| 1. |
- Haglund, Nils, et al.
(författare)
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Improvement of Autism Symptoms After Comprehensive Intensive Early Interventions in Community Settings
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. - : SAGE Publications. - 1078-3903 .- 1532-5725. ; 27:6, s. 483-495
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Preschool children with autism in southern Sweden participated in a comprehensive Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) program. AIMS: To evaluate the ongoing NDBI program by comparing the pre- and postintervention outcomes in terms of improved autism symptom severity. METHOD: The improvement of Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-R) test results between baseline and evaluation among children participating in the NDBI program (n = 67) was compared with the results among children receiving community treatment as usual (n = 27) using analysis of covariance. RESULTS: The study showed that children in the NDBI group improved their ADOS-R total scores between baseline and evaluation (-0.8 scores per year; 95% CI [-1.2, -0.4]), whereas no improvement was detected in the comparison group (+0.1 scores per year; 95% CI [-0.7, +0.9]). The change in the NDBI group versus the change in the comparison group was statistically significant after adjusting for possible confounders as well. Children in the NDBI group also significantly improved their ADOS severity scores, but the scores were not significantly different from those of the comparison group. CONCLUSIONS: The results from the current naturalistic study must be interpreted cautiously, but they do support earlier studies reporting on improvement of autism symptoms after early intensive interventions. Results from observational studies are difficult to interpret, but it is nevertheless of uttermost importance to evaluate costly autism intervention programs. The results do indicate that children with autism benefit from participating in early comprehensive intensive programs.
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| 2. |
- Dahlgren, Sven-Olof, 1956, et al.
(författare)
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Prosodic traits in speech produced by children with autism spectrum disorders – Perceptual and acoustic measurements
- 2018
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Ingår i: Autism & Developmental Language Impairments. - : SAGE Publications. - 2396-9415. ; 3, s. 1-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Autism spectrum disorder has been associated with atypical voice characteristics and prosody. In the scientific literature, four different aspects of atypical speech production in autism spectrum disorder have been highlighted; voice quality together with the prosodic aspects pitch, duration and intensity. Studies of prosody in autism spectrum disorder have almost exclusively used perceptual methods. Recently, some studies have used acoustic analyses. In these studies, it has been pointed out that the acoustic differences found are not necessarily perceived as atypical by listeners, which is why it is important to let listeners evaluate perceptual correlates to acoustic findings. The aims of this study were to use both perceptual and acoustic analyses to study prosodic production in children with autism spectrum disorder and to examine if voice and speech characteristics could be used as clinical markers for autism spectrum disorder. Method: Eleven children within normal range of intelligence diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and 11 children with typical development participated. Every child was recorded telling a story elicited with the expression, reception and recall of narrative instrument. Excerpts of one minute were extracted from the audio files creating the material underlying the perceptual ratings and in the acoustic analysis. An evaluation procedure, partly based on a standardized voice evaluation procedure developed for clinical practice in Sweden, was designed for the perceptual judgments and analysis. To capture critical prosodic variables, aspects of prosody based on characteristic features of Swedish prosody, prosodic features known to cause Swedish children with language impairment particular problems and current research of prosodic impairments in children with autism, were used as rating variables. The acoustic analysis was based on the four variables fundamental frequency (fo) average, fo range, fo variation and speech rate, together with the language production-related variable number of words per utterance. Results: In the acoustic analysis, no differences were found with regards to fo-related variables or speech rate. However, the children in the autism spectrum disorder-group produced significantly more words per utterance than the typically developing children. The perceptual analysis showed no differences between the groups. Only three children with autism spectrum disorder were correctly identified as such. The narrative ability of these children, according to scores on the narrative assessment profile, was poorer than that of the other eight children. They were also more atypical in fluency and in speech rate. Given the small sample, the results should be interpreted with caution. Conclusions and implications: The only difference in prosodic production discovered in the acoustic analysis, namely that children with autism spectrum disorder used more words per utterance than the children in the comparison group, was not detected in the perceptual assessment. This implies that it was not perceived as atypical by expert listeners. The results indicate difficulties in using voice and speech characteristics as markers of autism spectrum disorder in clinical settings. The correct identification of some of the children as having autism spectrum disorder or not also indicates that some children with autism spectrum disorder have a prosodic production sufficiently ‘atypical’ in combination with a limited ability to tell stories to be perceived.
