MUTUAL INFORMATION BASED FEATURE SELECTION FOR ACOUSTIC AUTISM DIAGNOSIS Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) are known to affect children’s social interactions and mental development. Prosodic and linguistic cues can be used to diagnose the disorders at early ages. Computational paralinguistics can be applied for tele-monitoring and/or educating the children with PDD. For better understandi...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of pervasive developmental disorders has increased in recent years. Links with the measles component of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and the cumulative exposure to thimerosal through other vaccines have been postulated. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this work was to estimate the pervasive developmental disorder prevalence in Montreal, Canada, in cohorts born from 19...

OBJECTIVES To examine various pre-, peri-, and neonatal factors in autistic participants and in pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) participants and to compare the incidence of each factor to that of the normal population. METHODS Seventy-four participants (66 males, 8 females) were diagnosed with autism at 2.5 through 4 years of age using the most accurate and ...

Although stereotypy is one of the key diagnostic features of autism, few studies have compared stereotypic behavior in children with autism and typically developing children. The present study employed direct observational measurement methods to assess levels of stereotypic behavior in 2-, 3- and 4-year-old children with autism or pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified (PDD-...

He could fit in the palms of both hands, seemed to look at you beseechingly while you rushed to thread a vein and snake a tube down a tiny nostril of this 24 week preemie. Already exposed to the prenatal stress that culminated in premature delivery, he has been further exposed to the stress associated with the separation from his mother and multiple medical interventions. Like other premature b...

OBJECTIVE To summarize recent advances about the nature, diagnosis, and treatment of pervasive developmental disorders. METHOD Review of Medline databases, books, and book chapters published between July 1989 and November 1999. RESULTS Clinical and genetic studies support expansion of the concept of autism to include a broader spectrum of social communication handicaps. The prevalence of au...

Our understanding of childhood autism and the related pervasive developmental disorders continues to advance in many areas. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of phenotypic expression presents many challenges, not least to efforts to ascertain the prevalence of the disorders. There is now wide agreement on, and reliable application of, the diagnostic criteria for childhood autism, but there is les...

OBJECTIVE We examined whether the method of event-related (de-)synchronization (ERD/ERS) revealed differential effects of selective attention and working memory load in children (8-11 years) with pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHODS Fifteen healthy controls and three equally large groups of children wi...