight than average may be associated with an increased risk of autism, according to a large new study.

Researchers examined data from more than 40,000 children in Sweden, and found that those who weighed more than 9.9 pounds or less than 5.5 pounds at birth were more likely to have autism than those with a normal birth weight.

Specifically, smaller babies had a 63 percent greater risk, and larger babies had a 60 percent greater risk. The link between birth weight and autism risk was independent of whether or not a baby was born premature or past the normal delivery date.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affect a person's ability to communicate and interact socially.

The study, published recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry, is believed to be the first to show a link between larger babies and increased autism risk and confirms earlier research showing that low weight babies are more likely to develop autism.

"We think that this increase in risk associated with extreme abnormal growth of the fetus shows that something is going wrong during development, possibly with the function of the placenta," study leader Kathryn Abel said in a university news release.

Abel is a professor at the Center for Women's Mental Health and Institute of Brain, Behavior and Mental Health at the University of Manchester, in England.

"Anything which encourages abnormalities of development and growth is likely to also affect development of the baby's brain," she said. "Risk appeared particularly high in those babies where they were growing poorly and continued in utero until after 40 weeks. This may be because these infants were exposed the longest to unhealthy conditions within the mother's womb."

While the study found an association between having a high or low birth weight and having autism, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

"We now need more research into fetal growth, how it is controlled by the placenta and how this affects how the brain develops. One of the key areas to research is maternal condition and healthy growth," Abel concluded.

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Girls With Autism May Need Different Treatments Than Boys

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- With four to five times more males affected by autism spectrum disorders than females, much less is known about girls with autism.

Fortunately, more research is beginning to focus on autism in girls, said Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of Autism Speaks, with two such studies set to be presented Saturday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in San Sebastian, Spain.

"Autism affects boys much more frequently than girls. But, we may be missing some girls. The diagnostic criteria were developed using symptoms in boys, and symptoms in girls and boys may be different," Dawson explained.

"Because of this difference in incidence, researchers may end up with a small number of girls in studies," she said, adding that differences in symptoms or reactions to treatments may lead to the girls' data being excluded from studies. But, it's just those differences that may really need to be researched, to make sure girls are being diagnosed and treated correctly.

"Other neuropsychiatric disorders have already made the discovery that symptoms can be different in girls and may require different treatments for girls," said Dawson, who is also a research professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. One such example is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Girls tend to be less hyperactive than boys, and may instead appear as if they're daydreaming.

In the latest autism research, the first study compared visual scanning patterns in boys and girls with autism spectrum disorders. Scanning patterns were also collected for typically developing children.

"We used eye-tracking technology while the participants in these studies watched videotapes of social scenes that presented naturalistic stimuli," said study co-author Ami Klin, director of the Marcus Autism Center, in Atlanta.

The study, which was led by Klin's student, Jennifer Moriuchi, included 116 school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders. Eighty-one were boys and 35 were girls. The children with autism had varying degrees of social disability. The study also included 36 typically developing children.

"On a surface level, it appears that boys and girls with autism appear to spend equal time learning from the eyes. They did look less than other children," Klin said. But, when the researchers correlated the youngsters' eye tracking with their level of disability, a much different picture emerged.

"In boys, the more they looked at the eyes, the less socially disabled they are. In girls, the more they looked at the eyes, the more disabled they are," said Klin, chief of the division of autism and related disorders at Emory University School of Medicine and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

"What the study is suggesting is that we should not automatically assume that boys and girls learn about the world in the same way," Klin said, adding, "we have to take gender as a mediating factor."

Dawson said "the study found that there are differences in the way girls and boys look at the eyes, so there may be differences in the way autism is manifested in girls than in boys." She noted that an important criterion right now for diagnosing autism is a lack of eye contact and using the eyes for social cues.

The second study looked at the genetics involved in autism, and potential differences in boys and girls. Yale University researchers analyzed samples from 2,326 families. Included in those samples were those of 2,017 boys and 309 girls with an autism spectrum disorder.

The Yale team found differences between the boys' and girls' genetic samples.

"The fact that autism does affect boys so much more frequently has been staring us in the face for decades. There's been a hypothesis that there's something in the extra X chromosome that girls have that may be protective," Dawson explained. "The idea is that if you have this protective mechanism in place you may need more risk factors to overwhelm that protective effect and cause autism, and that's exactly what they found."

"To develop autism in a girl requires more genetic mutations," Dawson said. The type of mutations they found are called "de novo" mutations, she added. This means that the genetic change occurs in the sperm or the egg. It isn't a gene that's passed down from the parents. These mutations can occur randomly, or they can be caused by an environmental trigger.

