VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "White, Susan W."

Browsing by Author "White, Susan W."

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Ability of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders to Identify Emotional Facial Expressions
Lorenzi, Jill Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-01)
Previous research on emotion identification in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has demonstrated inconsistent results. While some studies have cited a deficit in emotion identification for individuals with ASD compared to controls, others have failed to find a difference. Many studies have used static photographs that do not capture subtle details of dynamic, real-life facial expressions that characterize authentic social interactions, and therefore have not been able to provide complete information regarding emotion identification. The current study aimed to build upon prior research by using dynamic, talking videos where the speaker expresses emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and excitement, both with and without a voice track. Participants included 10 children with ASD between the ages of four and 12, and 10 gender- and mental age-matched children with typical development between six and 12. Overall, both ASD and typically developing groups performed similarly in their accuracy, though the group with typical development benefited more from the addition of voice. Eye tracking analyses considered the eye region and mouth as areas of interest (AOIs). Eye tracking data from accurately identified trials resulted in significant main effects for group (longer and more fixations for participants with typical development) and condition (longer and more fixations on voiced emotions), and a significant condition by AOI interaction, where participants fixated longer and more on the eye region in the voiced condition compared to the silent condition, but fixated on the mouth approximately the same in both conditions. Treatment implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Adapting Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) to Custodial Grandparents
Murphy, Haley Gordon (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-13)
As the structure of the American family changes, it is becoming more common for children to be raised by their grandparents. In fact, over the past 40 years, there has been a 50% increase in grandparent-headed homes in the US (Ellis and Simmons, 2014). Custodial grandparents, who provide primary caregiving responsibilities for their grandchildren, often become responsible for their grandchildren due to distressing situations and report many social-emotional, physical, and psychological difficulties (e.g., Hayslip and Kaminski, 2005). Additionally, children of custodial grandparents have been found to have significantly more emotional and behavioral problems than non-custodial grandchildren (Smith and Palmieri, 2007). The main parenting resource for this population is often support-groups, which often do not provide needed assistance with discipline and behavior management. The overall purpose of this study was to adapt Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) to custodial grandparents, using a consumer-oriented approach. The study was completed in three discrete stages. During Stage 1, qualitative interviews with custodial grandparents were completed to collect further information about custodial grandparents' experience parenting their grandchildren, use of parenting resources, and opinion of parenting strategies and PCIT. Findings from this stage indicated that custodial grandparents were amenable to PCIT procedures, but experienced significant barriers in accessing parenting services. Due to these barriers, a service delivery adaptation was developed and an online intervention was created (Stage 2) to transcend treatment barriers. Finally, during Stage 3, this online intervention was tested in a small single-subject design pilot study. Multiple metrics supported the feasibility, accessibility, satisfaction, and initial treatment efficacy of this intervention. All participants demonstrated clinically significant reductions in at least two symptom measures and reported satisfaction with the online intervention. Overall, results provide preliminary support for the use of online interventions to teach PCIT strategies and support future research on online interventions for this population.
Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders (OCD)
Maddox, Brenna B.; Kerns, Connor M.; Franklin, Martin E.; White, Susan W. (Springer, 2016-02-04)
Anxiety is known to be a commonly, co-occurring phenomenon with autism. Also, in daily practice, these symptoms often are confused with core symptoms of autism. Accurately determining OCD and anxiety from autism has important implications for treatment. This chapter reviews current methods and procedures available to help make these distinctions.
Associations between Fear of Negative Evaluation and Covert and Overt Attention Bias Through Eye-Tracking and Visual Dot Probe
Capriola, Nicole N. (Virginia Tech, 2018-03-26)
Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by irrational and persistent fears of potential evaluation and scrutiny by others. For socially anxious youth, the core, maladaptive cognition is fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Whereas Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets remediation of intense and unfounded FNE, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) targets attention bias. The degree to which FNE and biased attention are related processes is unknown. This study sought to assess the relationship between FNE and two indices of attention bias (dot probe and eye-tracking). In addition, this study examines differences in attention bias between a clinically confirmed group of youth SAD and healthy controls. A significant group difference in average latency to fixate on angry faces was found [F(1,65) = 31.94, p < .001, ηp2 = .33]. However, the pattern was not consistent across the other attention bias metrics (i.e., dot probe bias scores and first fixation direction percentage towards angry faces). In addition, associations between FNE and the attention bias metrics were not statistically significant in either group. Future directions and implications of these findings within the context of refinements to existing interventions are discussed.
