Analysis of Psychiatric Disorders by Age Among Children Following a Mass Terrorist Attack in Nice, France, on Bastille Day, 2016.

This cross-sectional study examines psychiatric disorders among children after a mass terrorist attack in Nice, France, in 2016.

Impact of the Timing of Maternal Peripartum Depression on Infant Social and Emotional Development at 18 Months.

The study assessed how the timing of maternal perinatal depressive symptoms affects infant socio-emotional characteristics at age 18 months. The study was a longitudinal cohort study that included six assessment points from the third trimester of pregnancy up to age 18 months (±1 month). Assessment of mothers included the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, while assessments of infant included the Infant Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) at 18 months. Mothers were categorized into one of the following groups: mothers who presented postnatal depression only (n = 19); mothers who presented both prenatal and postnatal depression (n = 14), and mothers who never showed perinatal depression symptoms (n = 38). Mothers who presented both prenatal and postnatal depression showed significantly higher levels of depressive score, reactivity to stress and level of anxiety trait compared to mothers of the two other groups. Infants of prenatally and postnatally depressed mothers had higher scores on the internalizing subscore of the ITSEA. The number of depression episodes during the study period was positively correlated with the externalizing and internalizing subscores of the ITSEA. These findings support the need to provide specific screening to identify women with prenatal depression.

A randomized controlled trial of 25 sessions comparing music therapy and music listening for children with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: Music therapy is based on the use of musical elements by a trained and qualified therapist. Clinical researches have suggested that children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) may benefit from MT. In this regard, this study examines if MT is more effective than simply listening to music for children with ASD. METHOD: A 8-month RCT has been carried out comparing music therapy (MT) to music listening (ML) for children with ASD aged from 4 to 7 years old. Thirty-seven participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups (MT vs. ML). The outcome measures were the Clinical Global Impression (CGI), the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) in each condition (MT and ML). RESULTS: CGI scores decreased more for participants in the MT than in the ML condition. This clinical improvement was associated with an improvement of autistic symptoms on lethargy and stereotypy ABC subscales. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that music therapy is more efficient than music listening for children with ASD. The present study thus supports the consideration of MT as a rightful add-on to ASD healthcare programs.

Hormonal Risk Factors for Osteoporosis: Different Profile Among Antipsychotics.

Objectives: Osteoporosis is a major risk factor for fracture and treatment is mainly preventive. Patients with severe psychiatric condition and treated with antipsychotics are at risk for vitamin D deficiency and iatrogenic hyperprolactinemia, two serious risk factors of osteoporosis. We aim to determine whether all antipsychotics are similar regarding the risk of osteoporosis in young patients. Methods: From January 2009 to March 2015, we determined the vitamin D blood level (VDBL) among 484 inpatients and from January 2012 to March 2015, we determined the prolactin blood level (PBL) among 205 inpatients. We systematically recorded well-documented risk factors (e.g., age, gender, ethnic origin, body mass index, or season) and suspected risk factors (e.g., disease type or antipsychotic treatment). Results: Up to 89% of the inpatients had a VDBL under the recommended threshold. Up to 60% of the inpatients had hyperprolactinemia. The multivariate model found a significant effect on VDBL for seasonality (higher VDBL in summer), ethnicity (lower VDBL in Black individuals), and treatment exposure. The multivariate model found a significant effect on PBL for gender and treatment exposure. In both models, aripiprazole had a safer profile compared with other antipsychotics. Conclusion: Because adolescence is a period of bone construction and a critical window of opportunity for maximizing bone mass, we recommend vitamin D supplementation in young patients with severe mental condition. It could be interesting to reconsider to regularly monitor PBL among youth patients treated with antipsychotic, with the exception of aripiprazole.

Catatonia in Children and Adolescents: A High Rate of Genetic Conditions.

Pediatric catatonia is a rare and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome. We previously reported, in 58 children and adolescents with catatonia, a high prevalence (up to 20%) of medical conditions, some of which have specific treatments.1 Here we extend the cohort inclusion and report the first systematic molecular genetic data for this syndrome. Among the 89 patients consecutively admitted for catatonia (according to the pediatric catatonia rating scale)2 between 1993 and 2014, we identify 51 patients (57.3%) who had genetic laboratory testing, of whom 37 had single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarray tests for CNVs and 14 had routine genetic explorations (karyotyping and searches for specific chromosomal abnormalities by fluorescence in situ hybridization [FISH]) or a specific diagnosis test based on clinical history. To assess the causality of observed genetic findings in each patient, we used a causality assessment score (CAUS)3 including 5 causality-support criteria on a 3-point scale (0 = absent; 1 = moderate; 2 = high): the existence of similar cases in the literature; the presence of a clinical contributing factor; the presence of a biological contributing factor; the presence of other paraclinical symptoms; and response to a specific treatment related to the suspected genetic or medical condition.

