Research providing an evidence-base for autistic adult services is sparse. The Autism Spectrum Disorders in the European Union (ASDEU) network implemented an on-line survey to determine gaps in autistic adult diagnostic evaluation and post-diagnostic support services. More than 55% in all groups experienced most of the recommended features for diagnostic evaluation for autistic adults. In contrast, < 2% of adults or carers, and < 21% of professionals experienced each of the recommended features for post-diagnostic support. In contrast to 61% of professionals, only about 30% of autistic adults and carers had knowledge of good local services models for autism diagnosis in adulthood. There are major differences between good practice guidelines for diagnostic and post-diagnostic care for autistic adults, and what is actually experienced by services users and professionals.

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Atypical motor patterns are potential early markers and predictors of later diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study aimed to investigate the early motor trajectories of infants at high-risk (HR) of ASD through MOVIDEA, a semi-automatic software developed to analyze 2D and 3D videos and provide objective kinematic features of their movements. MOVIDEA was developed within the Italian Network for early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (NIDA Network), which is currently coordinating the most extensive surveillance program for infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). MOVIDEA was applied to video recordings of 53 low-risk (LR; siblings of typically developing children) and 50 HR infants’ spontaneous movements collected at 10 days and 6, 12, 18, and 24 weeks. Participants were grouped based on their clinical outcome (18 HR received an NDD diagnosis, 32 HR and 53 LR were typically developing). Results revealed that early developmental trajectories of specific motor parameters were different in HR infants later diagnosed with NDDs from those of infants developing typically. Since MOVIDEA was useful in the association of quantitative measures with specific early motor patterns, it should be applied to the early detection of ASD/NDD markers.

Previous research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with inference generation in reading tasks. However, most previous studies have examined how well children understand a text after reading or have measured on-line reading behavior without response to questions. The aim of this study was to investigate the online strategies of children and adolescents with autism during reading and at the same time responding to a question by monitoring their eye movements. The reading behavior of participants with ASD was compared with that of age-, language-, nonverbal intelligence-, reading-, and receptive language skills-matched participants without ASD (control group). The results showed that the ASD group were as accurate as the control group in generating inferences when answering questions about the short texts, and no differences were found between the two groups in the global paragraph reading and responding times. However, the ASD group displayed longer gaze latencies on a target word necessary to produce an inference. They also showed more regressions into the word that supported the inference compared to the control group after reading the question, irrespective of whether an inference was required or not. In conclusion, the ASD group achieved an equivalent level of inferential comprehension, but showed subtle differences in reading comprehension strategies compared to the control group. Autism Res 2017, 10: 888-900. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Previous research on emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has predominantly focused on human faces and speech prosody, with little attention paid to other domains such as nonhuman faces and music. In addition, emotion processing in different domains was often examined in separate studies, making it challenging to evaluate whether emotion recognition difficulties in ASD generalize across domains and age cohorts. The present study investigated: (i) the recognition of basic emotions (angry, scared, happy, and sad) across four domains (human faces, face-like objects, speech prosody, and song) in 38 autistic and 38 neurotypical (NT) children, adolescents, and adults in a forced-choice labeling task, and (ii) the impact of pitch and visual processing profiles on this ability. Results showed similar recognition accuracy between the ASD and NT groups across age groups for all domains and emotion types, although processing speed was slower in the ASD compared to the NT group. Age-related differences were seen in both groups, which varied by emotion, domain, and performance index. Visual processing style was associated with facial emotion recognition speed and pitch perception ability with auditory emotion recognition in the NT group but not in the ASD group. These findings suggest that autistic individuals may employ different emotion processing strategies compared to NT individuals, and that emotion recognition difficulties as manifested by slower response times may result from a generalized, rather than a domain-specific underlying mechanism that governs emotion recognition processes across domains in ASD.

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The Autism Spectrum Disorders in the European Union (ASDEU) survey investigated local services’ use experiences of autistic adults, carers and professionals with interventions for autistic adults. The majority of the 697 participants experienced recommended considerations prior to deciding on intervention and during the intervention plan and implementation. Psychosocial interventions were the most commonly experienced interventions, while pharmacological interventions NOT recommended for core autistic symptoms were reported by fairly large proportions of participants. Family interventions were experienced slightly more commonly by carers than adults or professionals. Less than the 26% of autistic adult responders who had experienced challenging behaviors reported receiving an intervention to change them. These results provide insights for improving gaps in service provision of interventions among autistic adults.

The Autism Spectrum Disorders in the European Union (ASDEU) survey investigated the knowledge and health service experiences of users and providers to generate new hypotheses and scientific investigations that would contribute to improvement in health care for autistic adults. An online survey designed for autistic adults, carers of autistic adults, and professionals in adult services was translated into 11 languages and distributed electronically by organizations and in-country adult service facilities in 2017; 522 autistic adults, 442 carers, and 113 professionals provided answers to the health questions. Professionals, the majority in non-medical services, appeared to be poorly informed about whether certain co-occurring conditions were more frequent in autistic adults than typical adults—especially some medical conditions, suicide attempts, accidents, and pain. A minority of autistic adults reported preventive health behaviors such as routine health check-ups. The majority of users and providers expressed the desire to make health care services more user-friendly for autistic adults. Among the three groups, &lt;20% of responders knew an organization or clinician which has developed a way to monitor health, and prevent poor health, that works well for adults on the autism spectrum. The results point to means for better management of co-occurring conditions associated with autism in adulthood in order to reduce hospital admissions and potential areas of improvement in health and social services for autistic adults. Specifically, efforts should be focused on (1) professionals' education on risks for co-occurring conditions in autistic adults; (2) promoting preventive health behaviors; (3) making services user-friendly for autistic adults and their families; and (4) encouraging knowledge of good local services.