ADHD-related symptoms and attention profiles in the unaffected siblings of probands with autism spectrum disorder: focus on the subtypes of autism and Asperger’s disorder

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The presence of attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) symptoms and impaired attention performance are commonly noted in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about attention performance in their unaffected siblings. This study aimed to investigate the ADHD-related traits and attention performance in unaffected siblings of probands with autism and Asperger syndrome (AS), as well as the clinical correlates of ADHD-related traits.

Methods

We assessed the intention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, and oppositional symptoms, and attention profiles of 199 probands with a diagnosis of ASD (122 autism, 77 AS), their unaffected siblings, and 196 typically developing controls (TD) by their parents’ reports on the ADHD-related symptoms and the Connors' Continuous Performance Test (CCPT), respectively.

Results

Compared to TD, unaffected siblings of ASD probands were more hyperactive/impulsive and oppositional, particularly unaffected siblings of AS probands. In CCPT, unaffected siblings of AS have intermediate levels of performance between probands with AS and TD on focused attention and sustained attention but were not statistically different from AS probands or TD in these attention profiles. In contrast, unaffected siblings of autism probands have significantly better CCPT performance when compared to autism probands but not to TD. In addition, stereotyped behaviors predicted ADHD-related traits in both sibling groups, but distinctive patterns of other correlates for ADHD-related traits were found between the two sibling groups.

Conclusions

This work suggested that unaffected siblings of AS, but not autism, have more hyperactive/impulsive traits and a trend of pervasive attention deficits assessed by CCPT which might serve as potential endophenotypes for genetic studies in AS.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01582256

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13229-017-0153-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Related collections

Most cited references 71

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study

A. Bailey, A Le Couteur, I. Gottesman … (1995)

0 comments Cited 253 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Clinical relevance of the primary findings of the MTA: success rates based on severity of ADHD and ODD symptoms at the end of treatment.

JAMES M. SWANSON, HELENA C. KRAEMER, STEPHEN P. HINSHAW … (2001)

To develop a categorical outcome measure related to clinical decisions and to perform secondary analyses to supplement the primary analyses of the NIMH Collaborative Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (MTA). End-of-treatment status was summarized by averaging the parent and teacher ratings of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms on the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham, version IV (SNAP-IV) scale, and low symptom-severity ("Just a Little") on this continuous measure was set as a clinical cutoff to form a categorical outcome measure reflecting successful treatment. Three orthogonal comparisons of the treatment groups (combined treatment [Comb], medication management [MedMgt], behavioral treatment [Beh], and community comparison [CC]) evaluated hypotheses about the MTA medication algorithm ("Comb + MedMgt versus Beh + CC"), multimodality superiority ("Comb versus MedMgt"), and psychosocial substitution ("Beh versus CC"). The summary of SNAP-IV ratings across sources and domains increased the precision of measurement by 30%. The secondary analyses of group differences in success rates (Comb = 68%; MedMgt = 56%; Beh = 34%; CC = 25%) confirmed the large effect of the MTA medication algorithm and a smaller effect of multimodality superiority, which was now statistically significant (p < .05). The psychosocial substitution effect remained negligible and nonsignificant. These secondary analyses confirm the primary findings and clarify clinical decisions about the choice between multimodal and unimodal treatment with medication.

0 comments Cited 225 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Shared heritability of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder

Nanda N J Rommelse, Barbara Franke, Hilde M Geurts … (2010)

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are both highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorders. Evidence indicates both disorders co-occur with a high frequency, in 20–50% of children with ADHD meeting criteria for ASD and in 30-80% of ASD children meeting criteria for ADHD. This review will provide an overview on all available studies [family based, twin, candidate gene, linkage, and genome wide association (GWA) studies] shedding light on the role of shared genetic underpinnings of ADHD and ASD. It is concluded that family and twin studies do provide support for the hypothesis that ADHD and ASD originate from partly similar familial/genetic factors. Only a few candidate gene studies, linkage studies and GWA studies have specifically addressed this co-occurrence, pinpointing to some promising pleiotropic genes, loci and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but the research field is in urgent need for better designed and powered studies to tackle this complex issue. We propose that future studies examining shared familial etiological factors for ADHD and ASD use a family-based design in which the same phenotypic (ADHD and ASD), candidate endophenotypic, and environmental measurements are obtained from all family members. Multivariate multi-level models are probably best suited for the statistical analysis.

0 comments Cited 193 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Yi-Ling Chien: ylchien@hotmail.com

Miao-Chun Chou: chuncat188@gmail.com

Yen-Nan Chiu: philipch@ntuh.gov.tw

Wen-Jiun Chou: wjchou@adm.cgmh.org.tw

Yu-Yu Wu: wuhou@yahoo.com

Wen-Che Tsai: tsaiwenc@ntu.edu.tw

Susan Shur-Fen Gau:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2718-8221

+886-2-2312 3456 , gaushufe@ntu.edu.tw

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Mol Autism

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Mol Autism

Title: Molecular Autism

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2040-2392

Publication date (Electronic): 25 July 2017

Publication date PMC-release: 25 July 2017

Publication date Collection: 2017

Volume: 8

Electronic Location Identifier: 37

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0572 7815, GRID grid.412094.a, Department of Psychiatry, , National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, ; No.7, Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei, 10002 Taiwan

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0546 0241, GRID grid.19188.39, Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, , National Taiwan University, ; Taipei, Taiwan

[3 ]GRID grid.145695.a, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical Center, , Chang Gung University College of Medicine, ; Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

[4 ]GRID grid.145695.a, Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital- Linkou Medical Center, , Chang Gung University College of Medicine, ; Taoyuan, Taiwan

Author information

Susan Shur-Fen Gau http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2718-8221

Article

Publisher ID: 153

DOI: 10.1186/s13229-017-0153-9

PMC ID: 5526322

PubMed ID: 28770037

SO-VID: 45177094-0f33-40da-86cb-61a80c17fd98

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 9 January 2017

Date accepted : 19 June 2017

Funding

Funded by: Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C.

Award ID: NSC96-3112-B-002-033; NSC97-3112-B-002-009; NSC98-3112-B-002-004; NSC 101-2314-B-002-136-MY3

Award ID: MOST102-2314-B-002-019

Award Recipient : Yi-Ling Chien Susan Shur-Fen Gau

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100006477, National Taiwan University;

Award ID: AIM for Top University Excellent Research Project 10R81918-03; 101R892103; 102R892103

Award Recipient : Susan Shur-Fen Gau

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005762, National Taiwan University Hospital;

Award ID: NTUH105-18

Award Recipient : Yi-Ling Chien

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurosciences

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder,sibling,attention,continuous performance test,endophenotype

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurosciences

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, sibling, attention, continuous performance test, endophenotype

ADHD-related symptoms and attention profiles in the unaffected siblings of probands with autism spectrum disorder: focus on the subtypes of autism and Asperger’s disorder

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Trial registration

Electronic supplementary material

Related collections

Communication Through Coherence

Most cited references 71

Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study

Clinical relevance of the primary findings of the MTA: success rates based on severity of ADHD and ODD symptoms at the end of treatment.

Shared heritability of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author information

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 141

Cited by 12

Most referenced authors 934