Because these studies are being presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chief science officer, Autism Speaks, and research professor, department of psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ami Klin, Ph.D., director, Marcus Autism Center, and professor and chief, division of autism and related disorders, Emory University School of Medicine and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta; May 4, 2013, presentations, International Meeting for Autism Research, San Sebastian, Spain

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Drug Shows Some Benefit for Kids With Autism

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug for autism did not improve levels of lethargy and social withdrawal in children who took it, but it did show some other benefits, a new study finds.

Children on arbaclofen did improve on an overall measure of autism severity when compared to kids taking an inactive placebo, said lead researcher Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, an associate professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University.

He is to present the findings Thursday at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in Spain.

One of 88 children in the United States is now diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, the umbrella term for complex brain development disorders marked by problems in social interaction and communication.

Veenstra-VanderWeele focused on evaluating the social improvement with the drug because earlier research had suggested it could help. However, one of the earlier studies did not compare the drug to a placebo, but simply measured improvement in those who took the drug.

In the new study, Veenstra-VanderWeele and his team assigned 150 people with autism, aged 5 to 21, to take the medicine or a placebo, without knowing which group they were in, for eight weeks. The participants had been diagnosed with autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome or another related condition known as pervasive developmental disorder.

In all, 130 finished the study. When no differences were found in social withdrawal or lethargy between the two groups, the researchers looked at a scale that measures severity and improvement of autism with treatment.

Those on the drug improved more on that scale. A child, for instance, who began the study evaluated as having marked severity might be described as moderate by the study's end, Veenstra-VanderWeele said.

"This is the sort of improvement that would motivate us to start a medicine," he said.

The drug is believed to work, Veenstra-VanderWeele said, by increasing inhibition, improving social functioning and interactions.

Right now, Veenstra-VanderWeele said, "there is no medication that has clear evidence to improve social function in autism."

Those on the drug did report side effects, including suicidal thoughts reported by one patient on the drug and one on the placebo. Some patients on the drug became upset more easily; others reported sleepiness.

The next phase of trials of the drug are in the planning stages, Veenstra-VanderWeele said.

But more research is needed, said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York.

Even though the expected benefit did not materialize, Adesman sees a reason to continue to study the medication. "There is [still] some suggestion of benefit from the medicine," Adesman said. "It just didn't quite show up where they expected."

The drug may offer benefit to some children with autism, Adesman said. "But it's unclear which children may be the best candidates."

The trial received funding from the drug's maker, Seaside Therapeutics. The medication is not currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, M.D., associate professor, psychiatry, pediatrics and pharmacology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.; Andrew Adesman, M.D., chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics, Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, New Hyde Park, N.Y.; May 2, 2013, presentation, International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR), San Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain

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Drug Shows Some Benefit for Kids With Autism

Study found no gains in lethargy, social withdrawal, but those on the drug improved in other ways

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug for autism did not improve levels of lethargy and social withdrawal in children who took it, but it did show some other benefits, a new study finds.

Children on arbaclofen did improve on an overall measure of autism severity when compared to kids taking an inactive placebo, said lead researcher Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, an associate professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University.

He is to present the findings Thursday at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in Spain.

One of 88 children in the United States is now diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, the umbrella term for complex brain development disorders marked by problems in social interaction and communication.

Veenstra-VanderWeele focused on evaluating the social improvement with the drug because earlier research had suggested it could help. However, one of the earlier studies did not compare the drug to a placebo, but simply measured improvement in those who took the drug.

In the new study, Veenstra-VanderWeele and his team assigned 150 people with autism, aged 5 to 21, to take the medicine or a placebo, without knowing which group they were in, for eight weeks. The participants had been diagnosed with autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome or another related condition known as pervasive developmental disorder.

In all, 130 finished the study. When no differences were found in social withdrawal or lethargy between the two groups, the researchers looked at a scale that measures severity and improvement of autism with treatment.

Those on the drug improved more on that scale. A child, for instance, who began the study evaluated as having marked severity might be described as moderate by the study's end, Veenstra-VanderWeele said.

"This is the sort of improvement that would motivate us to start a medicine," he said.

The drug is believed to work, Veenstra-VanderWeele said, by increasing inhibition, improving social functioning and interactions.

Right now, Veenstra-VanderWeele said, "there is no medication that has clear evidence to improve social function in autism."

Those on the drug did report side effects, including suicidal thoughts reported by one patient on the drug and one on the placebo. Some patients on the drug became upset more easily; others reported sleepiness.

The next phase of trials of the drug are in the planning stages, Veenstra-VanderWeele said.

But more research is needed, said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York.

