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Insomnia is a common source of distress in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two characteristics of ASD could be relevant to insomnia complaints by hampering the entrainment of a circadian sleep-wake rhythm. First, sensory hyper-reactivity could lead to bright light avoidance and thus affect photoperiodic input to the circadian system. Second, impaired social skills complicate the establishment of a social interactions and thus affect scheduled social-behavioral input to the circadian system. We investigated the association of insomnia severity with sensory reactivity and social skills in 631 adults (18-65 years) with ASD. Results revealed positive associations of insomnia severity with general and visual sensory hyper-reactivity and with impairment of social skills. The findings warrant further studies which (1) directly assess whether a suboptimal functioning of the biological clock underlies these associations and (2) identify other factors that could contribute to observed sleep problems., Author(s): Vanessa D. Hohn [sup.1] , Danielle M. J. de Veld [sup.1] , Kawita J. S. Mataw [sup.1] , Eus J. W. van Someren [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , Sander Begeer [...]

It is assumed that learning on the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task is related to learning involved in social skill development affected in autism, but this assumption has hardly been investigated. We have therefore examined associations between SRT task learning and social impairment measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale in 72 autistic and non-autistic adults. Results revealed a positive correlation between deterministic sequence learning, putatively involving explicit learning, and social impairment in autistic adults but not in non-autistic adults. No correlations with probabilistic learning were found. These results suggest that the type of learning that helps autistic adults during a deterministic SRT task hinders them during social development, and call for further investigating the ecological validity of the SRT task., Author(s): Fenny S. Zwart [sup.1] , Constance Th. W. M. Vissers [sup.2] [sup.3] , Joseph H. R. Maes [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000000122931605, grid.5590.9, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and [...]