Background: The Taiwan version of the Screening Tool for Autism in Two-Year-Olds (T-STAT) had been developed for identifying autism disorder (AD) in children aged 24-35 months. Two studies were performed to elucidate its utility for AD in children aged 36-48 months. Method: In Study 1, the receiver operating characteristics were utilised to select…

This study aimed to determine the optimal cut-off for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) screening in 66-month-old children, and to explore the distribution of ASD screening and diagnosis in Taiwan. The Taiwan Birth Cohort Study dataset was used (N = 20,095). The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) cut-off point of 13/14 was considered…

Many studies have shown that children with autism spectrum disorder have some understanding of intentions behind others' goal-directed actions on objects. It is not clear whether they understand intentions at a high level of abstraction reliant on the context in which the actions occur. This study tested their understanding of others' prior…

Chiayi is a rural county located in southwestern Taiwan, and the effectiveness of its early intervention service system for autism spectrum disorders was studied in detail. A total of 71 children with autism spectrum disorders (n = 35) and developmental delay (n = 36) aged 2.5 years were referred from the only Early Intervention Reporting and…

This current study aimed at creating a 3D virtual environment on Second Life particularly for special education students to enhance their first language, Mandarin, learning in vocabulary and sentence structures. Four students aged between 8 and 9 participated in this research. In addition to their inherent disabilities (mild autism spectrum…

This study's purpose was to modify the Screening Tool for Autism in Two-Year-Olds (STAT) into a Taiwanese version called T-STAT. Study 1 included 15 children with Autism and 15 children with Developmental Delay (DD) or language impairment (LI) aged between 24 and 35 months. Study 2 had 77 young children with Autism, PDD-NOS, or DD/LI as a…

Joint attention intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders was focused on improving joint engagement and joint attention skills. The purpose of this study was to develop a caregiver-mediated joint engagement intervention program combined with body movement play to investigate the effects of joint engagement/joint attention skills in…

Background: As part of an ongoing clinical service programme for pre-school children with developmental delay in an Asian developing country, we analysed the effect of three assessment tests, that is, Bayley Scale of Infant Development-II, Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of…

Background: Researchers have used various paradigms to explore the universality and specificity of imitation deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, some issues still need to be investigated, especially for children with ASDs under the age of 4. Method: Two studies were conducted to examine the imitative abilities of…

To increase public awareness and sensitivity, a two-stage screening with a community-based approach is proposed, with the use of the broadband Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS) developmental instrument in the first stage and the narrowband Modified Checklist of Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) in the second stage. Thus, the purpose of this study was to…

As part of an ongoing clinical service program for children with developmental delay in an Asian developing country, we analyzed the cognitive attributes of 362 Taiwanese children (average age 48.5 plus or minus 12.9 month-old) with uneven/delayed cognitive development as they were assessed repeatedly with average duration of 39.7 plus or…