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Psychology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of South Carolina

2018

Autism

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Psychology

Heart Rate-Defined Sustained Attention In Infants At Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen, J. E. Richards, Jane E. Roberts Feb 2018

Heart Rate-Defined Sustained Attention In Infants At Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen, J. E. Richards, Jane E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Background: Although aberrant visual attention has been identified in infants at high familial risk for autism, the developmental emergence of atypical attention remains unclear. Integrating biological measures of attention into prospective high-risk infant studies may inform more nuanced developmental trajectories, clarifying the onset and course of atypical attention and potentially advancing early screening or treatment protocols. Heart rate-defined sustained attention (HRDSA) is a well-validated biological measure of attentional engagement that, in non-clinical infant populations, provides incremental information about attentional engagement beyond looking behaviors alone. The present study aimed to examine the characteristics and clinical correlates of HRDSA in high-risk infants, …


Life Satisfaction In Adolescents With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, Kathleen Blackburn Franke Jan 2018

Life Satisfaction In Adolescents With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, Kathleen Blackburn Franke

Theses and Dissertations

The present study was informed by the Emerging Disability Paradigm, which emphasizes the importance of research regarding positive experiences, personality, and social relationships for individuals with disabilities (Schalock, 2004). The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary evidence regarding the reliability and validity of measures of self-reported psychosocial assets and life satisfaction (LS) for adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFA). Additional purposes included identifying the overall levels of general and domain-specific LS within adolescents with HFA, comparing these levels to those of a sample of typically developing adolescents, and describing the relation between psychosocial assets and LS for …


The Emergence Of Early Visual Attention Profiles In Infants At High Risk For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Debra Reisinger Jan 2018

The Emergence Of Early Visual Attention Profiles In Infants At High Risk For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Debra Reisinger

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts focused on early social and nonsocial attention in children at-risk for developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD): infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and infants with an older sibling diagnosed with autism (ASIBs). Each manuscript will present original research: the first will consist of a crosssectional and longitudinal examination of attention to objects in infants with FXS and infant ASIBs parsed apart by their ASD diagnostic outcomes in comparison to a group of typically developing (TD) infants, and how developmental trajectories of object attention predict later ASD symptom severity and diagnostic outcomes. The second …