Pre-linguistic infants employ complex communicative loops to engage mothers in social exchanges and repair interaction ruptures.

Language has long been identified as a powerful communicative tool among humans. Yet, pre-linguistic communication, which is common in many species, is also used by human infants prior to the acquisition of language. The potential communicational value of pre-linguistic vocal interactions between human infants and mothers has been studied in the past decades. With 120 dyads (mothers and three- or six-month-old infants), we used the classical Still Face Paradigm (SFP) in which mothers interact freely with their infants, then refrain from communication (Still Face, SF), and finally resume play. We employed innovative automated techniques to measure infant and maternal vocalization and pause, and dyadic parameters (infant response to mother, joint silence and overlap) and the emotional component of Infant Directed Speech (e-IDS) throughout the interaction. We showed that: (i) during the initial free play mothers use longer vocalizations and more e-IDS when they interact with older infants and (ii) infant boys exhibit longer vocalizations and shorter pauses than girls. (iii) During the SF and reunion phases, infants show marked and sustained changes in vocalizations but their mothers do not and (iv) mother-infant dyadic parameters increase in the reunion phase. Our quantitative results show that infants, from the age of three months, actively participate to restore the interactive loop after communicative ruptures long before vocalizations show clear linguistic meaning. Thus, auditory signals provide from early in life a channel by which infants co-create interactions, enhancing the mother-infant bond.

A causality algorithm to guide diagnosis and treatment of catatonia due to autoimmune conditions in children and adolescents.

OBJECTIVES: Pediatric catatonia is a rare and life-threatening syndrome. Around 20% of juvenile catatonia is associated with organic condition (Consoli et al., 2012). Autoimmune conditions represent a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge since specific antibodies can be missed. To facilitate decision making, we recently formulated a causality assessment score (CAUS) using a stepwise approach and an immunosuppressive therapeutic challenge (Ferrafiat et al., 2016). Our objectives were to validate retrospectively CAUS and to define its threshold for an accurate distinction between organic catatonia and non-organic catatonia, and specifically between autoimmune catatonia and non-organic catatonia. METHOD: To obtain a sufficient number of cases with organic catatonia, we pooled two samples (N=104) - one from a child psychiatry center, the other from neuro-pediatrics center - expert in catatonia and autoimmune conditions. Organic conditions were diagnosed using a multidisciplinary approach and numerous paraclinical investigations. Given the binary classification needs, we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis (Peacock and Peacock, 2010) to calculate the best classification threshold. RESULTS: The cohort included 67 cases of non-organic catatonia and 37 cases of organic catatonia. ROC analysis showed that the CAUS performance in discriminating both organic catatonia vs. non-organic catatonia, and autoimmune catatonia vs. non-organic catatonia was excellent (Area Under the Curve=0.99). In both analyses, for a CAUS threshold≥5, accuracy equaled to 0.96. CONCLUSION: Regarding juvenile catatonia, the use of the CAUS score algorithm combining a therapeutic challenge and a threshold≥5 may help to diagnose and treat autoimmune conditions even without formal identification of auto-antibodies.

Infant and dyadic assessment in early community-based screening for autism spectrum disorder with the PREAUT grid.

BACKGROUND: The need for early treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) necessitates early screening. Very few tools have been prospectively tested with infants of less than 12 months of age. The PREAUT grid is based on dyadic assessment through interaction and shared emotion and showed good metrics for predicting ASD in very-high-risk infants with West syndrome. METHODS: We assessed the ability of the PREAUT grid to predict ASD in low-risk individuals by prospectively following and screening 12,179 infants with the PREAUT grid at four (PREAUT-4) and nine (PREAUT-9) months of age. A sample of 4,835 toddlers completed the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT) at 24 months (CHAT-24) of age. Children who were positive at one screening (N = 100) were proposed a clinical assessment (including the Children Autism Rating Scale, a Developmental Quotient, and an ICD-10-based clinical diagnosis if appropriate) in the third year of life. A randomly selected sample of 1,100 individuals who were negative at all screenings was followed by the PMI team from three to five years of age to identify prospective false negative cases. The clinical outcome was available for 45% (N = 45) of positive children and 52.6% (N = 579) of negative children. RESULTS: Of the 100 children who screened positive, 45 received a diagnosis at follow-up. Among those receiving a diagnosis, 22 were healthy, 10 were diagnosed with ASD, seven with intellectual disability (ID), and six had another developmental disorder. Thus, 50% of infants positive at one screening subsequently received a neurodevelopmental diagnosis. The PREAUT grid scores were significantly associated with medium and high ASD risk status on the CHAT at 24 months (odds ratio of 12.1 (95%CI: 3.0-36.8), p < 0.001, at four months and 38.1 (95%CI: 3.65-220.3), p < 0.001, at nine months). Sensitivity (Se), specificity, negative predictive values, and positive predictive values (PPVs) for PREAUT at four or nine months, and CHAT at 24 months, were similar [PREAUT-4: Se = 16.0 to 20.6%, PPV = 25.4 to 26.3%; PREAUT-9: Se = 30.5 to 41.2%, PPV = 20.2 to 36.4%; and CHAT-24: Se = 33.9 to 41.5%, PPV = 27.3 to 25.9%]. The repeated use of the screening instruments increased the Se but not PPV estimates [PREAUT and CHAT combined: Se = 67.9 to 77.7%, PPV = 19.0 to 28.0%]. CONCLUSIONS: The PREAUT grid can contribute to very early detection of ASD and its combination with the CHAT may improve the early diagnosis of ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