Even though the expected benefit did not materialize, Adesman sees a reason to continue to study the medication. "There is [still] some suggestion of benefit from the medicine," Adesman said. "It just didn't quite show up where they expected."

The drug may offer benefit to some children with autism, Adesman said. "But it's unclear which children may be the best candidates."

The trial received funding from the drug's maker, Seaside Therapeutics. The medication is not currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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Kelly the Robot Helps Kids Tackle Autism

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Using a kid-friendly robot during behavioral therapy sessions may help some children with autism gain better social skills, a preliminary study suggests.

The study, of 19 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), found that kids tended to do better when their visit with a therapist included a robot "co-therapist." On average, they made bigger gains in social skills such as asking "appropriate" questions, answering questions and making conversational comments.

So-called humanoid robots are already being marketed for this purpose, but there has been little research to back it up.

"Going into this study, we were skeptical," said lead researcher Joshua Diehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, who said he has no financial interest in the technology.

"We found that, to our surprise, the kids did better when the robot was added," he said.

There are still plenty of caveats, however, said Diehl, who is presenting his team's findings Saturday at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in San Sebastian, Spain.

For one, the study was small. And it's not clear that the results seen in a controlled research setting would be the same in the real world of therapists' offices, according to Diehl.

"I'd say this is not yet ready for prime time," he said.

ASDs are a group of developmental disorders that affect a person's ability to communicate and interact socially. The severity of those effects range widely: Some people have mild problems socializing, but have normal to above-normal intelligence; some people have profound difficulties relating to others, and may have intellectual impairment as well.

Experts have become interested in using technology -- from robots to iPads -- along with standard ASD therapies because it may help bridge some of the communication issues kids have.

Human communication is complex and unpredictable, with body language, facial expressions and other subtle cues coming into the mix, explained Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

A robot or a computer game, on the other hand, can be programmed to be simple and predictable, and that may help kids with ASDs better process the information they are being given, Dawson said.

"Broadly speaking," she said, "we are very excited about the potential role for technology in diagnosing and treating ASDs." But she also agreed with Diehl that the findings are "very preliminary," and that researchers have a lot more to learn about how technology -- robots or otherwise -- fits into ASD therapies.

For the study, Diehl's team used a humanoid robot manufactured by Aldebaran Robotics, which markets the NAO robot for use in education, including special education for kids with ASDs. The robot, which stands at about 2 feet tall, looks like a toy but it's priced more like a small car, Diehl noted.

The NAO H25 "Academic Edition" rings up at about $16,000. (Diehl said the study was funded by government and private grants, not the manufacturer.)

The researchers had 19 kids aged 6 to 13 complete 12 behavioral therapy sessions, where a therapist worked with the child on social skills. Half of the sessions involved the robot, named Kelly, which was wheeled out so the child could practice conversing with her, while the therapist stood by.

"So the child might say, 'Hi Kelly, how are you?'" Diehl explained. "Then Kelly would say, 'Fine. What did you do today?'" During the non-Kelly sessions, another person entered the room and carried on the same conversation with the child that the robot would have.

On average, Diehl's team found, kids made bigger gains from the sessions that included Kelly -- based on both their interactions with their therapists, and their parents' reports.

"There was one child who, when his dad came home from work, asked him how his day was," Diehl said. "He'd never done that before."

Still, he stressed that while the robot sessions seemed more successful on average, the children varied widely in their responses to Kelly. Going forward, Diehl said, it will be important to figure out whether there are certain kids with ASDs more likely to benefit from a robot co-therapist.

Dawson agreed that there is no one-size-fits-all ASD therapy. "Any therapy for a person with an ASD has to be individualized," she said. The idea with any technology, she added, is to give therapists and doctors extra "tools" to work with.

A separate study presented at the same meeting looked at another type of tool. Researchers had 60 "minimally verbal" children with ASDs attend two "play-based" sessions per week, aimed at boosting their ability to speak and gesture. Half of the kids were also given a "speech-generating device," like an iPad.

Three and six months later, children who worked with the devices were able to say more words and were quicker to take up conversational skills.

Dawson said the robot and iPad studies are just part of the growing body of research into how technology can not only aid in ASD therapies, but also help doctors diagnose the disorders or help parents manage at home.

But both Diehl and Dawson stressed that no robot or iPad is intended to stand in for human connection. The idea, after all, is to enhance kids' ability to communicate and have relationships, Dawson noted. "Technology will never take the place of people," she said.

The data and conclusions of research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Joshua Diehl, Ph.D., assistant professor, psychology, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind.; Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chief science officer, Autism Speaks; May 4, 2013, presentation, International Meeting for Autism Research, San Sebastian, Spain

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Newborn's Placenta May Predict Autism Risk, Study Suggests

Identifying infants with higher odds could improve treatment, researchers say

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- Autism risk may be spotted at birth by examining placentas for abnormalities, new research suggests.