Attention Modification to Attenuate Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children with ASD
Wieckowski, Andrea Trubanova (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-04)
Prior studies have identified diminished attending to faces, and in particular the eye region, in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which may contribute to the impairments they experience with emotion recognition and expression. The current study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary effectiveness of an attention modification intervention designed to attenuate deficits in facial emotion recognition and expression in children with ASD. During the 10-session experimental treatment, children watched videos of people expressing different emotions with the facial features highlighted to guide children's attention. Eight children with ASD completed the treatment, of nine who began. On average, the children and their parents rated the treatment to be acceptable and helpful. Although treatment efficacy, in terms of improved facial emotion recognition (FER), was not apparent on task-based measures, children and their parents reported slight improvements and most parents indicated decreased socioemotional problems following treatment. Results of this preliminary trial suggest that further clinical research on visual attention retraining for ASD, within an experimental therapeutic program, may be promising.
Bidirectional Influence of Emotion Processing on Language Development in Infancy: Evidence from Eye-tracking Mothers and Infants
Heck, Alison Rae (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-30)
The primary goal of this study was to examine how infants' language and emotion development intersect around the end of the first year. Specifically, is learning enhanced when a speaker is happy vs. neutral? Eighteen 12-month-old infants were familiarized and tested on four word-object associations that varied in bimodal emotion (happy vs. neutral), which were presented on a Tobii© T60 eye-tracker. Familiarization trials comprised of actresses looking towards and labeling a target object while ignoring a non-target distractor object on the opposite side of the screen. It was expected that infants would demonstrate better learning of word-object associations during the test trials when the speaker was happy. This hypothesis was partially supported, in that infants demonstrated a novelty preference for the novel non-target object compared to the familiar target object in the happy test trials only. However, no difference in attention was seen in happy test trials with the familiar target object and a familiar non-target object or for either of the neutral test trials. A second goal of this study was to examine infant-parent correspondence in emotion processing. Both infants and parents were presented with a series of emotion pairs on the eye-tracker, and the correlations between their gaze patterns were examined. In general, infants and parents had little to no correspondence in first look tendencies or overall fixation duration to either face in the pair. They also fixated on different areas of the face (infants on mouth region, parents on eye region). Finally, parental sensitivity was examined using a free-play interaction task. Parents' sensitivity was analyzed with respect to measures of infants learning during the language task as well as other infant characteristics (e.g. temperament, vocabulary). Overall, these findings add to the relatively limited research examining the intersection of language and socioemotional development in infancy.
The Broad Autism Phenotype in the General Population: Evidence Through Eye-Tracking
Maddox, Brenna Burns (Virginia Tech, 2012-04-06)
The broad autism phenotype (BAP) has been defined both behaviorally and biologically. There has been little research on the association of the BAP, behaviorally defined, with neural or cognitive biomarkers typically associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). People diagnosed with ASD tend to show reduced gaze fixation toward the eye region, but much less eye-tracking research has been done related to the BAP (Boraston & Blakemore, 2007). In this study, we sought to assess eye gaze patterns in people with the behaviorally defined BAP, as defined by a score of 30 or above on the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). It was hypothesized that the BAP group participants would exhibit longer average fixation duration to the eye region during an emotion recognition condition, relative to a free-viewing condition, whereas the comparison group participants (defined as an AQ score of 24 and below) would not show a difference in fixation duration to the eye region between conditions. Nine hundred and thirty-nine undergraduates completed an online survey, and 45 of these students (15 BAP group and 30 comparison group) participated in the eye-tracking session, where they viewed a series of human faces, each presented twice within a condition. Results revealed a significant negative relationship between social anxiety and eye region fixation duration in the free-viewing condition, for both presentations of faces. Contrary to expectation, BAP predicted longer eye region fixation duration in the free-viewing condition, for the second presentation of faces. Possible explanations for these surprising findings are discussed.
