Dear Students!
Our
next speaker on the 28th of March will be Daniel Messinger who will talk
about: "The development of Autism".
You
will need to read his paper titled:"Early sex differences are not autism-specific: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study"
Please post your comments not later than Tuesday (27th) afternoon!
Jessica Yoo
ReplyDeleteEarly sex differences are not autism-specific: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study (Messinger et al., 2015)
A recent study suggested that there may be no sex differences in cognitive skills or severity of ASD symptoms in young children and normal children. Males also showed greater level of ASD symptom severity (Reinhardt, 2015), presenting different results from previous findings. In order to explore more into these outcomes, Messinger presented a study on gender differences in ASD and ASD siblings. The participants were made up of younger siblings of a high-risk ASD group and low-risk ASD group, and their profiles were analyzed through various clinical measures. The results indicated that out of high-risk siblings, male recurrence was higher than female (3:1) and displayed lower cognitive levels. Sex differences were shown in cognitive and repetitive behaviors in both high-risk with ASD and also high-risk without ASD including the low-risk groups. The study concluded that early sex differences are not specific to ASD.
What could possibly account for these variances in results regarding the sex differences in ASD across all studies, including electrophysiological studies?
Also, could there be a gender difference on global vs. local processing? on these visual reception, expressive language, etc.
DeleteThis study examined the odds of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by looking at sex differences in probands and younger siblings of children with ASD. Specifically, three groups (high risk siblings with and without ASD, and low-risk children) were examined longitudinally. 1824 children were included and assessed for ASD. 252 were diagnosed, and further assessed for symptom severity and cognitive performance to determine sex and group differences. Males were found to be at greater risk for ASD in high-risk siblings, and overall risk for diagnosis in high-risk siblings was 1:5. Children with ASD scored lower on cognitive performance and with greater symptom severity; girls performed slightly higher and with lower severity than males. Overall, no sex and group interaction differences appeared significant for cognitive performance or symptom severity. How does the lack of a significant interaction in sex and group differences inform what we know about the genetics of autism?
ReplyDeleteEarly sex differences are not autism-specific: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study
ReplyDeleteDue to an increase in male prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with an assumption of gender differences in ASD symptoms and cognitive functioning, this research studied gender differences and sex of proband differences in ASD outcome and in the development of ASD symptoms and cognitive functioning among the high-risk younger siblings and low-risk children in the early ASD phenotype. From related work, there are more number of ASD found in males than females with the ratio of 4:1 from the study of a school-based prevalence studyof 8-year-olds. Another study found that the ratio is 3:1 among Asian and European children, and a nonsignificant in a Swedish population. Data were collected from 15 independently funded research sites, and results showed that 252 cases with ASD from 1241 high risk siblings. Male:female ratio is 3.2:1 among a large sample of high risk siblings. Sex differences applied for all categories including high-risk children with and without ASD as well as low-risk children, not just ASD specific. Results also contradicts with The female protective effect hypothesis mentioned in background that ASD recurrence and symptoms will be higher among relatives of female probands.
Questions: For this study the findings sex differences not autism-specific somehow contradicts to literature statistics, wonder if the genetics on genders would confirm with this results? Perhaps expressed genes are not on gender chromosomes?!
Sex differences in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are widely reported, but it is not clear whether presentation of ASD symptoms and levels of cognitive functioning actually reflect normative sex differences in children without ASD. Additionally, the female protective effect account hypothesizes that first-degree relatives of female probands (i.e., the first affected child in a family) will exhibit higher levels of ASD symptoms and recurrence (i.e., the likelihood that another family member following the proband will be diagnosed with ASD) than relatives of male probands. This large-scale investigation analyzed younger siblings of probands to determine sex differences in presentation of ASD symptoms as well as possible effects of proband sex in ASD recurrence consistent with the female protective effect hypothesis. Younger siblings of children with ASD were categorized into either high-risk with ASD, high-risk without ASD, or low-risk groups, and they were tested for ASD symptoms and cognitive functions at 18, 24, and 36 months. In the high-risk siblings with ASD, male recurrence to female recurrence had an approximate 3:1 odds ratio. Sex differences observed across these measures appeared independent of an ASD diagnosis; that is, in the absence of a sex*group interaction on either ASD symptoms or cognitive functions, sex differences reflected typically occurring differences that arise during development in children with or without ASD. In contrast to the female protective effect hypothesis, proband sex did not affect ASD outcome or scores on either test.
