Sex-Related Measurement Bias in Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptoms in the Baby Siblings Research Consortium.

Importance: Disparities exist in age of diagnosis and prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for female compared with male children. Correcting for sources of bias is critical for improving equitable ASD identification.

Objective: To determine whether sex differences exist in measurement of ASD symptoms using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) among young children at high familial likelihood (HFL) and low familial likelihood (LFL) of ASD.

Mitigating sex-related biases to elucidate the autism phenotype.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is commonly considered a male-dominant condition, with epidemiological estimates finding that approximately 3-4 males are diagnosed for every female. An overwhelming majority of studies used to establish this sex ratio were conducted with participants ascertained based on having first met clinical criteria, which may obscure qualitative differences between males and females, and omits females who do not meet male-biased criteria. Our recently published data, which used a prospectively-identified sample of children at high-familial likelihood for ASD, corrected for sex-based measurement bias, and used data-driven groupings of behavior over time, were well-suited to address this issue and suggest the male-to-female ratio of autism-related concerns is closer to 1:1.

Brain Morphometry in Infants Later Diagnosed With Autism is Related to Later Language Skills.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) presents early in life with distinct social and language differences. This study explores the association between infant brain morphometry and language abilities using an infant-sibling design. Participants included infants who had an older sibling with autism (high likelihood, HL) who were later diagnosed with autism (HL-ASD; n = 31) and two non-autistic control groups: HL-Neg (HL infants not diagnosed with autism; n = 126) and LL-Neg (typically developing infants who did not have an older sibling with autism; n = 77).

Functional connectivity between the visual and salience networks and autistic social features at school-age.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly heritable and phenotypically variable. Neuroimaging markers reflecting variation in behavior will provide insights into circuitry subserving core features. We examined functional correlates of ASD symptomology at school-age, while accounting for associated behavioral and cognitive domains, in a longitudinal sample followed from infancy and enriched for those with a genetic liability for ASD.

Adaptive Functioning Development in Infants With Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum.

Background And Objectives: Agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) is a common congenital brain malformation. Early development in ACC remains unexamined, despite the increased likelihood for developmental delays and autistic behaviors. This study compares adaptive functioning in infants/toddlers with isolated ACC to children with other neurodevelopmental conditions and typical development.

Parent attitudes towards predictive testing for autism in the first year of life.

Background: Emerging biomarker technologies (e.g., MRI, EEG, digital phenotyping, eye-tracking) have potential to move the identification of autism into the first year of life.

Atypical functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual, salience regions in infants with genetic liability for autism.

The amygdala undergoes a period of overgrowth in the first year of life, resulting in enlarged volume by 12 months in infants later diagnosed with ASD. The overgrowth of the amygdala may have functional consequences during infancy. We investigated whether amygdala connectivity differs in 12-month-olds at high likelihood (HL) for ASD (defined by having an older sibling with autism), compared to those at low likelihood (LL).

Associations between early trajectories of amygdala development and later school-age anxiety in two longitudinal samples.

Amygdala function is implicated in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and anxiety. We investigated associations between early trajectories of amygdala growth and anxiety and ASD outcomes at school age in two longitudinal studies: high- and low-familial likelihood for ASD, Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS, n = 257) and typically developing (TD) community sample, Early Brain Development Study (EBDS, n = 158). Infants underwent MRI scanning at up to 3 timepoints from neonate to 24 months.

Why are only some children with autism spectrum disorder misclassified by the social communication questionnaire? An empirical investigation of individual differences in sensitivity and specificity in a clinic-referred sample.

Background: The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) is a checklist for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly used in research and clinical practice. While the original validation study suggested that the SCQ was an accurate ASD screener with satisfactory sensitivity and specificity, subsequent studies have yielded mixed results, with some revealing low sensitivity, low specificity, and low utility in some settings.

Method: The present study examined the psychometric properties of the SCQ as well as the individual difference characteristics of 187 individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who were misclassified or accurately classified by the SCQ in a clinic-referred sample.

Encouraging a Peer in Need: The Impacts of Social Anxiety and Peer Familiarity.

Extant research has produced conflicting findings regarding the link between social fearfulness and prosocial behavior, with some studies reporting negative relations and others reporting null effects. Furthermore, these studies have focused predominantly on toddlerhood, and few have examined prosociality between peers. The present study investigated whether the link between social anxiety and a prosocial behavior (i.

Association of Sex With Neurobehavioral Markers of Executive Function in 2-Year-Olds at High and Low Likelihood of Autism.

Importance: Children with autism and their siblings exhibit executive function (EF) deficits early in development, but associations between EF and biological sex or early brain alterations in this population are largely unexplored.

Objective: To investigate the interaction of sex, autism likelihood group, and structural magnetic resonance imaging alterations on EF in 2-year-old children at high familial likelihood (HL) and low familial likelihood (LL) of autism, based on having an older sibling with autism or no family history of autism in first-degree relatives.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective cohort study assessed 165 toddlers at HL (n = 110) and LL (n = 55) of autism at 4 university-based research centers.

Corrigendum: Bias in measurement of autism symptoms by spoken language level and non-verbal mental age in minimally verbal children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.

Quantifying latent social motivation and its associations with joint attention and language in infants at high and low likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.

