Dravet syndrome (DS) presents a multifaceted clinical picture marked by epilepsy, cognitive impairments and behavioral disorders that progresses throughout development. Behavioral disorders include impairments in social relationships and communication, with frequent diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. This study focused on comprehensively evaluating and comparing social communication profiles among a group of 43 children with Dravet syndrome, 30 children with level 1 autism spectrum disorder, 36 with social (pragmatic) communication disorder, and 18 with intellectual disability. Using validated tools like the Childhood Autism Spectrum Test and Children\'s Communication Checklist, distinct patterns of social communication deficits were delineated. Our findings indicate that children with Dravet syndrome experience challenges in social relationships, primarily due to difficulties in use of pragmatic language. Areas such as range of interests and social interaction are less affected compared to those with ASD, emphasizing differing profiles between the conditions. While children with DS and ID may have similar intellectual functioning, the different social communication deficits in DS indicate their role in the DS phenotype beyond ID. These results underscore the unique social communication profile of DS and emphasizes the importance of tailored interventions and deep phenotyping efforts for effective DS management.

UNASSIGNED: Central coherence is the normal tendency to process and give meaning to incoming information taking into account the context or global view of that information.
UNASSIGNED: We assessed the central coherence of 252 school children of normal intelligence between 6 and 11 years old. We compared the performance of two groups: (a) a control group (n = 194), and (b) a clinical group (n = 58) comprising children with NVLD+ADHD (n = 24), ADHD alone (n = 16), SCD (n = 8) and level-1ASD (n = 10) (Kluskall-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U were calculated to make comparisons within groups and between pairs of groups). The effects of medication were studied (Student\'s t test).
UNASSIGNED: The NVLD+ADHD, SCD and ASD1 groups showed weak central coherence. The performance of the ADHD group was normal and differed significantly from the NVLD+ADHD group.
UNASSIGNED: Central coherence deficit was not exclusive to ASD1: it also characterizes NVLD and SCD.

UNASSIGNED: The Fragile X Messenger Ribonucleoprotein-1 (FMR1) premutation (FXpm) is a genetic variant that is common in the general population and is associated with health symptoms and disease in adulthood. However, poor understanding of the clinical phenotype during childhood has hindered the development of clinical practice guidelines for screening and intervention. Given that social communication difficulties have been widely documented in adults with the FXpm and are linked with reduced psychosocial functioning, the present study aimed to characterize the communication profile of the FXpm during early childhood.
UNASSIGNED: Eighteen children with the FXpm who were identified through cascade testing (89%) or screening at birth (11%) were compared to 21 matched typically developing children, aged 2-4 years. Participants completed standardized assessments of language (Mullen Scales of Early Learning) and adaptive communication (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-II). Social communication was rated from seminaturalistic interaction samples using the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change.
UNASSIGNED: Children with the FXpm showed delayed social communication development, with the magnitude of group differences highlighting social communication as a feature that distinguishes children with the FXpm from their peers (p = .046, ηp2 = .12). The groups did not differ on the standardized language and adaptive communication measures (ps > .297, ηp2s < .03).
UNASSIGNED: Early screening and treatment of social communication delays may be key to optimizing outcomes for children with the FXpm. Further research is needed to replicate findings in a larger sample, delineate the trajectory and consequences of social communication difficulties across the life span in the FXpm, and determine the potential epidemiological significance of FMR1 as a mediator of developmental communication differences within the general population.

