Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Volume 1

Fred R. Volkmar, Sally J. Rogers, Rhea Paul, Kevin A. Pelphrey, Fred R. Volkmar, Rhea Paul, Sally J. Rogers, Kevin A. Pelphrey

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118282199
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The newest edition of the most comprehensive handbook on autism and related disorders

Since the original edition was first published more than a quarter of a century ago, The Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Volume 1: Diagnosis, Development, and Brain Mechanisms, has been the most influential reference work in the field of autism and related conditions. The new, updated Fourth Edition takes into account the changes in the disorders' definitions in the DSM-V and ICD-10 that may have profound implications for diagnosis and, by extension, access to services. Along with providing practical clinical advice--including the role of psychopharmacology in treatment—the handbook codifies the ever-expanding current body of research throughout both volumes, offering a wealth of information on the epidemiology of autism and the genetic, environmental, biochemical, social, and neuropathological aspects of the disorder. Volume 1 includes: Information on outcomes in adults with autism spectrum disorders

• A range of issues and interventions important from infancy, though adolescence and beyond for individuals with autism spectrum disorders
• Current information about play development, including skills, object play, and interventions
• Coverage of the state of genetic, biochemical, and neuropathological autism research
• Chapters on psychopharmacology and medical care in autism and related conditions

The new edition includes the relevant updates to help readers stay abreast of the state of this rapidly evolving field and gives them a guide to separate the wheat from the chaff as information about autism proliferates.

Section II

Development and Behavior

Section II provides a history of the research in development across all the main domains of childhood carried out in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It also gives us the most current findings, and how the current knowledge adds to, refutes, or alters previous concepts and beliefs. The understanding of autism as a developmental disorder, resulting from and reflecting differences in most areas of childhood development, has been a mainstream approach for many years now. Yet, it is still common to see some approach ASD from an orientation more akin to adult brain injury than to infant development. The developmental lens cautions us that brain networks and processes, areas of expertise and mechanics, are all shaped by experience, and that the adult brain reflects the lifetime experience of the person. Differences that are found in adults with autism compared to adults with other or no diagnoses may or may not reflect the biology of autism, but they must reflect the lifetime of experiences of that adult. The developmental perspective helps us appreciate areas of strength and relative strength in people with ASD, and it establishes common grounds among people with and without disability. It also casts adult behavior and skills as the later point in a trajectory beginning very early in life, and so helps us appreciate all the points on that trajectory that can have influence on the endpoint. The chapters in this section on development provide us with the most updated literature on the developmental science of ASD, written by the scientists who are producing much of the most important developmental work in ASD.

In Chapter 5, Chawarska and colleagues provide a strong synopsis of the most recent findings from the fast-moving filed of longitudinal infant siblings studies. This area of science has provided corrections for many previously held ideas about the onset and course of ASD. Diagnosis of ASD in the youngest children has increased due to the existence of better measures and data suggesting stability of symptoms throughout the toddler and preschool years. It appears we can be successful identifying altered patterns of brain function in response to social and sensory stimuli in 6-month-olds. Questions concerning the narrowness of the prodrome of ASD are thoughtfully considered in this chapter.

In Chapter 6, Bauminger reviews current developmental research in autism in the school years and points out the growing social, psychiatric, and cognitive-academic complexities and expectations that mark this period of life and result in an ever-widening social-communicative gap between children with ASD and their typically developing peers. Difficulties in interpreting others' inner emotional and mental states create additional barriers to satisfying peer relations, and the partial understanding many children with ASD have in these areas add challenges to their social partners, resulting in their positions in the periphery of peer networks. Children with ASD often report loneliness and victimization and are helped in these areas more by peer mediators than by adults. However, cognitive difficulties in learning, abstraction, and executive function create an additional set of stressors for children with ASD in the school years. Interventions need to support social and cognitive learning and foster friendship development.