Challenges and Strengths of College Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Elias, Rebecca M. (Virginia Tech, 2015-12-10)
Emerging adults who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often encounter difficulties within the university setting. Despite an increase in the number of students with ASD enrolled in postsecondary educational institutions, there are few reports on the social, academic, and/or other needs of college students with ASD. The purpose of this study was to assess the perspectives of parents of emerging adults with ASD and ADHD, in order to inform efforts to address the poor postsecondary outcomes of students with ASD. Survey data were collected from parents who had a son or daughter in one of three educational placement groups (parents of high school students, parents of postsecondary students, and parents of individuals aged 18-25 not enrolled in education) among two disorders; ASD and ADHD. Participants were recruited nationally to participate in an online survey. Parents of emerging adults with ASD identified social interactions and daily living as primary difficulties for their son or daughter with ASD. Significant differences emerged with respect to difficulties among emerging adults with ADHD, who identified difficulties related to executive functioning and attention. Social interaction training was an identified needed service by parents of emerging adults with ASD. Additionally, independent living training was a common core service requested by parents of individuals with ASD and parents of individuals with ADHD. Results suggest that the postsecondary profile of parent-reported difficulties and needed services remains distinct for the diagnostic groups ASD and ADHD. These difficulties should be considered within the context of intervention for postsecondary students with ASD and ADHD.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Versus a Counselling Intervention for Anxiety in Young People with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial
Murphy, Suzanne M.; Chowdhury, Uttom; White, Susan W.; Reynolds, Laura; Donald, Louisa; Gahan, Hilary; Iqbal, Zeinab; Kulkarni, Mahesh; Scrivener, Louise; Shaker-Naeeni, Hadi; Press, Dee A. (2017-11)
The use of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) as a treatment for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been explored in a number of trials. Whilst CBT appears superior to no treatment or treatment as usual, few studies have assessed CBT against a control group receiving an alternative therapy. Our randomised controlled trial compared use of CBT against person-centred counselling for anxiety in 36 young people with ASD, ages 12-18. Outcome measures included parent- teacher- and self-reports of anxiety and social disability. Whilst each therapy produced improvements in participants, neither therapy was superior to the other to a significant degree on any measure. This is consistent with findings for adults.
Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms of Fear Acquisition and Reversal in comorbid Autism with Social Anxiety and Social Anxiety Disorder uncomplicated by Autism
Coffman, Marika C. (Virginia Tech, 2019-08-28)
Social Anxiety (SAD) increases in prevalence as children enter adolescence. Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are diagnosed with comorbid SAD at higher rates than these individuals are diagnosed with other clinical disorders, including depression and other anxiety disorders. However, there is little research on whether the presentation and neural underpinning of comorbid SAD within the context of ASD is the same as SAD alone. Individual and diagnostic differences exist in neural and biological mechanisms of fear conditioning. Characterization of whether neural mechanisms of fear are different within ASD with comorbid SAD and SAD alone may better inform clinical treatments. Accordingly, the present study characterizes neural responses during a fear-inducing experiment, as measured by fMRI. Fifty-seven adolescents participated in this study, with adolescents with ASD and SAD (n=17), SAD alone (n=20), and typically developing adolescents (n=20). All participants completed two fear conditioning and reversal paradigms while completing an fMRI scan. The paradigm consisted of a Social condition and Nonsocial condition. An ANOVA for fear conditioning was conducted. Results revealed significant activation in the Inferior Temporal Gyrus (ITG) during fear conditioning. No between group differences were observed, but within-group differences indicated differential modulation of the ITG in the ASD with SAD group in the Social condition compared to the Nonsocial condition. The SAD group demonstrated differential activation between conditioning stimuli in the Nonsocial condition, but not in the Social condition. Results indicate that adolescents with ASD and SAD may display different neural mechanisms for acquiring fear compared to typically developing peers. Results have potential to inform treatment approaches.