"We can look at the placenta at birth and determine the chance of being at risk for autism with extremely high reliability," said Dr. Harvey Kliman, a research scientist at Yale University.

One of 88 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder, the umbrella name for complex brain development disorders marked by problems with social interaction and communication, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The earlier autism is treated, the better the outcome. But children typically aren't diagnosed until behavioral symptoms begin, perhaps at age 2 or 3 years, or even later. Kliman said the children identified as at risk at birth might benefit from early treatment.

For the new study, published online April 25 in the journal Biological Psychiatry, Kliman and his team examined 117 placentas from newborns whose mothers already had one or more children with some form of autism, which put the infant at higher risk for the disorder. The researchers compared those samples with placenta samples from 100 women who already had one or more typically developing children.

During pregnancy, the placenta keeps the unborn baby's blood supply separate from the mother's while providing the baby with oxygen and nutrients. At delivery, the placenta, also called the afterbirth, follows the baby out of the womb.

The placentas from women whose older children had autism were markedly different from the others, Kliman's team found. They zeroed in on abnormal folds and abnormal cell growth in the placenta, known as trophoblast inclusions.

The placentas from the at-risk pregnancies were eight times more likely to have two or more of these abnormal folds than samples from not-at-risk deliveries. Placentas with four or more of the inclusions predicted an infant with at least a 74 percent probability of being at risk for autism, the researchers said.

"There were no [placentas from pregnancies not at risk] that had more than two of the folds," Kliman said.

The study only predicted risk of autism, however, not actual autism. The researchers will continue to follow the children.

The testing can't be done before delivery, Kliman said. "You need enough placenta [to examine]."

But the test could help spot at-risk children much earlier than is now possible, Kliman suggested. "There is no way [currently] to know at birth that your child might have autism," he said. "If you know you have a child who is at risk for autism at birth, you are ahead of the game." Interventions can begin early, when the brain is more open to change.

How the folds in the placenta relate to autism risk isn't clear, Kliman said. He and others speculated that the abnormalities in the placentas and the brains of the children affected with autism are marked by increased cellular growth, which then leads to the unusual folding. "The heads of children with autism are bigger," he said. Their brains grow rapidly early in life.

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Polluted Air Linked to Autism Risk

Pregnant women who live with smog at higher risk, but experts caution the finding is not definitive

By Denise Mann

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- Pregnant women who live in smog-filled areas may be twice as likely to have children with autism, a new study suggests.

"The study does not prove that pollution increases risk for autism. It found an association," cautioned lead author Andrea Roberts, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "It adds to the weight of the evidence that there may be something in air pollution that increases risk for autism."

Researchers compared exposure to air pollution among 325 women who had a child with autism and 22,000 women who did not. The women were participants in the Nurses' Health Study II. Pollutants measured included diesel particulate matter, lead, manganese, mercury, methylene chloride, and a combined measure of metal exposure.

Twenty percent to 60 percent of the women lived in areas considered highly polluted. And the study showed that: those women who lived in the 20 percent of locations that had the highest levels of diesel particulates or mercury in the air were twice as likely to have a child with autism, compared to those who lived in the 20 percent of areas with the lowest levels of these pollutants.

In addition, those who lived in the 20 percent of locations with the highest levels of lead, manganese, methylene chloride, and combined metal exposure were about 50 percent more likely to have a child with autism than those who lived in the 20 percent of areas with the lowest concentrations.

The findings held even after the researchers took into account other factors known to affect autism risk, such as income, education and smoking during pregnancy. Overall, the association was stronger for boys than it was for girls, but the number of girls included in the new study was too low to draw any firm conclusions.

The findings, which were published June 18 online in Environmental Health Perspectives, do add to a growing body of research that suggests the air women breathe while pregnant is one of many factors linked to autism risk. Previous studies have shown that pregnant women who live in polluted areas or close to freeways are more likely to have a child with autism, but the studies were done regionally. The new data is nationwide.

Exactly how, or even if, air pollution affects the developing brain is murky. "By definition, pollution is stuff that is not good for us," Roberts said.

Still, the overall increase in autism risk that may be attributed to pollution is low. "Let's say a woman's risk for having a child with autism is one in 100, women who live in the most polluted cities have a risk that is about one in 50, which means that 49 children would not have autism," Roberts said.

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Kids With Autism May Find Human Voice Unpleasant

MRI shows weaker connection to brain's reward center in those who have high-functioning autism

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- A new brain-imaging study could help explain why children with autism have difficulty with verbal communication: They may not get much pleasure from the human voice.

