Autism

Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience co-occurring physical and mental health challenges throughout their lives. At the same time, they often face many barriers to accessing proper care. Strategies to improve communication and understanding can help to mitigate some of these barriers. This study examined the effects of an instructional package, including a video module accompanied by guided notes, the Autism Healthcare Accommodations Tool (AHAT), and behavior skills training (BST) to teach adults with autism to communicate their unique needs and request accommodations from a medical provider. Participants completed a self-guided video module that guided them through the process of completing the notes and AHAT to identify appropriate accommodations and prepare for a doctor’s appointment. Once completed, participants learned to verbalize their needs and accommodations through BST. Results showed that the participants’ communication skills increased after the introduction of the instructional package, generalized to a novel doctor and maintained once the instructional package was removed. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The overall goal of the present study was to examine the data from several research studies to aid in understanding sex, ASD, and its subcomponents using the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale or GARS-2, an ASD diagnostics questionnaire, and to explore the relation between facial emotional recognition, sex, and ASD. We did not find a significant difference in the GARS-2 overall scores, nor was there a difference in the GARS-2 subscale scores when examining the scores of boys and girls (both ASD and TD). Our findings suggest the GARS-2 is an excellent choice in diagnostic measures and does not appear to have a sex bias. That being said, research into ASD measures is much needed. This is a significant issue as such research does not consider the potential different symptomology of girls with ASD. The issue at the heart of this study is that for so long research on ASD has been limited to studying samples of boys with the disorder (Lundstrom et al., 2019).