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| 3. |
- Dahlgren, Sven-Olof, 1956, et al.
(författare)
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Theory of Mind and Executive Functions in Young Bilingual Children
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Genetic Psychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0022-1325 .- 1940-0896. ; 178:5, s. 303-307
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Few studies have explored the relationship between theory of mind (ToM), executive function (EF), and bilingualism at the same time. In this study 14 young bilingual children were compared with monolingual children on a test battery composed of 5 ToM tests, 5 EF tests, and 1 test of general language ability. The result showed that despite significantly lower verbal ability, the bilingual children outperformed the monolingual ones on tests of EF. There were no differences in ToM performance. The authors argue that there is a strong relationship between bilingualism and EF, but, contrary to results from earlier studies, they could not find any relationship between bilingualism and ToM. EF did not predict ToM performance. Lack of a significant relationship could be due to the children's young age and consequently their low scores on the ToM tasks.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Haglund, Nils, et al.
(författare)
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The observation scale for autism (OSA): A new screening method to detect autism spectrum disorder before age three years
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Intellectual Disability - Diagnosis and Treatment. - : Lifescience Global. - 2292-2598. ; 3:4, s. 230-237
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract: Background: There is an increasing body of evidence that early interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) promote a positive development of social interaction. Thus, tools for early detection of ASD are warranted. Aim: Development of, and deciding cut-off-levels for, a new screening tool for ASD, the Observation Scale for Autism (OSA). The OSA was designed to be used at the free health check-up at 30 months, offered to all children in Sweden. Method: The OSA consists of 12 observations and takes less than 10 minutes to use. The performance of the test was investigated by assessing 37 children previously diagnosed ASD, 23 with Down Syndrome (DS) and 26 typically developing children (TD). Results: Children diagnosed with ASD showed statistically significant higher scores in all 12 items compared to TD children, and significantly higher in 10 items compared to the children with DS. Most of the observations in OSA seemed to cover specific symptoms of ASD, but two of the observations were more related to developmental level. The nine most discriminative items for ASD were identified, and among those, a cut-off limit was chosen (≥3 items). Among children with ASD, 34/37 reached the proposed cut off, compared to 0/26 and 4/23 among children in the TD and DS groups, respectively. Conclusion: The results suggest that the OSA discriminates children with ASD from TD children and children with DS. Using the suggested cut off, OSA provides high sensitivity for ASD (92%) with a very low false positive rate.
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| 6. |
- Dahlgren Sandberg, Annika, 1946, et al.
(författare)
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Theory of mind in children with cerebral palsy: The impact of limited expressive linguistic abilities
- 2012
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Ingår i: Access to language and cognitive development. - : Oxford University Press. - 9780199592722 - 0199592721 ; , s. 62-79
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The performance on theory of mind tasks in children with cerebral palsy and severe speech impairments implies a slower development than that shown by typically developing children. This delay might depend on limited linguistic and conversational competence, memory problems and deficits in executive functions, lack of pretend play or lack of opportunities to take other persons’ perspectives or a combination of all four. It might also reflect methodological issues. The ToM paradigm or the methods typically may serve to underestimate somewhat the abilities of children with CP at interpreting other minds in real life. Given that children with CP have not been the focus of numerous investigations to date, research is urgently required to provide more information about their ToM understanding and cognitive development more generally.
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| 7. |
- Sjöström, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Bariatric surgery and long-term cardiovascular events.
- 2012
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Ingår i: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. - : American Medical Association (AMA). - 1538-3598. ; 307:1, s. 56-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular events. Weight loss might protect against cardiovascular events, but solid evidence is lacking.