Researchers found that those with the disorder showed weaker connections between the brain's voice-processing areas and its "reward" centers compared to those without.

That suggests that kids with autism do not get the same pleasure from the human voice that typically developing children do, researchers said.

"When we speak, we don't only convey information, we convey emotion and social cues," said Daniel Abrams, a researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., who led the new study.

It's well known that children with autism have difficulty reading those cues and having conversations. And children with more severe autism may be completely indifferent to the sound of the human voice.

There are competing theories on why that is, Abrams said. "One theory is that, although these children have normal hearing, there's a problem in the brain's sound processing," he explained.

Another theory is that "social cues," including other people's speech, don't hit the brain's reward system in the typical way. "Our findings support this idea," Abrams said. "There may be some deficit in the brain circuitry related to reward."

The findings, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are based on a type of brain imaging called functional MRI, which allows researchers to measure brain activity by watching changes in blood flow.

The investigators took scans of 20 children who were on average 10 years old and had "high-functioning" autism: all had normal IQs and speaking and reading skills, but had trouble conversing and grasping "emotional cues" in other people's voices. The researchers also scanned 19 kids without autism who were in the same age and IQ range.

The researchers found that the children with autism showed a weaker connection between an area of the brain that responds to the human voice and two other brain regions that release the "feel-good" chemical dopamine in response to rewards.

On top of that, there was a weaker link between the brain's voice processors and the amygdala -- a brain region involved in emotion, including the ability to perceive emotional cues from others.

An expert not involved in the work said the findings give more insight into the underpinnings of autism, which affects an estimated one in 50 U.S. kids aged 6 to 17, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is an elegant approach to using neuroimaging to better understand [autism]," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park.

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'Sensory-Focused' Autism Therapy Shows Early Promise

In small study, parents used variety of methods to stimulate boys' senses

By Mary Brophy Marcus

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- Smelling essential oils, walking across textured surfaces, immersing hands in warm water -- these are just some of the therapeutic experiences that boys with autism had while participating in a small new study.

The scientists wanted to learn how "sensory-motor" therapy compared to traditional behavioral therapy methods in boys with autism.

Twenty-eight boys aged 3 to 12 and their parents participated in the six-month-long study, published online May 20 in Behavioral Neuroscience. The boys were split into two groups. Both groups of children participated in daily behavioral therapy, but 13 of the boys also received environmental enrichment, another term for sensory-motor therapy.

The environmental enrichment therapy had a significant positive effect on these children with autism, the study authors said.

"What we've done here for the first time is give humans a sensory-enriched environment and found out that a neurological disorder -- autism -- responds favorably. We saw a 600 percent greater likelihood of having a positive clinical outcome in individuals that had enriched environments compared to those receiving the standard care that children have been receiving for autism up to this point," said study author Michael Leon, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Center for Autism Research and Treatment at the University of California, Irvine.

However, an autism expert who wasn't part of the study cautioned that other sensory-based therapies showing early promise haven't proven effective so far.

For the new study, parents of the children in the sensory enrichment group were given a kit that contained a broad range of materials aimed at stimulating their child's senses of smell, temperature, texture, sight and movement. Vials of essential oils scented of apple, lavender, sweet orange and vanilla, were among the items. Squares of different textured materials included smooth foam, hardwood flooring, sponges, felt and sandpaper.

The children were also given the opportunity to play with objects: beads, a small piggy bank with plastic coins, pictures of famous art, a can of Play-Doh, a bowl to hold warm or cool water and more.

The researchers asked parents to conduct two therapy sessions a day with their child, and to run four to seven different exercises during each session that involved different combinations of the items in the kit. Sessions ranged from 15 to 30 minutes. The children also listened to classical music once a day.

As the six-month period progressed, parents were encouraged to offer more complex enrichment exercises. For example, a child would be given the chance to select a textured square and in addition to feeling it would be encouraged to match it to another square of the same material.

By the end of the six months, Leon said the enrichment group children had significantly improved compared to the children who received standard therapy alone. He said 42 percent of the boys in the enrichment group improved in their ability to relate to other people and in their ability to respond to sights and sounds, compared with 7 percent of the standard care group.

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Autism, ADHD Often Occur Together, Research Shows

Study finds nearly one-third of kids with autism also have problems with attention and hyperactivity

By Brenda Goodman

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Almost 30 percent of young children with autism also show signs of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a rate that's three times higher than it is in the general population, a new study shows.

"We don't know the cause for ADHD in most cases. We don't know the cause of autism in most cases. It's not surprising that something that's going to affect the brain and cause one developmental outcome may also cause a second developmental outcome," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center in Lake Success, N.Y. He was not involved in the study.

