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Several reports suggest children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to be seen for injury-related ED visits; however, no nationally representative study has examined this question. Using data from the 2008 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, over a quarter of all visits among those with ASD were related to injury. In the multivariate analyses, the odds of an injury-related visit was 54 % greater among those with ASD compared to youth with intellectual disability (ID), but 48 % less compared to youth without ID or ASD. Compared to all other pediatric injury-visits in the US, visits among children with ASD were more likely to be due to self-inflicted injury and poisoning and were more likely to result in hospitalization (all p < 0.001)., Author(s): Luther G. Kalb[sup.1] [sup.2] , Roma A Vasa[sup.1] [sup.3] , Elizabeth D. Ballard[sup.4] , Steven Woods[sup.3] , Mitchell Goldstein[sup.5] , Holly C. Wilcox[sup.2] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) Center for [...]

Despite speculation about an 80% divorce rate among parents of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), very little empirical and no epidemiological research has addressed the issue of separation and divorce among this population. Data for this study was taken from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, a population-based, cross-sectional survey. A total of 77,911 parent interviews were completed on children aged 3-17 years, of which 913 reported an ASD diagnosis. After controlling for relevant covariates, results from multivariate analyses revealed no evidence to suggest that children with ASD are at an increased risk for living in a household not comprised of their two biological or adoptive parents compared to children without ASD in the United States. Keywords Autism * Pervasive developmental disorders * Family * Divorce * Marriage * National Survey, Given the recent rise in the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to almost 1% of the US population (Center for Disease Control 2009), media outlets have placed autism under [...]

The present study investigated differences among children with three different patterns of autism symptom onset: regression, plateau, and no loss and no plateau. Cross-sectional data were collected from parents of children aged 3-17 years with an autism spectrum disorder (n = 2,720) who were recruited through a US-based online research database. Parental report of developmental characteristics was assessed through a parent questionnaire, and current autism symptoms were measured via the Social Responsiveness Scale and Social Communication Questionnaire. Multivariate analyses indicated that children with regression had a distinct developmental pattern marked by less delayed early development. However, following regression, these children evinced elevated autism symptom scores and an increased risk for poorer outcomes when compared with the other onset groups. Keywords Autism * Pervasive developmental disorders * Regression * Symptom * Onset pattern, Autism is a complex neurobehavioral syndrome that is behaviorally defined and qualitatively revealed through disruption in the development of social, language, and communication skills, and the presence of restricted interests [...]

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high rates of anxiety, sensory processing problems, and gastrointestinal (GI) problems; however, the associations among these symptoms in children with ASD have not been previously examined. The current study examined bivariate and multivariate relations among anxiety, sensory over-responsivity, and chronic GI problems in a sample of 2,973 children with ASD enrolled in the Autism Treatment Network (ages 2-17 years, 81.6 % male). Twenty-four percent of the sample experienced at least one type of chronic GI problem (constipation, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and/or nausea lasting three or more months). Children with each type of GI problem had significantly higher rates of both anxiety and sensory over-responsivity. Sensory over-responsivity and anxiety were highly associated, and each provided unique contributions to the prediction of chronic GI problems in logistic regression analyses. The results indicate that anxiety, sensory over-responsivity and GI problems are possibly interrelated phenomenon for children with ASD, and may have common underlying mechanisms.