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| 8. |
- Dahlgren, Sven-Olof, 1956, et al.
(författare)
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Theory of mind in Children with Severe Speech and Physical Impairments
- 2010
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Ingår i: Research in Developmental Disabilities. ; 31, s. 617-624
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The development of a person's ability to understand other's thoughts and feelings, so called "theory of mind" (ToM), is subject to study. Children with communicative disabilities have exhibited problems in this respect, highlighting the role of language in the development of ToM. In this study, ToM was studied in children with cerebral palsy and severe speech impairments. Two tasks, differently dependent on verbal abilities, were used. The results were compared to those of a mental age matched group. The groups differed significantly on the verbally dependent task while difference in performance did not reach significance on the less verbally dependent one. The results are discussed in terms of a delayed development of ToM in children with severe speech and physical impairments, dependent on verbal abilities.
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| 9. |
- Dahlgren Sandberg, Annika, 1946, et al.
(författare)
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Reading skills in Swedish children with autism spectrum disorders
- 2009
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Ingår i: Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology. ; 51:Suppl 3.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research on reading in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is up to now inconclusive. Some studies have pointed to good word decoding abilities and poor reading comprehension, while in other studies the children also vary considerably in word decoding skills. Most of the research has been done in English speaking populations. In this session we will contrast the different findings and give an example from a study on 37 Swedish speaking children with ASD who were of normal intelligence. In this study word decoding and sentence comprehensions skills were examined in relation to verbal ability, memory and performance on theory of mind (ToM) tasks. The ToM tasks were included because both mentalizing ability and reading are dependent on similar higher order skills, such as the ability to go "beyond the surface", metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness and also verbal comprehension. Main results showed that three distinct groups of readers could be discerned: proficient readers, poor sentence comprehenders and children who in addition to being poor comprehenders also were poor word decoders. The results will be discussed in terms of cognitive and linguistic variables.
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| 10. |
- Sjöström, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of bariatric surgery on cancer incidence in obese patients in Sweden (Swedish Obese Subjects Study): a prospective, controlled intervention trial.
- 2009
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Ingår i: The lancet oncology. - 1474-5488. ; 10:7, s. 653-62
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Obesity is a risk factor for cancer. Intentional weight loss in the obese might protect against malignancy, but evidence is limited. To our knowledge, the Swedish Obese Subjects (SOS) study is the first intervention trial in the obese population to provide prospective, controlled cancer-incidence data. METHODS: The SOS study started in 1987 and involved 2010 obese patients (body-mass index [BMI] >or=34 kg/m(2) in men, and >or=38 kg/m(2) in women) who underwent bariatric surgery and 2037 contemporaneously matched obese controls, who received conventional treatment. While the main endpoint of SOS was overall mortality, the main outcome of this exploratory report was cancer incidence until Dec 31, 2005. Cancer follow-up rate was 99.9% and the median follow-up time was 10.9 years (range 0-18.1 years). FINDINGS: Bariatric surgery resulted in a sustained mean weight reduction of 19.9 kg (SD 15.6 kg) over 10 years, whereas the mean weight change in controls was a gain of 1.3 kg (SD 13.7 kg). The number of first-time cancers after inclusion was lower in the surgery group (n=117) than in the control group (n=169; HR 0.67, 95% CI 0.53-0.85, p=0.0009). The sex-treatment interaction p value was 0.054. In women, the number of first-time cancers after inclusion was lower in the surgery group (n=79) than in the control group (n=130; HR 0.58, 0.44-0.77; p=0.0001), whereas there was no effect of surgery in men (38 in the surgery group vs 39 in the control group; HR 0.97, 0.62-1.52; p=0.90). Similar results were obtained after exclusion of all cancer cases during the first 3 years of the intervention. INTERPRETATION: Bariatric surgery was associated with reduced cancer incidence in obese women but not in obese men. FUNDING: Swedish Research Council, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, Swedish Federal Government under the LUA/ALF agreement, Hoffmann La Roche, Cederoths, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Ethicon Endosurgery.
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