Kids in the study who had both problems together also tended to have more difficulty learning and socializing than children who had autism alone.

The researchers noted that the treatment of ADHD may benefit children with autism if they aren't making progress with autism treatment programs, which often require sustained focus on specific skills.

"In a child [with autism] who has great difficulties with attention, or hyperactivity or both, you really have to layer in another level of intervention strategies for them," said study author Rebecca Landa, director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

For the study, which is published in the June 5 online issue of the journal Autism, researchers asked parents of kids enrolled in a community-based study of child development about symptoms of attention and hyperactivity -- whether or not children could wait their turn, interrupted others who were speaking, fiddled with things during meals or could not slow down, for example. All the children in the study were between the ages of 4 and 8.

Out of 62 children diagnosed with autism, 18 (29 percent) also showed signs of ADHD.

A previous study of slightly older children found that 31 percent of children had the two disorders together.

"It's not surprising," said Dr. Patty Manning-Courtney, director of the Kelly O'Leary Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

"What's good about this study is that they went to the trouble to look at who met diagnostic criteria and what was different about those children," said Manning-Courtney, who was not involved in the research.

All the children who had both problems together were boys. Boys have higher rates of autism and ADHD than girls, research shows.

One limitation of the study was that researchers had to rely on questionnaires that are meant to spot ADHD in typical children. There really aren't good tests for attention and hyperactivity developed for kids with autism, and their problems may look different than those seen in typical school-aged children.

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Reduced 'Fine-Tuning' of Brain May Hamper Face Recognition in Autism

Title: Reduced 'Fine-Tuning' of Brain May Hamper Face Recognition in Autism
Category: Health News
Created: 3/22/2013 12:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/25/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Having Older Grandfather May Raise Child's Autism Risk: Study

Title: Having Older Grandfather May Raise Child's Autism Risk: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 3/20/2013 4:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/21/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Word Tests May Predict Gains for Kids With Autism

Toddlers' brain responses corresponded with later language, thinking and self-care skills

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- Early brain responses to words may help predict future abilities in children with autism, a new study suggests.

"We showed that a simple measure of how the brain responds to a familiar word taken at 2 years of age was a strong predictor of children's language, social and cognitive abilities ... at 6 years of age," said study co-author Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer at the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired communication, difficulty with social interactions and repetitive behaviors. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 88 U.S. children has some form of autism, which can range from mild to severe.

"In this study, we were interested in understanding why some children with autism make rapid progress whereas others progress more slowly," Dawson said. "For example, many children with autism are able to develop spoken language, whereas about 20 percent to 30 percent remain minimally verbal or nonverbal.

"Recent studies have shown that nonverbal children can be helped to develop spoken language if they are given special alternative devices -- such as an iPad or other speech-generating device -- as part of their early intervention program," Dawson added. "But we don't know how to identify which children are likely to need extra help."

The study, published May 29 in the journal PLoS ONE, involved 44 children, all of whom were 2 years old. Twenty-four had autism and 20 did not. The children were asked to listen to a mix of familiar and unfamiliar words while wearing sensors, which measured their brain responses.

The children with autism were divided into two groups based on the level of their social impairment. The brain responses of the children with autism with milder symptoms were similar to the brain responses of the children who did not have autism, the researchers found. These children had a strong response to known words in a specific area of the left side of the brain called the temporal parietal region, which is responsible for language.

This suggests that children with less severe symptoms can process words in much the same way as typically developing children, the study authors said.

Children with more severe social impairments, however, showed brain responses more broadly over the right hemisphere. The researchers said this is not usually seen in healthy children of any age.

The children's language skills, thinking abilities and social and emotional development also were assessed at age 2 and again at ages 4 and 6.

Over time and with intensive treatment, the children with autism improved on the behavioral tests, but individual gains varied widely, the researchers found. The more the autistic children's brain responses resembled those of typically developing children, the greater the improvement in their skills by age 6.

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Women Abused in Childhood at Higher Odds of Having Child With Autism: Study

Title: Women Abused in Childhood at Higher Odds of Having Child With Autism: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 3/20/2013 4:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/21/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Having Older Grandfather May Raise Child's Autism Risk: Study

Men who became dads at age 50 or older had higher odds for a grandchild with the disorder

By E.J. Mundell

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- The odds that a child will develop autism could be linked to their grandfather's age at the time they were born, a new Swedish study suggests.

The study found that men who fathered a child at the age of 50 or older were more likely to have a grandchild with autism, suggesting that the risk might be passed down through successive generations.

