Siblings are a critical part of lifelong support for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). But siblings face their own social-emotional adjustment needs. These needs may be addressed through programs that include support groups specifically for the siblings. This study examined the effects of a community program on typical siblings' depression, anxiety, ASD knowledge, and peer network as well as reciprocal interactions between the typical sibling and sibling with ASD. The program provided a sibling support group, a skills intervention for children with ASD, and an inclusive recreation time. Siblings reported significant decreases in depression and physiological anxiety and improvements in their peer network. Autism knowledge increased but only approached significance. Direct observations revealed improvement in reciprocal interactions by most children that did not reach statistical significance. Parents, typical siblings, and interventionists indicated positive reactions to the program and its goals and outcomes. Findings are discussed in terms of the need to continue to explore interventions for siblings of children with ASD.

The results support previous evidence for the IS factor, its familiality, and the identification of IP as an additional strong candidate trait for genetic studies of autism.

The present study taught typically developing (TD) siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) social-communicative and self-management skills. The authors' hypothesized that the acquisition of self-management skills would support generalization of targeted social-communicative responses. A multiple baseline probe design across sibling dyads was used to decrease exposure to unnecessary sessions in the absence of intervention. Four TD siblings were taught self-management of a social skills curriculum using behavioral skills training, which consisted of instructions, modeling, practice, and subsequent feedback. Results indicated that TD siblings learned to self-manage the social skills curriculum with some generalization across novel settings and over time. Comparisons of social-communicative responses to their typical peers provided some support for the social validity of the intervention outcomes. These results support the use of self-management, when explicitly programming for generalization, which continues to be a key consideration when including TD siblings in interventions with their siblings with ASD.

Evidence for a genetic association between autism and two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs2056202 and rs2292813, in the mitochondrial aspartate/glutamate carrier (SLC25A12) gene led us to ask whether any of the four previously identified familial traits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) varied by these SNPs. In 355 ASD cases from 170 sibships we examined levels of the four traits in these SNPs using ANCOVA models. The primary models selected unrelated affected cases and used age and sex as covariates. An ancillary set of models used all affected siblings and included "sibship" as a random effects independent variable. We found significantly lower levels of routines and rituals associated with the presence of the less frequent A allele in rs2056206. No other significant differences were observed. The rs2056202 polymorphism may be associated with levels of routines and rituals in autism and related disorders.