The visual magnocellular system is thought to play a crucial role in learning to read. Here therefore, we examined whether magnocellular based training could improve reading in children with visual ...reading problems. The participants were 24 male primary school students aged between 9-11 (Mean = 9.76, SD = 0.59) with specific reading difficulty. Experimental and control groups were matched for age, sex, educational level, IQ, reading abilities (measured by APRA), magnocellular performance as assessed by a random dot kinematogram (RDK) paradigm and recordings of their saccadic eye movements. The experimental group received twelve magnocellular based visual motion training sessions, twice a week over 6 weeks. During the same period, the control group played a video game with the help of a practitioner. All measures were made just prior to the training and were repeated at the 6
, 12
training session and one month later. The experimental group showed significant improvements in magnocellular function, visual errors and reading accuracy during the course of intervention. Follow-up assessment confirmed that these effects persisted one month later. Impaired magnocellular functioning appeared to be an important cause of poor reading in Persian. Hence magnocellular based training could help many children with specific reading difficulties. Also testing magnocellular function could be used as screening tool for detecting dyslexia before a child begins to fail at school.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a neurostimulation device used to modulate brain cortex activity. Our objective was to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of low-frequency repeated TMS ...(LF-rTMS) in a rat model of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) induced by prenatal valproic acid (VPA) exposure through the injection of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs). For the induction of ASD, we administered prenatal VPA (600 mg/kg, I.P.) on the 12.5th day of pregnancy. At postnatal day 30, SPIONs were injected directly into the lateral ventricle of the brain. Subsequently, LF-rTMS treatment was applied for 14 consecutive days. Following the treatment period, behavioral analyses were conducted. At postnatal day 60, brain tissue was extracted, and both biochemical and histological analyses were performed. Our data revealed that prenatal VPA exposure led to behavioral alterations, including changes in social interactions, increased anxiety, and repetitive behavior, along with dysfunction in stress coping strategies. Additionally, we observed reduced levels of SYN, MAP2, and BDNF. These changes were accompanied by a decrease in dendritic spine density in the hippocampal CA1 area. However, LF-rTMS treatment combined with SPIONs successfully reversed these dysfunctions at the behavioral, biochemical, and histological levels, introducing a successful approach for the treatment of ASD.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
We investigated (1) if the perceptual integration performance is different in children with ASD in comparison with their typically developed (TD) counterparts; and (2) if activating- priming- the ...global processing strategy, could benefit the integration performance of children with ASD in the subsequent task. We observed that in comparison with the TD group, children with ASD had lower performance in an information integration task that required identification of illusory shapes. Additionally, we observed that priming the global processing strategy increased the correct identification of the illusory shapes in the subsequent task. We suggested that studies on priming effect shed light on the different aspects of perceptual properties of ASD, and could also be used in developing new rehabilitation plans.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, VSZLJ, ZAGLJ
In this paper, three pairs of children with autism include a pair of twins, two siblings, and two classmates were enrolled in a 12-session robot-assisted group-games program. As many environmental ...factors were for the most part the same for the siblings as well as genetic factors for the twins, we were able to observe/compare the effect of the designed games on the participants individually and in paired-groups. The results indicated that all participants’ autism severity decreased after the course of the program. Improvement in social skills, social participation/avoidance, and detrimental social behaviors were also observed in the participants with high-functioning autism with close to being large Cohen’s d effect sizes. Moreover, based on the video coders’ observations the joint attention, gaze scores toward the robot, and verbal communications of the paired-groups increased significantly over the treatment time (
p
<
0.05
). However, in general, the designed program effect on the subjects’ behavior seems to be different for participants from different points on the autism spectrum; and even the high-functioning subjects showed different potential behavioral progress.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
The increase in the number of children with autism and the importance of early autism intervention has prompted researchers to perform automatic and early autism screening. Consequently, in the ...present paper, a cry-based screening approach for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is introduced which would provide both early and automatic screening. During the study, we realized that ASD specific features are not necessarily observable in all children with ASD and in all instances collected from each child. Therefore, we proposed a new classification approach to be able to determine such features and their corresponding instances. To test the proposed approach a set of data relating to children between 18 to 53 months which had been recorded using high-quality voice recording devices and typical smartphones at various locations such as homes and daycares was studied. Then, after preprocessing, the approach was used to train a classifier, using data for 10 boys with ASD and 10 Typically Developed (TD) boys. The trained classifier was tested on the data of 14 boys and 7 girls with ASD and 14 TD boys and 7 TD girls. The sensitivity, specificity, and precision of the proposed approach for boys were 85.71%, 100%, and 92.85%, respectively. These measures were 71.42%, 100%, and 85.71% for girls, respectively. It was shown that the proposed approach outperforms the common classification methods. Furthermore, it demonstrated better results than the studies which used voice features for screening ASD. To pilot the practicality of the proposed approach for early autism screening, the trained classifier was tested on 57 participants between 10 to 18 months. These 57 participants consisted of 28 boys and 29 girls and the results were very encouraging for the use of the approach in early ASD screening.