Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) also known as pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) are a behaviorally defined group of neurodevelopmental disorders that are usually diagnosed in early childhood. ASDs disproportionately affect male children. Mercury (Hg) a heavy metal, is widespread and persistent in the environment. Mercury is a ubiquitous source of danger in fish, drugs, fungicides/herbici...

Autism and related developmental disorders, once rare, are now becoming a common problem in Western countries. Although frequently catastrophic in their effects, the current crisis has come up against a “duck and cover” mentality from many a dusty corner of conventional medical wisdom. Classification of these disorders is symptomatic and owes little to etiologic or pathogenetic considerations. ...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the effectiveness of using a weighted vest for increasing attention to a fine motor task and decreasing self-stimulatory behaviors in preschool children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). METHOD Using an ABA single-subject design, the duration of attention to task and self-stimulatory behaviors and the number of distractions were measured in five presc...

BACKGROUND Recently changed guidelines for child health surveillance in the United Kingdom (U.K.) suggest targeted checks only, instead of the previously conducted routine or universal screening at 2 years and 3.5 years. There are concerns that these changes could lead to a delay in the detection of children with autism and other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). Recent U.K. studies have...

BACKGROUND Despite extensive research, it is still debated whether impairments in social skills of individuals with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) are related to specific deficits in the early processing of emotional information. We aimed to test both automatic processing of facial affect as well as the integration of auditory and visual emotion cues in individuals with PDD. METHODS I...

The focus of this study is using data glove to practice Joint attention skill in virtual reality environment for people with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). The virtual reality environment provides a safe environment for PDD people. Especially, when they made errors during practice in virtual reality environment, there is no suffering or dangerous consequences to deal with. Joint attent...

BACKGROUND Urinary metabolite measurements are often normalized to levels of the ubiquitous metabolite creatinine (CRT) to take account of variations in fluid export. Following CRT normalization, excesses of porphyrins and isoprostanes have been reported in the urines of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. It was suggested (Whiteley et al., 2006, Pediatr. Int. 2006; 48: 292-297) that ur...