Joint attention--the ability to coordinate attention with a social partner--is critical for social communication, learning and the regulation of interpersonal relationships. Infants and young children with autism demonstrate impairments in both initiating and responding to joint attention bids in naturalistic settings. However, little is known…

Accumulating evidence indicates that co-occurring alexithymia underlies several facets of the social-emotional difficulties common in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms involved, however, remain poorly understood because measuring alexithymia relies heavily on self-report. To address this issue, carefully matched groups of…

The comprehension of dynamically unfolding social situations is made possible by the seamless integration of multimodal information merged with rich intuitions about the thoughts and behaviors of others. We examined how high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder and neurotypical controls made a complex social judgment (i.e. rating the…

Frith's original notion of 'weak central coherence' suggested that increased local processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) resulted from reduced global processing. More recent accounts have emphasised superior local perception and suggested intact global integration. However, tasks often place local and global processing in direct trade-off,…

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with problems in empathy. Recent research suggests that impaired control over self-other overlap based on motor representations in individuals with autism spectrum disorder might underlie these difficulties. In order to investigate the relationship of self-other…

Difficulties in emotion perception are commonly observed in autism spectrum disorder. However, it is unclear whether these difficulties can be attributed to a general problem of relating to emotional states, or whether they specifically concern the perception of others' expressions. This study addressed this question in the context of pain, a…

In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), atypical integration of visual depth cues may be due to flattened perceptual priors or selective fusion. The current study attempts to disentangle these explanations by psychophysically assessing within-modality integration of ordinal (occlusion) and metric (disparity) depth cues while accounting for sensitivity…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate narrative (i.e. storytelling) difficulties which can significantly impact their ability to form and maintain social relationships. However, existing research has not comprehensively documented these impairments in more open-ended, emotionally evocative situations common to daily interactions.…

In this study, we examined the accuracy and dynamics of visually guided saccades in 20 adults with autism spectrum disorder, as compared to 20 typically developed adults using the Step/Overlap/Gap paradigms. Performances in participants with autistic spectrum disorder were characterized by preserved Gap/Overlap effect, but reduced gain and peak…

This article assesses the chances of entering the top 5% of earners for a British cohort currently in their 40s. We assess the difference made by a university degree from an elite (Russell Group) or non-elite university, and from different undergraduate fields of study. Our study uses rich longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study…

College students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at greater risk than peers for impaired educational functioning; however, little is known regarding their longitudinal academic outcomes. This study examined: (a) differences between ADHD and control participants in academic outcomes (i.e., semester GPA, credits attempted,…

Background: Research investigating language skills in school-aged children with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate is sparse. Past studies focus on younger populations, lack key comparisons to demographically matched control cohorts or explore language as a component of broader academic skills. Trends of existing studies suggest that affected…

Deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM)--the ability to interpret others' beliefs, intentions and emotions--undermine the ability of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to interact in socially normative ways. This study provides psychometric data for the Adult-Theory of Mind (A-ToM) measure using video-scenarios based in part on Happé's…

This pilot study is a randomized controlled trial on the effects of relaxation on anxiety, self-esteem, and emotional regulation in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) working in a center of supported employment in France. We studied 30 adults with mild or moderate ID who were split at random into a relaxation group (RG, 15 subjects), who…

Anxiety is a major problem for many people with Asperger's syndrome who may have qualitatively different fears from a non-Asperger's syndrome population. Research has relied on measures developed for non-Asperger's syndrome populations that require reporting past experiences of anxiety, which may confound assessment in people with Asperger's…