Autism spectrum symptoms in children with neurological disorders

Abstract

BackgroundThe aims of the present study were to assess symptoms associated with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children with neurological disorders as reported by parents and teachers on the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ), as well as the level of agreement between informants for each child.MethodsThe ASSQ was completed by parents and teachers of the 5781 children (11–13 years) who participated in the second wave of the Bergen Child Study (BCS), an on-going longitudinal population-based study. Out of these children, 496 were reported to have a chronic illness, including 99 whom had a neurological disorder. The neurological disorder group included children both with and without intellectual disabilities.ResultsChildren with neurological disorders obtained significantly higher parent and teacher reported ASSQ scores than did non-chronically ill children and those with other chronic illnesses (p<.01; ES = .50-1.01), and 14.1% were screened above the positive cutoff score for ASD according to their combined parent and teacher ASSQ scores. Parent/teacher agreement over ASSQ scores for children with neurological disorders was moderate to high for the total score and for three sub scores generated from a factor analysis, and low to moderate for single items.ConclusionsThe ASSQ identifies a high rate of ASD symptoms in children with neurological disorders, and a large number of children screened in the positive range for ASD. Although a firm conclusion awaits further clinical studies, the present results suggest that health care professionals should be aware of potential ASD related problems in children with neurological disorders, and should consider inclusion of the ASSQ or similar screening instruments as part of their routine assessment of this group of children.

Caregiver-Teacher Concordance of Challenging Behaviors in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Served in Community Mental Health Settings

“…Detailed analysis of response patterns indicates that parents tend to endorse more polar ratings (i.e. present or absent) while teachers tend to rate skills as developing or use more moderate categories (Ryland et al 2012; Voelker et al 2000). These differences in response patterns may be strongly influenced by the contextual variation between informants (De Los Reyes et al 2015).…”

Mental Health in Children Born Extremely Preterm Without Severe Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

“…[13][14][15] Such disabilities are strongly associated with mental health problems irrespective of being born premature. [16][17][18][19] Assessment of mental health in children with severe NDDs, such as intellectual disability (ID) (IQ <70), requires appropriately validated tools, 18,20,21 but most EP/ELBW studies have included children with severe NDDs without using instruments validated for this subgroup. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][22][23][24] In subanalyses, some studies have found increased risk of mental health problems in EP/ELBW children without severe NDDs, but frequencies and effect sizes were not reported.…”

Social Stories in mainstream schools for children with autism spectrum disorder: a feasibility randomised controlled trial

“…This is consistent with the findings of previous studies in the area. 30 31 However, the feasibility of collecting questionnaires from child participants was questionable due to low response rates and parent reports of low validity. Two outcome measures, the SRS-2 22 and the custom-made goal-based measure, showed high levels of completion rates (for teachers), good face validity and a trend in the desired direction indicating that they would be suitable for use as primary outcome measures in a full scale trial.…”