Social motivation-the psychobiological predisposition for social orienting, seeking social contact, and maintaining social interaction-manifests in early infancy and is hypothesized to be foundational for social communication development in typical and atypical populations. However, the lack of infant social-motivation measures has hindered delineation of associations between infant social motivation, other early-arising social abilities such as joint attention, and language outcomes. To investigate how infant social motivation contributes to joint attention and language, this study utilizes a mixed longitudinal sample of 741 infants at high (HL = 515) and low (LL = 226) likelihood for ASD.

Social motivation in infancy is associated with familial recurrence of ASD.

Pre-diagnostic deficits in social motivation are hypothesized to contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heritable neurodevelopmental condition. We evaluated psychometric properties of a social motivation index (SMI) using parent-report item-level data from 597 participants in a prospective cohort of infant siblings at high and low familial risk for ASD. We tested whether lower SMI scores at 6, 12, and 24 months were associated with a 24-month ASD diagnosis and whether social motivation's course differed relative to familial ASD liability.

A Data-Driven Approach in an Unbiased Sample Reveals Equivalent Sex Ratio of Autism Spectrum Disorder-Associated Impairment in Early Childhood.

Background: Sex differences in the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders are particularly evident in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Heterogeneous symptom presentation and the potential of measurement bias hinder early ASD detection in females and may contribute to discrepant prevalence estimates. We examined trajectories of social communication (SC) and restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in a sample of infant siblings of children with ASD, adjusting for age- and sex-based measurement bias.

Subcortical Brain Development in Autism and Fragile X Syndrome: Evidence for Dynamic, Age- and Disorder-Specific Trajectories in Infancy.

Objective: Previous research has demonstrated that the amygdala is enlarged in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the precise onset of this enlargement during infancy, how it relates to later diagnostic behaviors, whether the timing of enlargement in infancy is specific to the amygdala, and whether it is specific to ASD (or present in other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as fragile X syndrome) are all unknown.

Methods: Longitudinal MRIs were acquired at 6-24 months of age in 29 infants with fragile X syndrome, 58 infants at high likelihood for ASD who were later diagnosed with ASD, 212 high-likelihood infants not diagnosed with ASD, and 109 control infants (1,099 total scans).

Are early social communication skills a harbinger for language development in infants later diagnosed autistic?-A longitudinal study using a standardized social communication assessment.

The early emergence of social communication challenges and their impact on language in infants later diagnosed with autism has sparked many early intervention programs that target social communication skills. While research has consistently shown lower scores on social communication assessments in the first year of life, there is limited research at 12-months exploring associations between different dimensions of social communication and later language. Understanding associations between early social communication skills and language would enhance our ability to choose high priority intervention goals that will impact downstream language skills.

Longitudinal Prediction of Infant MR Images With Multi-Contrast Perceptual Adversarial Learning.

The infant brain undergoes a remarkable period of neural development that is crucial for the development of cognitive and behavioral capacities (Hasegawa et al., 2018). Longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to characterize the developmental trajectories and is critical in neuroimaging studies of early brain development.

Cataloguing and characterizing interests in typically developing toddlers and toddlers who develop ASD.

Intense interests are common in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and little research has characterized aspects of interests that are unique to or shared among children with and without ASD. We aimed to characterize interests in a sample of infants at high-familial-risk (HR) and low-familial-risk (LR) for ASD using a novel interview. Participants included HR siblings who were diagnosed with ASD at 24 months (HR-ASD, n = 56), HR siblings who did not receive an ASD diagnosis at 24 months (HR-Neg, n = 187), and a LR comparison group (n = 109).

Towards a Data-Driven Approach to Screen for Autism Risk at 12 Months of Age.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a classifier for infants at 12 months of age based on a parent-report measure (the First Year Inventory 2.0 [FYI]), for the following reasons: (1) to classify infants at elevated risk, above and beyond that attributable to familial risk status for ASD; and (2) to serve as a starting point to refine an approach for risk estimation in population samples.

Method: A total of 54 high-familial risk (HR) infants later diagnosed with ASD (HR-ASD), 183 HR infants not diagnosed with ASD at 24 months of age (HR-Neg), and 72 low-risk controls participated in the study.

Neural Responses to a Putative Set-shifting Task in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

While much progress has been made toward understanding the neurobiology of social and communication deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), less is known regarding the neurobiological basis of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) central to the ASD diagnosis. Symptom severity for RRBs in ASD is associated with cognitive inflexibility. Thus, understanding the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive inflexibility in ASD is critical for tailoring therapies to treat this understudied yet pervasive symptom.

Quantitative trait variation in ASD probands and toddler sibling outcomes at 24 months.

Background: Younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at increased likelihood of receiving an ASD diagnosis and exhibiting other developmental concerns. It is unknown how quantitative variation in ASD traits and broader developmental domains in older siblings with ASD (probands) may inform outcomes in their younger siblings.

Methods: Participants included 385 pairs of toddler siblings and probands from the Infant Brain Imaging Study.

Parsing Heterogeneity in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder with Individual Connectome Mapping.

Traditional diagnostic systems for neurodevelopmental disorders define diagnostic categories that are heterogeneous in behavior and underlying neurobiological alterations. The goal of this study was to parse heterogeneity in a core executive function (EF), cognitive flexibility, in children with a range of abilities ( = 132; children with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], and typically developing children) using directed functional connectivity profiles derived from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Brain regions activated in response to a cognitive flexibility task in adults were used to guide region-of-interest selection to estimate individual connectivity profiles in this study.