Defensive Neurophysiological Response: Exploring the Neural and Autonoic Correlates of Social Behavior
Patriquin, Michelle Anne (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-01)
Current literature suggests neurological (i.e., insula, amygdala) and autonomic (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) markers of language, social, and behavioral challenges in autism spectrum disorders (ASD; Bal et al., 2010; DiMartino, Ross, et al., 2009; Lorenzi, Patriquin, & Scarpa, 2011; Patriquin, Scarpa, Friedman, & Porges, 2011), that hypothetically reflect a defensive neurophysiological circuit (i.e., hyper-arousal within the central and autonomic nervous systems). It is unknown how this neurophysiological state contributes to difficulties in ASD. Therefore, the current study quantified peripheral and central nervous system activity and investigated how this neurophysiological circuit may be related to different social and behavioral patterns that characterize ASD. Participants with (n = 16) and without (n = 30) ASD listened to classical music while brain (via functional magnetic resonance imaging) and autonomic (via pulse oximeter and plethysmogram) data were collected. Results indicated that decreased insula and amygdala activity during physiological hyper-aroused states predicted symptoms associated with ASD, and predicted higher levels of comorbid anxiety, stress, and depression. Contrary to hypotheses, no baseline RSA or amygdala differences were noted between ASD and controls groups, suggesting that adults with ASD may have developed effective coping strategies for reducing physiological threat responses. It will be important for future studies to continue to explore and clarify the neural connections of peripheral nervous system activation in individuals with and without ASD, including extending this research to children.
The Development and Validation of a Neural Model of Affective States
McCurry, Katherine Lorraine (Virginia Tech, 2015-09-23)
Emotion dysregulation plays a central role in psychopathology (B. Bradley et al., 2011) and has been linked to aberrant activation of neural circuitry involved in emotion regulation (Beauregard, Paquette, & Lévesque, 2006; Etkin & Schatzberg, 2011). In recent years, technological advances in neuroimaging methods coupled with developments in machine learning have allowed for the non-invasive measurement and prediction of brain states in real-time, which can be used to provide feedback to facilitate regulation of brain states (LaConte, 2011). Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI)-guided neurofeedback, has promise as a novel therapeutic method in which individuals are provided with tailored feedback to improve regulation of emotional responses (Stoeckel et al., 2014). However, effective use of this technology for such purposes likely entails the development of (a) a normative model of emotion processing to provide feedback for individuals with emotion processing difficulties; and (b) best practices concerning how these types of group models are designed and translated for use in a rt-fMRI environment (Ruiz, Buyukturkoglu, Rana, Birbaumer, & Sitaram, 2014). To this end, the present study utilized fMRI data from a standard emotion elicitation paradigm to examine the impact of several design decisions made during the development of a whole-brain model of affective processing. Using support vector machine (SVM) learning, we developed a group model that reliably classified brain states associated with passive viewing of positive, negative, and neutral images. After validating the group whole-brain model, we adapted this model for use in an rt-fMRI experiment, and using a second imaging dataset along with our group model, we simulated rt-fMRI predictions and tested options for providing feedback.
The Development of a Social Anxiety Measure for Adolescents and Adults with ASD
Kreiser, Nicole Lyn (Virginia Tech, 2011-05-03)
Despite numerous studies documenting the high prevalence of social anxiety in children and adolescents with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD), there has been little empirical investigation into methods for the assessment of social anxiety in this population. The purpose of this study was to create an empirically derived screening instrument to measure subjective feelings of social anxiety in adolescents and adults with HFASD. Based on a thorough review of the literature in this area, items from all measures (k = 15) used to assess social anxiety in adolescents and adults with HFASD were compiled. After collapsing similar items into one composite item, a pool of 86 items were included in an electronic survey that was sent to experts (n = 99) in the field of anxiety disorders in ASD. Experts ranked the degree to which each item was indicative of social anxiety in HFASD. Based on expert responses, 30 items were selected as the most representative for assessing social anxiety in the target population. In the second phase of the study, experts were asked to rate the final pool of items comprised of the 30 derived from phase I and 10 additional items developed from expert feedback and coding of taped diagnostic interviews with adolescents with HFASD and social anxiety. A final screening measure was derived comprised of 31 items. Future directions and use of the newly formed measure are discussed.