Men who had a daughter at age 50 or older were 79 percent more likely to have a grandchild with autism compared to men who fathered when they were in their early 20s, the research team reported in the March 20 issue of the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Men who fathered a son at age 50 or older had a 67 percent higher risk of having a grandchild with the disorder compared to men who fathered a child as young adults.

"We tend to think in terms of the here and now when we talk about the effect of the environment on our genome," said study co-author Dr. Avi Reichenberg, who worked on the study while at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, in England. "For the first time in psychiatry, we show that your father's and grandfather's lifestyle choices can affect you.

"This doesn't mean that you shouldn't have children if your father was old when he had you, because while the risk is increased, it is still small," added Reichenberg, who is now an autism researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. "However, the findings are important in understanding the complex way in which autism develops."

Although the study found a correlation between advanced age in grandfathers and the odds for autism in children, it is only an observational trial, so it cannot prove cause and effect. And another expert also stressed that the absolute risk to any one family remains small.

"Although there was a statistically significant increase in the incidence of autism in families with older grandparents, it must be remembered that autism was still extremely infrequent even in families with the oldest grandparents," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park. "Thus, older parents and grandparents should not be unduly worried."

The new research was published on the same day that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that one in every 50 U.S. school children now has an autism spectrum disorder -- up from the 2007 estimate of 1 in 88. The CDC says improved detection and diagnosis are probably responsible for most of that increase.

In the new study, researchers looked at data from Sweden's national registries and compared about 6,000 people with autism to about 31,000 people without the condition. They looked at the age of each person's maternal and paternal grandfather at the time of the individual's birth.

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Shared Genes May Link ADHD, Autism and Depression

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia may all share common genetic risk factors, a new study says.

In this largest study of its kind, researchers spotted gene variations governing brain function that may raise the risk for these often devastating mental woes. In the future, these gene variants might become key targets for prevention or treatment, the scientists said.

"This study, for the first time, shows that there are specific genetic variants that influence a range of childhood and adult-onset psychiatric disorders that we think of as clinically different," said lead researcher Dr. Jordan Smoller, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"We also found that there was significant overlap in the genetic components of several disorders, especially schizophrenia with bipolar disorder and depression, and to a lesser extent autism with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," he said.

The researchers don't yet understand exactly how these variants are involved in the disorders, he noted. "This is the first clue that specific genes and pathways may cause a broader susceptibility to a number of disorders. Now the important work will be to figure out how this actually happens," said Smoller, who is also associate vice chair of the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Alessandro Serretti, from the Psychiatry Institute at the University of Bologna in Italy, wrote an accompanying journal editorial on the study. He believes that "we are now able to understand what are the pathways to [these] psychiatric disorders."

There are potential clinical applications, both in the classification of disorders, predicting who's most at risk, and perhaps new and better drug therapies, Serretti said. However, there's no immediate clinical application for these findings, he added.

The report was published Feb. 28 in the online edition of The Lancet.

To look for common genetic markers, called nucleotide polymorphisms, that might be risk factors for the five disorders, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium scanned the genes of more than 33,000 people suffering from these disorders and nearly 28,000 people without such issues. This is the largest study of the genetics of psychiatric illness yet conducted, the researchers said.

Smoller's group found four gene areas that all overlapped with the five disorders, two of which regulate calcium balance in the brain.

These overlapping gene variants appear to increase the risk for bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia in adults, the researchers said.

Further analysis found that genes governing calcium channel activity in the brain might also be important in the development of all five disorders, autism and ADHD included.

Smoller noted these genetic risk factors may only account for a very small part of the risk driving these disorders, and just how big a share they account for isn't yet known.

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Can Therapy Dogs Help Kids With Autism?

Title: Can Therapy Dogs Help Kids With Autism?
Category: Health News
Created: 2/26/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 2/26/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Can Therapy Dogs Help Kids With Autism?

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- For children with autism, trained dogs may offer not only a furry friend, but some therapeutic benefits, too, a new research review finds.

There is a "substantial body of evidence" that dogs act as "social catalysts," even encouraging adults to be a little friendlier to each other, said senior researcher Francesca Cirulli, of the National Institute of Health in Rome, Italy. And the few studies that have focused on kids with autism suggest the same is true for them.

People have long turned to animals as a way to help with health conditions or disabilities -- either as part of formal therapy or to offer everyday assistance (such as guide dogs for the blind).

In some cases, "therapy" or "service" dogs are called into action to help children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) -- a group of developmental brain disorders that hinder a child's ability to communicate and interact socially. ASDs range from the severe cases of "classic" autism to the relatively mild form called Asperger's syndrome.

In the United States, it's estimated that about one in 88 children has some form of autism.