BACKGROUND: A number of children experience difficulties with social communication and this has long-term deleterious effects on their mental health, social development and education. The E-PLAYS-2 study will test an intervention (\'E-PLAYS\') aimed at supporting such children. E-PLAYS uses a dyadic computer game to develop collaborative and communication skills. Preliminary studies by the authors show that E-PLAYS can produce improvements in children with social communication difficulties on communication test scores and observed collaborative behaviours. The study described here is a definitive trial to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of E-PLAYS delivered by teaching assistants in schools.
METHODS: The aim of the E-PLAYS-2 trial is to establish the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of care as usual plus the E-PLAYS programme, delivered in primary schools, compared to care as usual. Cluster-randomisation will take place at school level to avoid contamination. The E-PLAYS intervention will be delivered by schools\' teaching assistants. Teachers will select suitable children (ages 5-7 years old) from their schools using guidelines provided by the research team. Assessments will include blinded language measures and observations (conducted by the research team), non-blinded teacher-reported measures of peer relations and classroom behaviour and parent-reported use of resources and quality of life. A process evaluation will also include interviews with parents, children and teaching assistants, observations of intervention delivery and a survey of care as usual. The primary analysis will compare pragmatic language scores for children who received the E-PLAYS intervention versus those who did not at 40 weeks post-randomisation. Secondary analyses will assess cost-effectiveness and a mixed methods process evaluation will provide richer data on the delivery of E-PLAYS.
CONCLUSIONS: The aim of this study is to undertake a final, definitive test of the effectiveness of E-PLAYS when delivered by teaching assistants within schools. The use of technology in game form is a novel approach in an area where there are currently few available interventions. Should E-PLAYS prove to be effective at the end of this trial, we believe it is likely to be welcomed by schools, parents and children.
BACKGROUND: ISRCTN 17561417, registration date 19th December 2022.
METHODS: v1.1 19th June 2023.

BACKGROUND: The ability to understand the mental state of others (social cognition), as well as language, is crucial for children to have good social adaptation. Social cognition (SC) has been shown to be a hierarchical model of three factors (Cognitive, intermediate and affective SC) interrelated with linguistic processes. Children on the autism spectrum and children with developmental language disorder (DLD) or social communication disorder (SCD) manifest language and SC difficulties, albeit in different ways.
OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aims to find how language and SC interact with each other and identify linguistic and socio-affective profiles in the target population.
METHODS: About 1593 articles were systematically reviewed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guide in November 2022, obtaining, through inclusion/exclusion criteria, a total of 38 articles for qualitative assessment. The majority of them were on autism (26) or DLD (14) and to a lesser extent SCD (3).
RESULTS: Although SC is related to all components of language, SC is strongly related to narrative and morphosyntax and partially related to lexicon. Pragmatics shows a complex relation with SC due to greater sensitivity to other factors such as age or task, and prosody appears to be more related to emotional processes. Besides, autistic, SCD and DLD children showed differences in their language and socio-affective performance. Mainstream DLD children have lower performance in general language, where autistic and SCD children have more linguistic variation and are lower in pragmatic and SC tasks, SCD children being more associated with language production difficulties and autistic children with both receptive and productive language.
CONCLUSIONS: Each language component has a different interaction with SC. Likewise, different linguistic profiles are partially found for each disorder. These results are important for future lines of research focusing on specific components of interaction and socio-emotional processes, as well as for clinical and educational treatment.
CONCLUSIONS: What is already known on the subject The hierarchical model of Schurz et al. (2021), divide social cognition into three brain constructs: cognitive social cognition (CSC), affective social cognition (ASC) and intermediate social cognition (ISC). They observe a large relationship between language and ISC, a fact that has been corroborated with some other studies. Studies have also found lower linguistic and socio-affective abilities in children with autism and language and communication disorders compared with children with neurotypical development, and large behavioural and neurocognitive overlaps between these disorders (Durrleman et al., 2019; Löytömäki et al., 2019). What this paper adds to existing knowledge This is the first review that relates all linguistic components (narrative, lexicon, morphosyntax, pragmatic and prosody) with the three constructs of social cognition (Cognitive, intermediate and affective). Moreover, it is the first review that studies the socio-linguistic factors comparing autism, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder with each other and with neurotypical development in children aged from 4 to 9 years. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Understanding how language and social cognition interact with each other in autism spectrum disorder, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder allows us to trace socio-linguistic profiles for each of the studied disorders, understand better children with these difficulties, and, with this, find specific potential intervention points to improve and prevent these difficulties.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SCD) were described as a new category of psychiatry nosography. SCD involves impairments in social communication and social interaction but not restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. The autism spectrum quotient (AQ) was developed to screen for autism tendencies in adults with normal intelligence. However, AQ cutoff scores for screening ASD and SCD in the DSM-5 have not been established. This study examined whether the Japanese version of the AQ (AQ-J) total scores could discriminate between an ASD group, an SCD group, and a neurotypical (NT) group.
Participants were 127 ASD patients, 52 SCD patients, and 49 NT individuals. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to examine AQ-J total score cutoff values to distinguish between ASD and NT groups, SCD and NT groups, and ASD and SCD groups.
In the ROC analysis for the ASD and NT groups, the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.96, and the optimum cutoff value was 23 points (sensitivity 92.9%, specificity 85.7%). The AUC for the SCD and NT groups was 0.89, and the optimum cutoff value was 22 points (sensitivity 84.6%, specificity 85.7%). The AUC for the ASD and SCD groups was 0.75; the optimum cutoff value was 32 points (sensitivity 67.7%, specificity 71.2%).
Our findings suggest the usefulness of the AQ-J in screening for ASD and SCD.

