People with learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorders may also have mental health problems. There is little in the literature on the mental health needs of such adults. The researchers in this study were interested in developing the evidence base to enable a clearer understanding of the kinds of service responses that might be needed. [read the full story…]
Self injurious behaviour is usually defined as behaviour that directly results in physical harm to an individual and includes such behaviours as hand biting, head slapping, picking at skin, gouging or striking the body or eating inedible material. In addition, researchers have begun to include display of repetitive movements even though they may not immediately [read the full story…]
The Autism Strategy Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives was published in 2010. The strategy is for England only, but the authors of this general review suggest that a detailed look at the strategy will be of interest across the UK. The strategy was published following a commitment made in the Autism Act 2009. It sets out [read the full story…]
The researchers in this study were interested in looking at differences in physiological arousal between infants and toddlers with fragile X syndrome and those with typical development. They looked at physiological predictors early in development to autism severity later in development in fragile X syndrome. Participants were 31 male children with fragile X syndrome aged [read the full story…]
Previous studies trying to reach an understanding of the rate of co-morbid psychiatric problems in children with autism spectrum disorders have reported significantly varying findings. The authors of this matched control study wanted to look at patterns of co-morbid psychiatric problems in such and their parents compared a group of controls matched for IQ, and [read the full story…]
Fragile X syndrome is a common cause of inherited learning disability and can affect one in 2000 males and one in 4000 females and is due to a mutation at an inherited fragile site on the X chromosome. The researchers in this study were interested in looking at the behavioural profile of people with fragile [read the full story…]
This paper describes a case study of a young man with Asperger syndrome who set a fire in his home. The authors point out that offences may be committed by people with autistic spectrum disorders because of deficits in social skills, co-morbid mental health problems or abuse of drugs and alcohol. There may also be [read the full story…]
The researchers in this study were interested in looking at the extent to which a diagnosis of learning disability met current diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) diagnostic criteria. They wanted to know the prevalence of reported autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the extent to which the assessment of developmental issues was seen [read the full story…]
This review of literature published in the last twelve months set out to chart progress made in understanding anatomical and functional features in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The authors searched databases for research findings in the neuroimaging of autism using a variety of Medline search terms They found that techniques such as functional magnetic resonance [read the full story…]
Quality of life as a treatment outcome in services for people with learning disabilities and autism has received little attention in the literature. The researchers in this study combined quality of life measures with objective observations of challenging behaviours to evaluate outcomes for adults with learning disabilities and autism living in two different residential services. [read the full story…]