Yet there has been little research into whether trained dogs actually benefit those kids. The good news is, the existing evidence is promising, according to the new review, published in the February issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

However, "it is early to draw final conclusions," said Cirulli.

Specifically, Cirulli's team found six published studies of dogs' effects on children with an autism spectrum disorder. Four of them looked at therapy dogs -- dogs that therapists use during formal sessions to help children settle in, get engaged and be more open to communicating.

Overall, the studies were positive, Cirulli and her colleagues found.

In one study of 22 children, for example, kids were more talkative and socially engaged during therapy sessions where a dog was present. In another study, of 12 boys, the children were less aggressive and smiled more when their therapy session included a canine companion.

Two studies focused on service dogs -- trained dogs that live with the family. The animals serve mainly to keep kids with autism safe; when the family goes out, the child will be literally tethered to the dog to keep from running off or getting hurt.

"That can be a huge relief for families," said Dr. Melissa Nishawala, medical director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders Clinical and Research Program at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Parents' anxiety over their child's safety can lead to social isolation in some cases, noted Nishawala, who was not involved in the study. "Your world can get very small," she said, "because you limit where you go."

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Don't Overlook Eating Issues Tied to Autism, Study Warns

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

SATURDAY, Feb. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Children with autism are five times more likely than other kids to have feeding issues, such as being especially picky eaters or having ritualistic behaviors or extreme tantrums during meals, new research finds.

These problems can lead to deficiencies in calcium, protein and other nutrients, according to the study, which was published online this month in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Healthy eating promotes a child's growth and development, and mealtimes provide important opportunities for children to socialize, the researchers noted. Chronic feeding troubles increase a child's risk for problems such as malnutrition, poor growth, social difficulties and poor school performance.

The researchers added that there is growing evidence that feeding problems and dietary patterns among children with autism may put them at increased risk for long-term health problems such as poor bone growth, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

"The results of this study have broad implications for children with autism," study author William Sharp, an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said in a university news release.

"It not only highlights the importance of assessing mealtime concerns as part of routine health care screenings, but also suggests the need for greater focus on diet and nutrition in the autism community," added Sharp, who also is a behavioral pediatric psychologist in the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program at Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta.

Sharp said that despite the risk of long-term medical issues, feeding problems often are overlooked in relation to other areas of concern in the autism population.

"Our findings have immediate and important implications for the work of practitioners serving children and families with autism, who in the absence of such information may struggle to address parents' concerns, or, worse, may fill the void with alternative treatments that may be ill-conceived or even harmful to children and families," Sharp explained.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about autism.

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Autism Recovery Possible for Some, Study Suggests

Jan. 15, 2013 -- The idea that some children recover from autism remains controversial, but new research lends credibility to the notion.

The National Institutes of Health-funded study included children, teens, and young adults who received a diagnosis of autism early in life but moved off the autism spectrum as they grew older.

In earlier work, longtime autism researcher Deborah Fein, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Connecticut concluded that as many as 1 in 5 kids on the autism spectrum can recover to the point where they are no longer considered autistic.

But skeptics have claimed that the children the researchers identified as "optimal outcome" -- a phrase Fein prefers to "recovered" -- were simply misdiagnosed or had a very mild form of autism early in life.

To address this criticism, Fein and colleagues had an expert in the diagnosis of autism review the early diagnostic reports of 34 people with a prior diagnosis of autism, along with those of 44 people with high-functioning autism, and 34 people who had never received a diagnosis of autism.

But the autism diagnosis was deleted from the reports along with any information that would give the diagnosis away, Fein says. And the reviewer had no knowledge of the current status of the children and young adults in the study.

She says the reviewer identified all 34 of the optimal-outcome participants as originally autistic, based on their early diagnostic records, and all 34 of the typically developing participants as non-autistic.

Compared to those in the high-functioning autism group, those in the optimal-outcome group did show fewer social deficits in early childhood, but they were just as likely to have problems communicating and just as likely to engage in repetitive behaviors -- two characteristic early signs of autism.

When the researchers examined the current status of the optimal-outcome participants, who ranged from 8 to 21 years old, they exhibited none of the typical signs of autism, including problems with language, face recognition, communication, and social interaction.

The study appears today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Lisa Gilotty, PhD, of the National Institute of Mental Health, says it is increasingly clear that some autistic children do eventually move off the autism spectrum.

“We don’t yet know what percentage of children are capable of doing this, what interventions play a role, or if there is a biological reason for this,” she says.

Fein is a big proponent of very early intensive behavioral therapy, and she says kids who recover are more likely than those who don’t to have had a behavioral therapy known as applied behavioral analysis.

Karen Siff Exkorn began the therapy with her son Jake immediately after he was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2.

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