The purpose of this study was to assess the cognitive skills of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) thought to be necessary for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Forty children with ASD and forty age-matched typically developing children between the ages of 7–12 years participated. Groups were comparable with regard to nonverbal IQ, but children with ASD had significantly lower verbal IQ. Children completed three CBT-related tasks requiring emotion recognition, discrimination among thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and cognitive mediation. With the exception of the emotion recognition task, children with ASD performed comparably to typically developing children and with a high rate of accuracy.

This study examined the potential of 11 interoceptive exposure exercises to produce depersonalization and derealization among high anxiety-sensitive undergraduate students. Inspired by a February 2007 thread on the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies listserv, we identified nine exercises and compared their capacity to produce depersonalization and derealization with two previously validated tasks: mirror and dot staring. Results indicated that five exercises, including hyperventilation (1 minute), hyperventilation (5 minutes), hyperventilation plus spiral staring, hyperventilation plus strobe light, and strobe light alone, were superior to either mirror or dot staring at inducing depersonalization or derealization. If replicated in a clinical sample, our findings may be used to assist clinicians seeking to evoke these states via interoceptive exposure.

Background-Adults with intellectual disability (ID) experience a high prevalence of depression. Yet, little research has investigated interpersonal processes related to depression in this population.In the general population, depressed persons behave in ways that elicit negative and rejecting reactions from others. In particular, excessive reassurance seeking, defined as excessively and persistently seeking assurance from others that one is lovable and worthy, indirectly contributes to depressive symptoms through evoking negative and rejecting social interactions. We examined the relation between excessive reassurance seeking, negative and rejecting social interactions and depression in adults with mild ID.