Koegel and colleagues (Chapter 7) address developments that present new challenges to adolescents with ASD. While the issues that highlighted the earlier school years continue, new school challenges involve independent motivation and management of academic learning outside of school. Future planning for teens with ASD needs to focus on transitions to vocational preparation or college. Including a well-developed pathway to careers rather than college is a problem for adolescents throughout the American education system. The use of intervention strategies and provision of needed supports will assure that the next generation of adults with ASD have far more opportunities for competitive employment, independent living, and satisfying adult lives than do the current generation of adults with ASD, a topic addressed by Mazefsky and White in Chapter 8.

Adults with ASD are receiving more attention than in previous decades, exemplified by the increased attention to adults seen in this edition of the handbook compared to previous editions. While ASD diagnoses tend to be stable in adulthood and ASD symptoms may even improve, declines in adaptive behavior performance not seen in other groups with developmental disorders raise much concern. Outcomes for adults with ASD as a group have been disappointing, with far less competitive employment, independent living, and satisfying adult lives than is seen in other groups with similar intellectual and language abilities. The lack of well-developed intervention approaches and support systems for adults with ASD in inclusive community settings will draw more and more attention as the numbers of adults with ASD in communities increase due to rising prevalence.

Social development is the most affected area of impairment for people with ASD, and Carter provides a helpful review in Chapter 9. An exciting addition to the descriptions of social characteristics seen in autism has been the use of new technologies for assessing and studying social behavior. Eye tracking, fMRI, and EEG, among others, have provided new aids for understanding social differences in ASD. As with other areas of development in ASD, there is no one prototypic pattern of social development. All of the core social symptoms seen early in autism—lack of eye contact, social engagement, imitation, joint attention—improve in response to interventions, which demonstrates the plasticity of even core symptoms in ASD.

Social development is closely tied to language and communication development, covered in Chapter 10 by Kim and colleagues. The profiles of language and communication ability and their developmental trajectories vary widely among people with ASD. In the past decade, classic language impairments involving phonology, vocabulary, syntax, and morphology have been seen within a subgroup of children with ASD that are virtually identical to those seen in children without ASD. Another discovery is the presence of communication and receptive understanding deficits in infants who do not yet have ASD but will later develop ASD. A third important recent finding in this domain is the shrinking subgroup of nonverbal people with ASD, likely reflecting several factors, one of which is probably the availability of early intervention services to young children with ASD. The chapter thoroughly reviews all aspects of communication and language usage in ASD using an up-to-date lens that also addresses brain mechanisms.

Unlike the clearly articulated theories, tools, concepts, and terms in the study of communication and language, the area of play is far less articulated in all domains, observe authors Kasari and Chang (Chapter 11), and single-subject designs dominate the research landscape. However, as with language and social development, even though play is affected in a primary way in ASD, play skills can be stimulated via effective intervention approaches, and children with ASD can make great progress in constructive and symbolic play development. These authors provide a very helpful table of studies that will aid both academicians and clinicians.

Chapter 12, on imitation, by Vivanti and Hamilton, delves into the very interesting research work on the mirror neuron system (MNS) and hypothesized links between the MNS and autism. This new line of theorizing is thoughtfully reviewed here. These authors help draw attention to the complexities involved in a seemingly simple act of imitating another and provide a heuristic neuropsychological model for characterizing the multiple aspects of imitation and the multiple areas that could be impaired while also thoroughly reviewing the conflicting studies of imitation performance in persons with ASD and helping to integrate the findings into a whole.

A thorough review of the neuropsychological research is provided in Chapter 13 by Tsatsanis and Powell, including review of sensory-perceptual function, attention, memory abilities, executive functions, and intellectual ability. The authors provide helpful summaries of the most current findings in each of these areas, and they provide appropriate cautions concerning the fundamental disparities in subject selection that occur in neuropsychological studies (the majority of studies are based on older participants with fewer challenges to intellectual and language function than occurs in many or most people with ASD).

Hobson's chapter on emotion cautions the reader to consider the conceptual boundaries that we use to (artificially) separate cognitive, conative, and emotional domains. He carefully separates difficulties with social relatedness from capacities for relationships, and he cautions us not to equate difficulties with emotional perception with theory of mind problems, nor to assume that people with ASD do not respond emotionally to a...