GOLIAH (Gaming Open Library for Intervention in Autism at Home): a 6-month single blind matched controlled exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: To meet the required hours of intensive intervention for treating children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we developed an automated serious gaming platform (11 games) to deliver intervention at home (GOLIAH) by mapping the imitation and joint attention (JA) subset of age-adapted stimuli from the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) intervention. Here, we report the results of a 6-month matched controlled exploratory study. METHODS: From two specialized clinics, we included 14 children (age range 5-8 years) with ASD and 10 controls matched for gender, age, sites, and treatment as usual (TAU). Participants from the experimental group received in addition to TAU four 30-min sessions with GOLIAH per week at home and one at hospital for 6 months. Statistics were performed using Linear Mixed Models. RESULTS: Children and parents participated in 40% of the planned sessions. They were able to use the 11 games, and participants trained with GOLIAH improved time to perform the task in most JA games and imitation scores in most imitation games. GOLIAH intervention did not affect Parental Stress Index scores. At end-point, we found in both groups a significant improvement for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores, Vineland socialization score, Parental Stress Index total score, and Child Behavior Checklist internalizing, externalizing and total problems. However, we found no significant change for by time × group interaction. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the lack of superiority of TAU + GOLIAH versus TAU, the results are interesting both in terms of changes by using the gaming platform and lack of parental stress increase. A large randomized controlled trial with younger participants (who are the core target of ESDM model) is now discussed. This should be facilitated by computing GOLIAH for a web platform. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02560415.

Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Inpatient Youths with Severe and Early-Onset Psychiatric Disorders: Prevalence and Clinical Correlates.

This study aimed to determine the prevalence and the clinical correlates of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) among 158 inpatient youths with two types of severe psychiatric disorders. ACEs were retrospectively collected with the ACEs scale and the List of Threatening Experiences Questionnaire in 77 patients hospitalized for a catatonic syndrome (average age 15.2 years) and 81 for a manic or mixed episode (average age 15.7 years). ACEs were frequent in youths suffering from bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) (58 %) and from catatonia (57 %), with around one quarter exposed to severe abuse (i.e., physical/sexual/emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect). Youths with BD-I were more likely to be exposed to family violence compared to those with catatonia. Youths who had been exposed to ACEs did not exhibit a more severe presentation or a poorer response to treatment compared to others, either in the bipolar group or in the catatonic group.

A Developmental and Sequenced One-to-One Educational Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Randomized Single-Blind Controlled Trial.

INTRODUCTION: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who also exhibit severe-to-moderate ranges of intellectual disability (ID) still face many challenges (i.e., less evidence-based trials, less inclusion in school with peers). METHODS: We implemented a novel model called the "Developmental and Sequenced One-to-One Educational Intervention" (DS1-EI) in 5- to 9-year-old children with co-occurring ASD and ID. The treatment protocol was adapted for school implementation by designing it using an educational agenda. The intervention was based on intensity, regular assessments, updating objectives, encouraging spontaneous communication, promoting skills through play with peers, supporting positive behaviors, providing supervision, capitalizing on teachers' unique skills, and providing developmental and sequenced learning. Developmental learning implies that the focus of training is what is close to the developmental expectations given a child's development in a specific domain. Sequenced learning means that the teacher changes the learning activities every 10-15 min to maintain the child's attention in the context of an anticipated time agenda. We selected 11 French institutions in which we implemented the model in small classrooms. Each institution recruited participants per dyads matched by age, sex, and developmental quotient. Patients from each dyad were then randomized to a DS1-EI group or a Treatment as usual (TAU) group for 36 months. The primary variables - the Childhood Autism Rating scale (CARS) and the psychoeducational profile (PEP-3) - will be blindly assessed by independent raters at the 18-month and 36-month follow-up. DISCUSSION AND BASELINE DESCRIPTION: We enrolled 75 participants: 38 were randomized to the DS1-EI and 37 to the TAU groups. At enrollment, we found no significant differences in participants' characteristics between groups. As expected, exposure to school was the only significant difference [9.4 (±4.1) h/week in the DS1-EI group vs. 3.4 (±4.5) h/week in the TAU group, Student's t-test, t = 5.83, p < 0.001]. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The protocol was authorized by the competent national regulatory authority (Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament et des produits de santé) and approved by the local Ethics Committee (Comité de Protection des Personnes) at the University Hospital Saint-Antoine (May 7, 2013). The findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and national and international conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBERS: ANSM130282B-31 (April 16 2013) and ACTRN12616000592448 (May 6 2016).

