As a recent college graduate with my bachelor's and master's degrees completed within the last 2 years, I am currently in my first full year of teaching. My first experience working with a twice-exceptional student was during my college practicum, and it was that student who changed my whole outlook on teaching.

Depression is a common concern among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is often associated with social skills and relationship challenges. The present data, from a randomized controlled trial, examined the effect of PEERS® on self-reported depressive symptoms via the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) among 49 adolescents with ASD.…

Studies have shown an increase of symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in gender dysphoria (GD). Various hypotheses try to explain this possible co-occurrence (e.g., a role of resistance to change, stereotyped behaviors or prenatal testosterone exposure). This study examined ASD symptoms with the Children's Social Behavior Questionnaire…

Missouri did not expand Medicaid, leaving about 500,000 Missourians without health insurance. To address community needs and provide additional social work training opportunities, a free integrated behavioral health clinic was established. This article discusses the need, describes the clinic, and presents 1-year evaluation results. Sixty-nine…

Objective: Treatment of older adults in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) with comorbid mood disorders presents many challenges. The goal of this randomized controlled trial was to assess the combined effect of problem-solving therapy (PST) with treatment as usual (TAU) compared to TAU alone on decreasing depressive symptoms in opioid-addicted…

Reinforcing best practice techniques, the second edition of this specialist guide for the assessment of learners with dyslexic-type difficulties includes: (1) a new chapter on The Implications of Co-existing Specific Learning Difficulties; (2) updates to legislation including the SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disabilities] Code of Practice;…

Extant literature suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are risk factors for internet addiction (IA). The present cross-sectional study explored the prevalence of IA among 132 adolescents with ASD and/or ADHD in a Japanese psychiatric clinic using Young's Internet Addiction Test. The…

US surveys report higher prevalence of obesity in adults with intellectual disability. Health records of 40 adults with intellectual disability were retrospectively reviewed for data on health status, problem lists with International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes, medication lists, and health encounters over 18 months. Mean age…

Preschoolers with elevated anxiety symptoms are at high risk not only of developing more severe mental health disorders in later life but are also apt to respond more poorly to intervention if they present with comorbid disruptive behavior. Because early signs of anxiety disorders may not be recognized as such in preschool settings, many children…

There is limited literature available on the comorbidity between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and substance use disorder (SUD). This paper reviews existing literature and exemplifies the challenges of treating this population with a case report of an adult male with ASD and DSM-5 alcohol use disorder. This review and case study seeks to…

This article presents results of a longitudinal study of receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills for a large portion of the student body at a residential school for the deaf across four consecutive years. Scores were analyzed by age, gender, parental hearing status, years attending the residential school, and presence of a disability (i.e.,…

We studied the association between specific congenital syndromes and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the large Finnish Register material. Our data include all children diagnosed with ASD (n = 4441) according to Finnish Hospital Discharge Register in 1987-2000. Four controls per each case were matched to sex, birthplace, date of birth (±30 days)…

The purpose of this study was threefold: to examine unique and shared risk factors of comorbidity for reading comprehension and word-problem solving difficulties, to explore whether language minority (LM) learners are at increased risk of what we refer to as "higher order comorbidity" (reading comprehension and word-problem solving…

High depression rates for adolescents with autism indicate a need for a comprehensive prevention approach. Parents can promote parent--child factors that buffer adolescents from depression. However, parenting adolescents with autism presents challenges which can diminish parental self-efficacy and mental wellbeing with potential negative sequelae…

Many males with FXS meet criteria for ASD. This study was designed to (1) describe ASD symptoms in adolescent and young adult males with FXS (n = 44) and (2) evaluate the contributions to ASD severity of cognitive, language, and psychiatric factors, as well as FMRP (the protein deficient in FXS). A few ASD symptoms on the ADOS-2 were universal in…