introduction: autism spectrum disorders (asd) belong to the pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders. the prevalence of asd has increased significantly throughout recent decades, bringing the overall estimated prevalence to 11.3 per 1000 children. asd is characterized by severe difficulties in reciprocal social interaction, stereotyped patterns of behavior and profound impairments in verbal and n...

BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorders are serious neurodevelopmental disorders that affect approximately 1% of the population. These disorders are substantially influenced by genetics. Several recent linkage analyses have examined copy number variations associated with autism risk. Microdeletion of the 2q13 region is considered a pathogenic copy number variation. This microdeletion is involved i...

facilitation during action observation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Curr. Biol. 15, R84–R85. 2 . Nishitani, N., Avikainen, S., and Hari, R. (2004). Abnormal imitation-related cortical activation sequences in Asperger’s syndrome. Ann. Neurol. 55, 558–5 2. 22. Dapretto, M., Davies, M.S., Pfeifer, J.H., Scott, A.A., Sigman, M., Bookheimer, S.Y., and Iacoboni, M. (200 ). Understand...

This review presents an overview of functional magnetic resonance imaging findings in autism spectrum disorders (ASDS), although there is considerable heterogeneity with respect to results across studies, common themes have emerged, including: (i) hypoactivation in nodes of the "social brain" during social processing tasks, including regions within the prefrontal cortex, the posterior superior ...

Abnormalities in the interactions between functionally linked brain regions have been suggested to be associated with the clinical impairments observed in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We investigated functional connectivity within the limbic system during face identification; a primary component of social cognition, in 19 high-functioning adults with ASD and 21 age-and IQ-matched control ad...

This study tested the efficacy of a new social skills intervention, S ocial S kills GR oup IN tervention-High Functioning Autism (S.S.GRIN-HFA), designed to improve social behaviors in children with high functioning autism spectrum disorders. Fifty-five children were randomly assigned to S.S.GRIN-HFA treatment (n = 27) or control (i.e., traditional S.S.GRIN intervention; n = 28). Examination of...

Abstract Backgrounds: When a child has a developmental disability, the parenthood stress can be onerous. Research on the parenting stress has addressed the parenting stress differences between children families with and without disabilities. The purpose of the current research was to examine the comparison of parenting related stress and depression symptoms in mothers of children recently diagn...