Currently, there are no existing measures to screen for or diagnose Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SPCD). We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the Social Communication Disorder Screener (SCDS), a 14-item, parent-report measure based on the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for SPCD. This EFA examined the internal consistency and factor structure of the SCDS for a sample of 500 parents of children, ages 5-18 years, representative of the U.S. census. Results yielded a correlated three-factor solution with good internal consistency reliability. Findings supported the presence of three subscale as well as the derivation of a total composite score reflecting overall verbal and non-verbal communication and limitations across contexts. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

UNASSIGNED: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to systematically investigate the intervention effect of physical exercise on disordered social communication in patients with autism spectrum disorders.
UNASSIGNED: This systematic review and meta-analysis used the PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, and Embase electronic databases to conduct a systematic search of literature describing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effect of physical exercise on disordered social communication in autistic patients from the first year of inclusion to 21 January 2023.
UNASSIGNED: A total of 14 RCTs including 460 autistic patients were analyzed. A meta-analysis showed that physical exercise had a positive effect on social communication disorder (SMD = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.15, 0.74, p < 0.05) in autistic patients. Subgroup analysis showed that exercise programs with multiple components (SMD = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.39, 1.06, P < 0.001), a moderate duration (SMD = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.38, 1.08, P < 0.001), a moderate-high frequency (SMD = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.53, 1.14, P < 0.001), and a long duration (SMD = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.36, 1.18, P < 0.001) led to significant improvement.
UNASSIGNED: Physical exercise can improve disordered social communication in patients with autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, early intervention, multi-component exercise, a moderate period, moderate and high frequency, long duration, and multi-participant programs were most effective.
UNASSIGNED: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/ RecordID= CRD42023422482.

暂无摘要。

Deficits in social verbal communication in individuals with Social Communication Disorder (SCD) is of concern and SCD in the human community is prevalent in large population throughout the globe. Deficits in verbal social communication are prevalent in a large population. This paper aimed to propose internet connected multi-system architecture which is capable to support verbal communication in a social environment for individuals with social communication deficits.
Implementation methodology was included with corpus collection for specific communication, deep learning based machine training for intelligent communication, and implementation of the trained algorithm on internet connected electronic multiple social communication devices. The implemented system is smart enough to initiate and maintain two types of communication; the first type includes communication between multiple individuals on the remote location and the second type includes communication with the individual present in the physical listening range.
The system was investigated in terms of its algorithmic parameters and found 97% to 100% in terms of training and testing accuracy with negligible mean squared error. Vocal-Friend analysed results based on audio-bot simulative conditions provide more than 91% accuracy, interaction rate and fallback rate. On the basis of the satisfaction analysis, above average results were noticed.
In terms of technical implementations and satisfaction analysis, results found acceptable with above average score.IMPLICATION FOR REHABILITATIONProposed framework is easy to use by caregivers with even having little knowledge.Support individual with deficit to learn social verbal communication skill to survive in society.Aiding parents, caregivers and professionals to understand the communication needs of individuals with communication deficits.Since technology is also grooming in the domain of rehabilitation, so this system could be used in various future applications such as social robots, social virtual assistants etc.