The gap between IQ and adaptive functioning in autism spectrum disorder: Disentangling diagnostic and sex differences

Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132199562
Author(s):  
Goldie A McQuaid ◽  
Kevin A Pelphrey ◽  
Susan Y Bookheimer ◽  
Mirella Dapretto ◽  
Sara J Webb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Daily Living ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Intellectual Ability ◽  
Adaptive Skills ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Socialization Skills

Adaptive functioning, or the suite of skills essential for real-world, day-to-day functioning, includes daily living, communication, and socialization abilities. Even in the absence of co-occurring intellectual disability (IQ < 70), difficulties in adaptive functioning are prominent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Further, ASD individuals without co-occurring intellectual disability (ID) demonstrate a gap between IQ and adaptive functioning, which widens with age. Existing studies of IQ-adaptive functioning discrepancies have characterized predominantly male ASD samples; thus, whether the gap is demonstrated in ASD females is unknown. To probe sex- versus diagnosis-specific differences in adaptive functioning in ASD, we characterized adaptive functioning using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition in 177 non-ID (IQ > 70) ASD (females = 75, males = 102), and 178 typically developing (TD) (females = 87, males = 91) youth, aged 8–17 years. We examined whether each group evidenced a gap between full-scale IQ and adaptive skills and its associations with age. ASD youth evinced significantly lower adaptive skills and a significantly greater IQ-adaptive functioning gap than their same-sex TD peers. In this cross-sectional sample, the increase in the IQ-adaptive functioning gap with age was of similar magnitude for ASD males and females, but only reached statistical significance in males. We discuss unique implications the profound IQ-socialization skills gap in particular may have for ASD females. Lay abstract Adaptive functioning refers to skills that are vital to success in day-to-day life, including daily living (e.g. grocery shopping, food preparation, transportation use), communication (e.g. verbal expression of needs), and socialization skills (e.g. interpersonal skills, including expressing and recognizing emotions, and understanding turn-taking in conversation). Among autistic individuals without intellectual disability, adaptive functioning is not commensurate with intellectual ability (IQ), and instead a gap exists between these individuals’ intellectual ability and their adaptive skills. Further, these autistic individuals show a widening of this gap with increasing age. Existing studies of the gap between IQ and adaptive functioning have studied predominantly male samples. Thus, we do not know if the gap also exists in autistic females. We therefore looked at adaptive functioning and the gap between IQ and adaptive functioning in a large sample of autistic girls and boys without intellectual disability. To disentangle effects of group (autistic vs typically developing) from effects of sex (girls vs boys), we compared autistic girls and boys to one another as well as to their same-sex typically developing peers. Analyses took into consideration differences in IQ between autistic and typically developing youth. We found autistic girls, like autistic boys, show lower adaptive functioning than their same-sex typically developing peers. Results underscore the need to evaluate adaptive functioning in autistic individuals without intellectual disability and to provide necessary supports. The large gap between intellectual ability and socialization skills, in particular, may be of critical importance in improving our understanding of outcomes and mental health difficulties among autistic females.

scholarly journals The Impact of COVID-19 on the Adaptive Functioning, Behavioral Problems, and Repetitive Behaviors of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Observational Study

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Martina Siracusano ◽  
Eugenia Segatori ◽  
Assia Riccioni ◽  
Leonardo Emberti Gialloreti ◽  
Paolo Curatolo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Adaptive Skills ◽  
The Impact

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families have represented a fragile population on which the extreme circumstances of the COVID-19 outbreak may have doubly impaired. Interruption of therapeutical interventions delivered in-person and routine disruption constituted some of the main challenges they had to face. This study investigated the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on adaptive functioning, behavioral problems, and repetitive behaviors of children with ASD. In a sample of 85 Italian ASD children (mean age 7 years old; 68 males, 17 females), through a comparison with a baseline evaluation performed during the months preceding COVID-19, we evaluated whether after the compulsory home confinement any improvement or worsening was reported by parents of ASD individuals using standardized instruments (Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (Second Edition), Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist, Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised). No significant worsening in the adaptive functioning, problematic, and repetitive behaviors emerged after the compulsory home confinement. Within the schooler children, clinical stability was found in reference to both adaptive skills and behavioral aspects, whereas within preschoolers, a significant improvement in adaptive skills emerged and was related to the subsistence of web-delivered intervention, parental work continuance, and online support during the lockdown.

Neurobiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Costales ◽  
Silvia De Rubeis ◽  
Jennifer Foss-Feig ◽  
Patrick R. Hof ◽  
Joseph D. Buxbaum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Emerging Themes ◽  
Integrate Data

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is defined by impairments in social communication, along with the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors. Approximately half of affected children also suffer from intellectual disability (ID), which is defined by cognitive and adaptive functioning at least two standard deviations below the mean (e.g., standard scores <70). It is now well established that genetic factors are major contributors to both ASD and ID. The following chapter will outline emerging themes and integrate data from human and animal studies using genetic, imaging, and histopathological methods. Emerging findings from studies of the immune system and the microbiome will also be briefly reviewed.

scholarly journals Accounting for motion in fMRI: What part of the spectrum are we characterizing in autism spectrum disorder?

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Nebel ◽  
Daniel Lidstone ◽  
Liwei Wang ◽  
David Benkeser ◽  
Stewart H Mostofsky ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Intellectual Ability ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
The Impact

The exclusion of high-motion participants can reduce the impact of motion in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. However, the exclusion of high-motion participants may change the distribution of clinically relevant variables in the study sample, and the resulting sample may not be representative of the population. Our goals are two-fold: 1) to document the biases introduced by common motion exclusion practices in functional connectivity research and 2) to introduce a framework to address these biases by treating excluded scans as a missing data problem. We use a study of autism spectrum disorder to illustrate the problem and the potential solution. We aggregated data from 545 children (8-13 years old) who participated in resting-state fMRI studies at Kennedy Krieger Institute (173 autistic and 372 typically developing) between 2007 and 2020. We found that autistic children were more likely to be excluded than typically developing children, with 29.1% and 16.1% of autistic and typically developing children excluded, respectively, using a lenient criterion and 80.8% and 59.8% with a stricter criterion. The resulting sample of autistic children with usable data tended to be older, have milder social deficits, better motor control, and higher intellectual ability than the original sample. These measures were also related to functional connectivity strength among children with usable data. This suggests that the generalizability of previous studies reporting naïve analyses (i.e., based only on participants with usable data) may be limited by the selection of older children with less severe clinical profiles because these children are better able to remain still during an rs-fMRI scan. We adapt doubly robust targeted minimum loss based estimation with an ensemble of machine learning algorithms to address these data losses and the resulting biases. The proposed approach selects more edges that differ in functional connectivity between autistic and typically developing children than the naïve approach, supporting this as a promising solution to improve the study of heterogeneous populations in which motion is common.

scholarly journals The impact of COVID-19 on the adaptive functioning of Italian children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: role of the online intervention.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siracusano Martina ◽  
Segatori Eugenia ◽  
Riccioni Assia ◽  
Gialloreti Emberti Leonardo ◽  
Curatolo Paolo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Adaptive Skills ◽  
Baseline Evaluation ◽  
Parental Work ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This study investigated the impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on the adaptive functioning, problematic and repetitive behaviors of an Italian sample of preschoolers and schoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We evaluated whether after the compulsory home confinement, in comparison to a baseline evaluation performed during the months preceding COVID-19, any improvement or worsening was reported by parents of ASD individuals using standardized instruments.No significant worsening in the areas explored emerged after the lockdown. Within the older participants, a clinical stability was found concerning both adaptive skills and behavioral aspects. Whereas, within preschoolers a significant improvement in adaptive skills emerged and was related to the subsistence of web delivered intervention, parental work persistency and online support during lockdown.

scholarly journals The impact of atypical sensory processing on adaptive functioning within and beyond autism: The role of familial factors

Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132110198
Author(s):  
Janina Neufeld ◽  
Lisa Hederos Eriksson ◽  
Richard Hammarsten ◽  
Karl Lundin Remnélius ◽  
Julian Tillmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Sensation Seeking ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Adaptive Skills ◽  
Sensory Sensitivity ◽  
Familial Factors ◽  
Increased Sensitivity

Atypical sensory processing is prevalent across neurodevelopmental conditions and a key diagnostic criterion of autism spectrum disorder. It may have cascading effects on the development of adaptive functions. However, its unique contribution to adaptive functioning and the genetic/environmental influences on this link are unclear. In a clinically enriched twin sample ( n = 289, 60 diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder), we investigated the associations between the quadrants of the Adult/Adolescent Sensory Profile (low registration, sensory sensitivity, sensation seeking, and sensation avoiding) and adaptive functioning. Associations were modeled across the cohort accounting for the effects of clinical diagnosis, IQ, sex and age, and within-twin pairs, additionally implicitly adjusting for familial factors. Furthermore, we explored interaction effects between atypical sensory processing and autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Sensory sensitivity and sensation avoiding were associated with reduced adaptive functioning across individuals, but not within-twin pairs. An interaction effect was found between sensation seeking and autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, showing a negative association between sensation seeking and adaptive functioning only in individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The results suggest that atypical sensory processing is associated with reduced adaptive functioning and that familial factors influence this link. In addition, sensation seeking behaviors might interfere with adaptive functioning specifically in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Lay abstract Individuals diagnosed with autism tend to process sensory information differently than individuals without autism, resulting for instance in increased sensitivity to sounds or smells. This leads to challenges in everyday life and may restrict the individual’s daily functioning. How direct this link is, however, is currently unclear. We investigated this question in 289 twins of whom 60 were diagnosed with autism and further 61 were diagnosed with other neurodevelopmental disorders. We looked at the association between unusual sensory processing and adaptive skills, both across individuals and within-twin pairs, testing whether individuals with higher levels of atypical sensory processing showed reduced adaptive skills compared to their twins. Since twins share 50%–100% of their genes and part of their environment (e.g. family background), associations within-twin pairs are free from effects of these familial factors. We found that an increased sensitivity to, as well as the avoiding of, sensory input (hyper-responsiveness) was linked to reduced adaptive skills across individuals—but not within-twin pairs. We also found an association between the degree to which individuals seek for sensory input (sensation seeking) and reduced adaptive skills, but only in individuals diagnosed with autism. The results suggest that sensory hyper-responsiveness has negative effects on individuals’ general ability to function, but that this link is influenced by familial factors and hence not direct. In addition, sensation seeking behaviors might have a negative impact on adaptive skills specifically in autistic individuals.

scholarly journals Sex Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Repetitive Behaviors and Adaptive Functioning

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 325
Author(s):  
Martina Siracusano ◽  
Valentina Postorino ◽  
Assia Riccioni ◽  
Leonardo Emberti Gialloreti ◽  
Monica Terribili ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Adaptive Skills

Sex differences in restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been explored with mixed findings. We aimed to investigate sex differences in RRBs through a specific measure—i.e., the Repetitive Behavior Scale Revised (RBS-R)—in a sample of preschool-age and school-age children with ASD. Additionally, we evaluated if RRBs were differently related to adaptive functioning within the male and the female age groups. A sample of 210 ASD individuals (3–18 years; 145 males, 65 females) underwent an in-depth assessment including a cognitive, adaptive functioning evaluation (i.e., the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, Second Edition (ABAS-II)) and RRBs assessment (i.e., RBS-R). No significant sex differences on the RBS-R total score or any RBS-R subscale emerged. Within the group of older participants, RRBs were negatively associated with all adaptive skill domains independently from sex and age. Our results suggest a lack of sex differences in RRBs in our sample. Additionally, our findings highlight the possible negative impact of RRBs on adaptive skills in older individuals with autism, emphasizing the need for autistic individuals of both sexes to undergo an early intervention targeting RRBs, in order to improve their adaptive skills.

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