Does Infants' Socially-guided Attention Uniquely Predict Language Development?
Wu, Qiong (Virginia Tech, 2014-01-24)
The purpose of this study was to examine whether infants' social attention, as well as their joint attention behaviors uniquely predicted emerging language abilities. This longitudinal study examined attention regulation skills, joint attention behaviors, infants' expressive/receptive language (current), emerging communication abilities at 16- and 17-month-old (time 1); expressive/receptive language (subsequent) at 18- 19-month-old (time 2). Infants' sustained attention was measured by their attention control to a central stimulus in the presence of a distracter competing for their attention. Dynamic human face (upright, inverted) and abstract display with their matched voice tracks were used to separately measure infants' attention regulation to different types of events. Infants' sustained attention was estimated by their latencies away from central stimuli to distracters, as well as their fixation duration and gaze count on central events and distracters. It was found that infants' latency away from the abstract figure toward the distracter was the only variable that significantly negatively predicted current expressive vocabulary. Initiating joint attention was observed to significantly predict infants' abilities in current receptive vocabulary. The emerging language communication ability predicted expressive vocabulary at two times. In addition, infants' fixation and count to the upright speaker's face and eyes contributed significant amount of variance in initiating joint attestation. The fixation and gaze count on the distracter in the upright condition significantly predicted infants' emerging language skills.
The Effect of Mindfulness on Stress in Mothers of Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Emotion Regulation Framework
Conner, Caitlin Mary (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-03)
Parents, especially mothers, of a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to experience higher levels of stress, and adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as mindfulness and acceptance, may decrease stress among parents of children with ASD. Research has shown that mindfulness-based interventions reduce perceived stress among parents of typically developing children and improve the parent-child relationship, and similar interventions may be helpful for mothers of children with ASD. However, research has not yet established that mindfulness is related to decreased stress among parents. It is important to first establish this relationship, given the possibility that other factors, such as child behavioral difficulties or parental psychopathology are stronger predictors of maternal stress than the mother's regulation strategies. This study examined the unique contribution of maternal mindfulness to maternal stress in a sample of mothers (n = 154) who completed an online battery of measures. As predicted, maternal mindfulness significantly predicted level of maternal stress, above and beyond child behavior problems and maternal psychopathology, and this relationship was not moderated by child's ASD diagnosis. Maternal emotion regulation and effortful control were also significantly related to maternal stress, and may account for the explained variance of mindfulness. These findings and their implications are discussed.
Effects of Motion on Infants' Negativity Bias in Emotion Perception
Heck, Alison Rae (Virginia Tech, 2012-12-18)
The negativity bias is a phenomenon that is characterized by infants being more influenced by, attending more to, and responding to more negative emotion information from the environment than positive emotion information. This study used a Tobii© T60 eye-tracking system to examine differences in 8- to 12-month-old infants' latencies to disengage from a centrally-presented face for three different emotion conditions-happy, sad, and fear. The events also varied by motion type-static versus dynamic. Additionally, infants' locomotor experience and parental affect served as two additional measures of experience, and assessed for their contributions to the infants' negativity bias. It was expected that infants would show longer latencies to disengage from the negative emotion events (fear or sad) compared to the positive emotion event (happy), but also that the latencies would be augmented by event type (dynamic > static), locomotion experience (high > low), and parental affect (higher negativity > lower negativity). Although infants showed more attention to dynamic than static emotion displays (especially on the speaker's mouth), and more attention to happy and sad compared to fear displays, no consistent effect of emotion type was found on infants' attention disengagement. Thus, no evidence for a negativity bias was seen. The results are interpreted with respect to possible contributions of the bimodal nature of emotion expression in the current study as well as age-related attentional differences in responding to a wide range of emotion cues.
Emotion Dysregulation and Anxiety in Adults with ASD: Does Social Motivation Play a Role?