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Research has shown improved reading following visual magnocellular training in individuals with dyslexia. Many studies have demonstrated how the magnocellular pathway controls visual spatial ...attention. Therefore, we have investigated the relationship between magnocellular pathway and visual spatial attention deficits in dyslexia in order to better understand how magnocellular-based interventions may help children to learn to read. Magnocellular function, visual spatial attention, and reading abilities of thirty elementary school students with dyslexia, aged between 8 and 10, were measured. The experimental group received magnocellular-based visual motion training for 12 sessions, while the control group received neutral sessions. All tests were repeated at the end of the training and after 1 month. The magnocellular functioning, visual spatial attention, and reading abilities of the experimental group improved significantly compared to the controls. Additionally, improvement in reaction time of invalid conditions predicted improvements in saccadic eye movements. We conclude that visual magnocellular training improved saccadic eye movement control, visual spatial orientation, and reading ability.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Environmental Enrichment (EE) has been suggested as a possible therapeutic intervention for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. Although the benefits of this therapeutic method have been ...reported in some animal models and human studies, the unknown pathophysiology of autism as well as number of conflicting results, urge for further examination of the therapeutic potential of EE in autism. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effects of environmental enrichment on autism-related behaviors which were induced in the maternal separation (MS) animal model.
Maternally separated (post-natal day (PND) 1-14, 3h/day) and control male rats were at weaning (PND21) age equally divided into rats housed in enriched environment and normal environment. At adolescence (PND42-50), the four groups were behaviorally tested for direct social interaction, sociability, repetitive behaviors, anxiety behavior, and locomotion. Following completion of the behavioral tests, the blood and brain tissue samples were harvested in order to assess plasma level of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and structural plasticity of brain using ELISA and stereological methods respectively.
We found that environmental enrichment reduced repetitive behaviors but failed to improve the impaired sociability and anxiety behaviors which were induced by maternal separation. Indeed, EE exacerbated anxiety and social behaviors deficits in association with increased plasma BDNF level, larger volume of the hippocampus and infra-limbic region and higher number of neurons in the infra-limbic area (
< 0.05).
: We conclude that environmental enrichment has a significant improvement effect on the repetitive behavior as one of the core autistic-like behaviors induced by maternal separation but has negative effect on the anxiety and social behaviors which might have been modulated by BDNF.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
We studied the pattern of performance in elementary school children and adults detecting a target in compound geometric shapes. The target was randomly presented at the global, local, or neither ...level of compound shapes with different elemental density. A significant difference between the pattern of performance in children and adults emerged when the geometric shape was constructed with fewer constituent parts. That is, children showed difficulties in recognizing the global level while adults could efficiently process it. We suggest that global processing continues to develop as children grow older. Also, integration ability could benefit from increasing familiarity with the geometric concepts.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Introduction: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a well-known neurodevelopmental disorder. Diagnosis and treatment of ADHD can often lead to a developmental trajectory toward positive ...results. The present study aimed at implementing the decision tree method to recognize children with and without ADHD, as well as ADHD subtypes.Methods: In the present study, the subjects included 61 children with ADHD (subdivided into ADHD-I (n=25), ADHD-H (n=14), and ADHD-C (n=22) groups) and 43 typically developing controls matched by IQ and age. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Integrated Visual And Auditory (IVA) test, and quantitative EEG during eyes-closed resting-state were utilized to evaluate the level of behavioral, neuropsychology, and electrophysiology markers using a decision tree algorithm, respectively.Results: Based on the results, excellent classification accuracy (100%) was obtained to discriminate children with ADHD from the control group. Also, the ADHD subtypes, including combined, inattention, and hyperactive/impulsive subtypes were recognized from others with an accuracy of 80.41%, 84.17%, and 71.46%, respectively.Conclusion: Our results showed that children with ADHD can be recognized from the healthy controls based on the neuropsychological data (sensory-motor parameters of IVA). Also, subtypes of ADHD can be distinguished from each other using behavioral, neuropsychiatric and electrophysiological parameters. The findings suggested that the decision tree method may present an efficient and accurate diagnostic tool for the clinicians.
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