ReplyDeleteMessinger et al. argue that sex differences in autism are not attributable to a protective effect for females—as hypothesized by several researchers. Instead, they claim that the higher incidence of ASD in males is related to normal variability in sex differences during development. They conducted a study on 1824 infants who came from either high or low risk family backgrounds for ASD and compared measures of early learning in development and ASD scores from the ADOS for both genders. Consistent with extend literature, they found an increased odds ratio of 3.18 for male ASD diagnosis. However, they did not find an interaction between sex and severity of ASD symptoms. They found that females outperformed males on various measures of early learning for both high and low risk groups, but that sex differences in infants with a later diagnosis of ASD were not significantly different than sex differences in unaffected subjects. They conclude that while females are less likely to receive a diagnosis of autism, this is due to normal sex variability and not a specific genetic protective effect for females.
ReplyDeleteASD is characterized by impairments in communication and language development. Furthermore, there is normal variability in sex differences related to language development. It makes sense how an additive effect of reduced language development in males and a diagnosis of ASD can contribute to greater severity of the disorder. I am curious about the biological bases for normal sex differences in language development. Is it related to genetics? To hormones and neuro-developmental factors? Culture and socialization?
In a longitudinal study, Messinger et al. assed sex differences in the presentation of ASD symptoms and cognitive functioning by looking at younger siblings. The study included three groups for comparison (high-risk siblings with ASD, high-risk siblings without ASD, and low-risk children. The paper presents an argument against the idea of a female protective effect. The findings reflect a female over male advantage in the presentation of symptoms and cognitive functioning of ASD. The females performed better than the males in all aspects of assessment. The occurrence of ASD was also greater for males that females with a lower level of severity for repetitive behaviors. There was no evidence of a female protective effect in these findings.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, this isn’t an ignorant statement…I think I need a better understanding of the female protective effect. Although no evidence of this occurrence was found in this study. I would like to better understand exactly what this means. We did discuss this in another lecture this semester, but I am still not fully grasping exactly what it entails. It seems like an almost counterintuitive concept. If there is no evidence of a female protective effect, what does this mean for diagnosis and understanding ASD presentation? Also, what would constitute normal sex differences?
Messinger et al. suggest that previously established sex differences in ASD may be more reflective of general sex differences within the population during the course of development rather than relating only to ASD phenotypes. They further investigate the possibility that observed sex differences in ASD occurrence may also be present in exhibited symptom severity and level of cognitive function. These propositions were investigated using a longitudinal study of probands and their younger siblings (high-risk group) as well as children with no first-degree relatives having an ASD diagnosis (low-risk group). The high-risk group was further divided based on ASD diagnosis of the younger sibling (high-risk ASD and high-risk non-ASD). Following clinical measures and consideration of other influential demographic variables, it was determined that children with ASD tended to perform more poorly on cognitive tasks as well as exhibit greater severity of ASD symptoms. Additionally, females performed better than males on cognitive measures and exhibited lower levels of restrictive and repetitive behaviors regardless of group. Because these observed differences between the sexes did not vary across groups, it was concluded that these differences may be attributed to normal variation within development rather than being specific to ASD. Furthermore, their findings provide contradictory evidence for the female protective effect as no significant increase in symptom severity or cognitive function was noted for siblings of female probands.
ReplyDeleteEarly sex differences are not autism-specific: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study
ReplyDeleteAuthors of this paper argue about prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among male population by examining sex differences and sex of proband differences among younger siblings high-risk of ASD probands and low-risk children. An estimated risk ratio of 4:1 indicates towards existence of ASD being more common in male when compared with females. This finding is however rather interesting because when compared to Asian, European children and a relatively similar ratio between male to female differences within Swedish population, ASD ratio stays at about 3:1. Research was conducted on 1824 infants which included 1241 high-risk and 583 low-risk siblings. An important conclusion from this research was high-risk children with ASD, high-risk children without ASD and low-risk children possessed cognitive performance and repetitive behaviors with varying degrees between different sexes. Results generated from this study did not consider female protective effect hypothesis which in-turn would conflict with the current results as younger siblings with female probands have higher odds of ASD recurrence.
In the paper, author use statistics method to evaluate the relation between the sex and ASD patients called BSRC. Different from the other readings, this paper didn’t focus on the genetics factors. They used two statistics analysis models: MSEL and ADOS to dig the relationships hiding among the data.
ReplyDeleteWe learnt that ASD have a higher frequency in male than female. Thus, people can’t help but thinking the relations between sex and ASD. In the paper, authors used their data to prove that there is no significant interactions between sex and group using either models. This indicates that maybe sex has no relation to the ASD outcome. But data also shows that the children with ASD do show some cognitive functioning and symptoms. However, as mentioned earlier, no evidence shows there is a difference between male and female. To some extent, female protective effect is not fully supported here.
My questions:
1. How to determine the main effects factor? (Subscale, sex group age in the table) Any supported data?
2. Not clear about the interaction between the effects. Need some example to understand. Especially for the four-way interaction effect (table 2)