Swain, Deanna M.; Scarpa, Angela; White, Susan W.; Laugeson, Elizabeth (Springer/Plenum Publishers, 2015-12-01)
Young adults with ASD and no intellectual impairment are more likely to exhibit clinical levels of anxiety than typically developing peers (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This study tests a mechanistic model in which anxiety culminates via emotion dysregulation and social motivation. Adults with ASD (49 males, 20 females) completed self-report measures on emotion regulation, caregivers completed measures on ASD severity and both on social anxiety. Results indicated that emotion dysregulation (p\.001; p\.05) and social motivation (p\.05, p\.001) significantly predicted social anxiety as reported by caregivers and young adults respectively. However, social motivation did not appear to play a moderating role in the relationship between emotion regulation and anxiety, even when controlling for social awareness. Significant predictor variables of social anxiety varied based on reporter (i.e. caregiver versus young adult), with difficulty engaging in goal-directed behaviors during negative emotions serving as the only shared predictor.
Evaluating Change in Social Skills in High-Functioning Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder Using a Laboratory-Based Observational Measure
White, Susan W.; Scarpa, Angela; Conner, Caitlin M.; Maddox, Brenda B.; Bonete, Saray (SAGE, 2015-03-01)
Despite the impact of social disability on the lives of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), we know little about how to assess clinical improvement in this domain. This is a preliminary study of the potential utility and sensitivity of a novel observational rating system, the Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (CASS), as a treatment outcome measure with cognitively unimpaired adults with ASD. Five cognitively unimpaired adults with ASD completed the CASS, before and after a group social skills intervention. Based on ratings made by evaluators masked to assessment (pre-treatment or post-treatment), reliable change indices were computed to assess improvement. Four participants demonstrated significant improvement in conversational involvement, two initiated significantly more topic changes, and one asked more questions. Laboratory-based observational measures, such as the CASS, may be useful in clinical trials for adults with ASD, though further evaluation with larger samples is required.
Examining Differences in Executive Functioning in ADHD and Anxiety in an ODD Sample
Austin, Kristin Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2012-02-02)
Executive functioning (EF) has been gaining attention recently in the area of child psychopathology and EF deficits have been hypothesized to be present in a variety of these disorders. Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and anxiety disorders (AD) all experience difficulties at home, with friends, and at school, some of which may be related to deficits in EF. The proposed study is designed to determine whether specific EF deficits are associated with ADHD and AD when they are comorbid with ODD. Children recruited for an ODD treatment study completed an emotional Stroop task and their mothers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000). The present study included 49 children with ODD who had comorbid ADHD (n = 22) or comorbid AD (n = 27), but not both. The ODD/ADHD group exhibited significantly more EF deficits on the MI than the ODD/AD group when gender and corresponding symptoms of ADHD and AD were controlled for. However, no significant differences were found on the emotional Stroop or the BRI scale of the BRIEF suggesting that EF deficits may not be clearly differentiated in samples of ADHD and AD youth who are also comorbid with ODD. It is recommended that future studies explore executive dysfunction in pure ODD, ADHD, and AD samples to better identify possible differences that might be useful in designing interventions for children who have EF deficits associated with these disorders.
Exploring the Potential Role of Inflammation as an Etiological Process in ASD
Elias, Rebecca; Sullivan, Juliana B.; Lee, Yong Woo; White, Susan W. (2015-09)
The heterogeneity in the behavioral presentation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be surpassed only by the level of heterogeneity in its etiology. There are diverse pathways to the singular diagnostic outcome of ASD, and several etiological risk factors have been proposed in recent years. This review paper examines the role of inflammation as one possible etiologic factor in ASD, juxtaposed in the context of research on the role of inflammation in other psychiatric disorders. Human, animal, and postmortem studies of inflammation in ASD were surveyed, and their direct and indirect contributions to developing potential inflammation-based treatments, as well as potential preventative considerations, in ASD were reviewed. Although the mechanisms that link inflammation and ASD remain unknown, there exists a sizable multidisciplinary literature suggesting inflammation as a trans-etiological process.

Browsing by Author "White, Susan W."

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