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      The Thorn in the Dyad: A Vision on Parent-Child Relationship in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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          Abstract

          Parents and children form a family: their characteristics balance personal and family well-being with healthy levels of stress. Research on parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrated that higher levels of parental stress are associated with communication impairment, a core symptom of ASD. The aim of this article is to discuss the connection between non-verbal communication impairment and parental psychological distress, in families with children with ASD. The interaction between atypical communication and distress of parents likely determines a cascade effect on the parent-child dyad; in fact, it decreases the quality and frequency of interactions, preventing the establishment of a healthy parent-child relationship and leading to a series of collateral problems. To this perspective, guiding the parents to reframe their children’s atypical communicative behaviour can relieve parental stress and re-program the interactional routine. This observation stresses the importance of interventions centred on the dyad, especially during early development and soon after the diagnosis, when the communicative impairment may be extremely severe.

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          Most cited references74

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          A predisposition for biological motion in the newborn baby.

          An inborn predisposition to attend to biological motion has long been theorized, but had so far been demonstrated only in one animal species (the domestic chicken). In particular, no preference for biological motion was reported for human infants of <3 months of age. We tested 2-day-old babies' discrimination after familiarization and their spontaneous preferences for biological vs. nonbiological point-light animations. Newborns were shown to be able to discriminate between two different patterns of motion (Exp. 1) and, when first exposed to them, selectively preferred to look at the biological motion display (Exp. 2). This preference was also orientation-dependent: newborns looked longer at upright displays than upside-down displays (Exp. 3). These data support the hypothesis that detection of biological motion is an intrinsic capacity of the visual system, which is presumably part of an evolutionarily ancient and nonspecies-specific system predisposing animals to preferentially attend to other animals.
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            Attention to Eyes is Present But in Decline in 2–6 Month-Olds Later Diagnosed with Autism

            Deficits in eye contact have been a hallmark of autism 1,2 since the condition’s initial description 3 . They are cited widely as a diagnostic feature 4 and figure prominently in clinical instruments 5 ; however, the early onset of these deficits has not been known. Here we show in a prospective longitudinal study that infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit mean decline in eye fixation within the first 2 to 6 months of life, a pattern not observed in infants who do not develop ASD. These observations mark the earliest known indicators of social disability in infancy, but also falsify a prior hypothesis: in the first months of life, this basic mechanism of social adaptive action—eye looking—is not immediately diminished in infants later diagnosed with ASD; instead, eye looking appears to begin at normative levels prior to decline. The timing of decline highlights a narrow developmental window and reveals the early derailment of processes that would otherwise play a key role in canalizing typical social development. Finally, the observation of this decline in eye fixation—rather than outright absence—offers a promising opportunity for early intervention, one that could build on the apparent preservation of mechanisms subserving reflexive initial orientation towards the eyes.
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              Prevalence of disorders of the autism spectrum in a population cohort of children in South Thames: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP).

              Recent reports have suggested that the prevalence of autism and related spectrum disorders (ASDs) is substantially higher than previously recognised. We sought to quantify prevalence of ASDs in children in South Thames, UK. Within a total population cohort of 56 946 children aged 9-10 years, we screened all those with a current clinical diagnosis of ASD (n=255) or those judged to be at risk for being an undetected case (n=1515). A stratified subsample (n=255) received a comprehensive diagnostic assessment, including standardised clinical observation, and parent interview assessments of autistic symptoms, language, and intelligence quotient (IQ). Clinical consensus diagnoses of childhood autism and other ASDs were derived. We used a sample weighting procedure to estimate prevalence. The prevalence of childhood autism was 38.9 per 10,000 (95% CI 29.9-47.8) and that of other ASDs was 77.2 per 10,000 (52.1-102.3), making the total prevalence of all ASDs 116.1 per 10,000 (90.4-141.8). A narrower definition of childhood autism, which combined clinical consensus with instrument criteria for past and current presentation, provided a prevalence of 24.8 per 10,000 (17.6-32.0). The rate of previous local identification was lowest for children of less educated parents. Prevalence of autism and related ASDs is substantially greater than previously recognised. Whether the increase is due to better ascertainment, broadening diagnostic criteria, or increased incidence is unclear. Services in health, education, and social care will need to recognise the needs of children with some form of ASD, who constitute 1% of the child population.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                EJOP
                Eur J Psychol
                Europe's Journal of Psychology
                Eur. J. Psychol.
                PsychOpen
                1841-0413
                31 August 2018
                2018
                : 14
                : 3
                : 695-709
                Affiliations
                [a ]Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento , Rovereto, Italy
                [b ]Department of Brain and Behavioral Science, University of Pavia , Pavia, Italy
                [3]Department of Psychology, Webster University Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
                [4]University of South Wales, Newport, United Kingdom
                Author notes
                [* ]Laboratorio di Osservazione, Diagnosi e Formazione, Via Matteo del Ben, 5B, 38068 Rovereto, Italy. teresa.delbianco@ 123456unitn.it
                Article
                ejop.v14i3.1453
                10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453
                6143990
                5aa5d1cc-52dd-46fa-b58a-2e5942259361
                Copyright @ 2018

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 04 May 2017
                : 18 March 2018
                Categories
                Theoretical Contributions

                Psychology
                Autism Spectrum Disorder,parent-child relationship,intervention,parental stress,non-verbal communication

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