Fabiënne B. A. Naber

Intranasal oxytocin increases fathers’ observed responsiveness during play with their children: A double-blind within-subject experiment

Recent correlational studies showed that oxytocin is associated with parenting style in humans as in other mammals. Here the first double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject experiment with intranasal oxytocin administration is presented. Subjects were 17 fathers with their toddler, observed in two play sessions of 15 min each with an intervening period of 1 week. In the oxytocin condition fathers were more stimulating of their childs exploration than in the placebo condition, and they tended to show less hostility. Parent training experiments might be combined with intranasal oxytocin administration to test differential and cumulative effects of traditional, interaction-focused versus pharmaceutical treatments.

Play Behavior and Attachment in Toddlers with Autism

Play helps to develop social skills. Children with autism show deviances in their play behavior that may be associated with delays in their social development. In this study, we investigated manipulative, functional and symbolic play behavior of toddlers with and without autism (mean age: 26.45, SD 5.63). The results showed that the quality of interaction between the child and the caregiver was related to the development of play behavior. In particular, security of attachment was related to better play behavior. When the developmental level of the child is taken into account, the attachment relationship of the child with the caregiver at this young age is a better predictor of the level of play behavior than the childs disorder.

Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting adapted to Autism (VIPP-AUTI): A randomized controlled trial

In a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the early intervention program Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting adapted to Autism (VIPP-AUTI) with 78 primary caregivers and their child (16–61 months) with Autism Spectrum Disorder. VIPP-AUTI is a brief attachment-based intervention program, focusing on improving parent–child interaction and reducing the child’s individual Autism Spectrum Disorder–related symptomatology in five home visits. VIPP-AUTI, as compared with usual care, demonstrated efficacy in reducing parental intrusiveness. Moreover, parents who received VIPP-AUTI showed increased feelings of self-efficacy in child rearing. No significant group differences were found on other aspects of parent–child interaction or on child play behavior. At 3-months follow-up, intervention effects were found on child-initiated joint attention skills, not mediated by intervention effects on parenting. Implementation of VIPP-AUTI in clinical practice is facilitated by the use of a detailed manual and a relatively brief training of interveners.

Block design reconstruction skills: not a good candidate for an endophenotypic marker in autism research

Superior performance on block design tasks is reported in autistic individuals, although it is not consistently found in high-functioning individuals or individuals with Asperger Syndrome. It is assumed to reflect weak central coherence: an underlying cognitive deficit, which might also be part of the genetic makeup of the disorder. We assessed block design reconstruction skills in high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from multi-incidence families and in their parents. Performance was compared to relevant matched control groups. We used a task that was assumed to be highly sensitive to subtle performance differences. We did not find individuals with ASD to be significantly faster on this task than the matched control group, not even when the difference between reconstruction time of segmented and pre-segmented designs was compared. However, we found individuals with ASD to make fewer errors during the process of reconstruction which might indicate some dexterity in mental segmentation. However, parents of individuals with ASD did not perform better on the task than control parents. Therefore, based on our data, we conclude that mental segmentation ability as measured with a block design reconstruction task is not a neurocognitive marker or endophenotype useful in genetic studies.