Social communication difficulties and autism spectrum disorder in young children with optic nerve hypoplasia and/or septo‐optic dysplasia

Abstract

RESULTS A total of 45 females and 38 males (mean age 3y 5mo; range 10mo-6y 10mo) with ONH or SOD and profound visual impairment (PVI) or severe visual impairment (SVI) were assessed. A total of 58% of children had at least one SCRR difficulty, and 31% had a clinical diagnosis of ASD. The prevalence of ASD was slightly higher in children with SOD than in children with ONH (36% vs 26%) also slightly more frequent in children with PVI than in children with SVI (36% vs 27%). The prevalence of SCRR difficulties was statistically higher in children with PVI than in children with SVI (p=0.003). Clinical ASD was most likely to be diagnosed between 2 years 4 months and 4 years 6 months. Development was significantly delayed in children with ASD compared with children without social communication difficulties (p=0.001).

Developing a schedule to identify social communication difficulties and autism spectrum disorder in young children with visual impairment

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Although the mechanisms underlying the development of social communicative difficulties and ASD are not yet understood in the visually impaired population, early evidence points towards interactions of multiple factors (visual, age, sex, psychological, neurological) at different levels. 6 Because of the availability and potential importance of early intervention strategies in both visual impairment and ASD, 8,9 early accurate identification of social communication difficulties and ASD in children with visual impairment is desirable.…”

Autism and Visual Impairment: a Review of the Literature

“…Of the 11 studies, 6 were screening studies assessing congenitally visually impaired groups for autism (Dammeyer 2014;Fazzi et al 2007;Hartshorne et al 2005;Johansson et al 2006;Smith et al 2005), 3 were observational screening studies (Gal et al 2008;Hoevenaars-van den Boom et al 2009;Williams et al 2014), 1 was a longitudinal case study which tracked development in congenitally blind children (Hobson et al 1999), 1 was cross sectional study (JutleyNeilson et al 2013), and 1 was retrospective case note review (Parr et al 2010).…”

“…It should be noted, however, that these measures have a visual response component which is omitted when testing visually impaired individuals and therefore risks the reliability of the findings. The other studies (Jutley-Neilson et al 2013;Parr et al 2010) used the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS) and Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), which were adapted to assess visually impaired individuals (Jutley-Neilson et al 2013). Adaption again undermines the validity of the measure.…”

“…The evidence suggests that autistic traits such as limited social interaction and communication, and certain restrictive, repetitive behaviours such as eye poking, pressing, rocking are equally present in children who are congenitally blind (Fazzi et al 2007;Hobson and Lee 2010;Parr et al 2010). Noted developmental delay in congenitally blind children can also be observed in traits such as a lack of symbolic play, limited social interaction, and linguistic traits such as echolalia and pronominal reversal, but these may reduce with age (Fazzi et al 2007;Hobson and Lee 2010;Williams et al 2014).…”

“…One study (Hoevenaars-van den Boom et al 2009) suggested it is possible to differentiate the impairments in social interaction, communication and language caused by sensory impairment from those of autism through close observational assessment (Hoevenaars-van den Boom et al 2009); however, the small sample size and testing of a developed observational tool limit the generalisability of the findings. Two studies (Parr et al 2010;Jutley-Neilson et al 2013) found a broad range of impairments common in autism equally present participants with ONH and SOD (30 and 33%, respectively) particularly social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviour. Williams et al (2014) suggest that presentations of autistic behavioural traits may lessen with age in this group; however, findings were based on a small sample of nine.…”