Children with autism demonstrate early deficits in joint attention and expressions of affect. Interventions to teach joint attention have addressed gaze behavior, gestures, and vocalizations, but have not specifically taught an expression of positive affect such as smiling that tends to occur during joint attention interactions. Intervention was…

This study aimed to investigate the psychopathology, marital relationship, and family function in parents of children with autistic disorder (autism) as compared to parents of typically developing children. We also compared these measures between the mothers and the fathers. We assessed 151 families with at least one child with autistic disorder…

The abilities to identify threat and learn about affect in facial photographs were compared between a non-autistic university student group (NUS), a matched Asperger's group (MAS) on the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), and an unmatched Asperger's group (UAS) who scored lower on the SPM. Participants were given pairs of faces and asked which…

Emotion regulation (ER) abilities and developmental differences were investigated among 19 children with autism and 18 children with 22q13 Deletion Syndrome (a rare chromosomal disorder with certain autistic symptoms). The purpose of this study was to examine the phenotypic similarities between the two disorders. ER was measured by the Temperament…

Previous studies have shown that most individuals with autism do not show empathic responding. The present study is an attempt to teach such skills. Script-fading procedures have been used to teach other social-interaction skills, so they are applied here to teach empathic responding. This study included three adolescents with autism, two males…

The present study examined the nature of benefit finding in 220 parents of a child with Asperger syndrome (AS) by developing and validating a multi-item Benefit Finding Scale for Parents of Children with AS (BFS-PCAS) and examining the relationships of benefit finding dimensions with positive and negative indicators of adjustment. Parents of…

One of the core issues in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is problematic social interaction, which for an important part is reflected by poor processing of emotional information. Typically, adults show specific viewing patterns while scanning positive and negative emotional expressions in faces. In this study, we investigated whether the same…

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disorder that affects language and social skills to varying degrees. While many studies have concentrated on examining patterns of behavior and development on the context of speaking and interacting, very few researchers have investigated the parameters of crying in infants with ASD. This finding is surprising…

The purpose of the study was to examine sensory modulation items on the Sensory Profile in individuals with autism as compared to community controls. The data for this study were collected as part of a cross-sectional study that examined sensory processing, using the Sensory Profile, in 103 individuals with autism and/or pervasive developmental…