All the findings obtained in this study suggest that gifted children are at risk in respect of mental health. Therefore, to be able to become healthy adults in a biopsychosocial aspect, it is important for the future of gifted children that this status can be identified at an early age, that they can receive appropriate education, that support and counselling are provided for emotional needs and that parents and teachers are fully informed.

Risperidone was found to be more effective than haloperidol in the treatment of behavioral symptoms, impulsivity, language skills, and impaired social relations in children with AD. These results demonstrated that both drugs were safe and well tolerated in the treatment of AD.

Aims Pandemics can cause substantial psychological distress; however, we do not know the impact of the COVID-19 related lockdown and mental health burden on the parents of school age children. We aimed to comparatively examine the COVID-19 related the stress and psychological burden of the parents with different occupational, locational, and mental health status related backgrounds. Methods A large-scale multicenter online survey was completed by the parents ( n = 3,278) of children aged 6 to 18 years, parents with different occupational (health care workers—HCW [18.2%] vs. others), geographical (İstanbul [38.2%] vs. others), and psychiatric (child with a mental disorder [37.8%]) backgrounds. Results Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that being a HCW parent (odds ratio 1.79, p < .001), a mother (odds ratio 1.67, p < .001), and a younger parent (odds ratio 0.98, p = .012); living with an adult with a chronic physical illness (odds ratio 1.38, p < .001), having an acquaintance diagnosed with COVID-19 (odds ratio 1.22, p = .043), positive psychiatric history (odds ratio 1.29, p < .001), and living with a child with moderate or high emotional distress (odds ratio 1.29, p < .001; vs. odds ratio 2.61, p < .001) were independently associated with significant parental distress. Conclusions Parents report significant psychological distress associated with COVID-19 pandemic and further research is needed to investigate its wider impact including on the whole family unit.

To cite this article: Murat Eyuboglu, Burak Baykara & Damla Eyuboglu (2018) Broad autism phenotype: theory of mind and empathy skills in unaffected siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder, Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 28:1, 36-42, ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: Difficulties in social communication is core syptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and it is often present in first-degree relatives in varying degrees. However, these subclinical autistic traits, which are thought to be related to genetic susceptibility factors, may be heterogeneous in family members. This prospective, the aim of this study was to compare unaffected siblings of children with ASD in terms of theory of mind, empathy skills, and broad autism phenotype (BAP). METHODS: Fourty-one children who were diagnosed Autistic Disorder, Asperger Disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-not otherwise specified according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition and their unaffected siblings and 43 controls of typically developing children were included. The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-age Children -Present and Lifetime Version was conducted all children with the aim of excluding a psychiatric diagnosis. False-belief tasks and Emotion Recognition Scales were used to evaluate theory of mind and empathy skills. The Social Communication Questionnaire was administered by the clinician in order to evaluate subthreshold autistic symptoms. RESULTS: Unaffected siblings of ASD children exhibited worse performance in theory of mind and emotion recognition tasks. Additionally, these children had more autistic symptoms and there was a correlation with autism symptoms and social cognition tasks. DISCUSSION: In compatible with BAP, the results indicated that the siblings of children with ASD showed a neurocognitive profile associated with ASD at a slight level, and they had more subsyndromal autism symptoms compared with healthy children. The findings also indicated that there was a weakness in skills of empathy and theory of mind ability of siblings of ASD. ARTICLE HISTORY

These results demonstrate that risperidone is more efficacious and well tolerated than haloperidol in the long-term maintenance treatment of autistic disorder.