Validation of the Pediatric Catatonia Rating Scale (PCRS).

INTRODUCTION: Despite the increased recognition of catatonia in children and adolescents, no specific assessment instrument has been validated in this population. METHOD: Within the context of a prospective study on catatonia, we developed the Pediatric Catatonia Rating Scale (PCRS, maximum score=60), adapted from the Bush and Francis Catatonia Rating Scale for its use in child and adolescent inpatients. We assessed the psychometric properties of the PCRS by measuring its internal consistency, construct validity, and factor structure. Bivariate analyses were performed to compare the different diagnostic patient groups across the extracted factors. RESULTS: Internal consistency was moderate (Cronbach's α for total score=0.67) suggesting multidimensionality. Multiple factors underlie the PCRS items, as revealed by factor analysis. Four distinct dimensions of catatonic symptoms were identified and accounted for 44% of total variance: a "negative withdrawal" factor (with mutism, negativism, and social withdrawal), a "catalepsy" factor (with posturing and waxy flexibility), an "abnormal movements" factor (with mannerisms and stereotypes) and an "echo phenomenon" factor (with echolalia and echopraxia). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the PCRS performance in discriminating individuals with catatonia vs. those without catatonia was excellent for a threshold≥9 (Area Under the Curve=0.983) in this sample. DISCUSSION: These results support the validity of the PCRS among children and adolescent inpatients. With regard to such analyses, the internal structure of catatonic syndrome in children and adolescents is roughly comparable with the adult form, except the lack of a "hyperactive/excitement" dimension.

Facial, vocal and cross-modal emotion processing in early-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Recognition of emotional expressions plays an essential role in children's healthy development. Anomalies in these skills may result in empathy deficits, social interaction difficulties and premorbid emotional problems in children and adolescents with schizophrenia. Twenty-six subjects with early onset schizophrenia spectrum (EOSS) disorders and twenty-eight matched healthy controls (HC) were instructed to identify five basic emotions and a neutral expression. The assessment entailed presenting visual, auditory and congruent cross-modal stimuli. Using a generalized linear mixed model, we found no significant association for handedness, age or gender. However, significant associations emerged for emotion type, perception modality, and group. EOSS patients performed worse than HC in uni- and cross-modal emotional tasks with a specific negative emotion processing impairment pattern. There was no relationship between emotion identification scores and positive or negative symptoms, self-reported empathy traits or a positive history of developmental disorders. However, we found a significant association between emotional identification scores and nonverbal communication impairments. We conclude that cumulative dysfunctions in both nonverbal communication and emotion processing contribute to the social vulnerability and morbidity found in youths who display EOSS disorder.

Risk and Protective Factors for Suicidality at 6-Month Follow-up in Adolescent Inpatients Who Attempted Suicide: An Exploratory Model.

OBJECTIVE: To assess risk and protective factors for suicidality at 6-month follow-up in adolescent inpatients after a suicide attempt. METHODS: One hundred seven adolescents from 5 inpatient units who had a suicide attempt were seen at 6-month follow-up. Baseline measures included sociodemographics, mood and suicidality, dependence, borderline symptomatology, temperament and character inventory (TCI), reasons for living, spirituality, and coping scores. RESULTS: At 6-month follow-up, 41 (38%) subjects relapsed from suicidal behaviours. Among them, 15 (14%) had repeated a suicide attempt. Higher depression and hopelessness scores, the occurrence of a new suicide attempt, or a new hospitalization belonged to the same factorial dimension (suicidality). Derived from the best-fit structural equation modelling for suicidality as an outcome measure at 6-month follow-up, risk factors among the baseline variables included: major depressive disorder, high depression scores, and high scores for TCI self-transcendence. Only one protective factor emerged: coping-hard work and achievement. CONCLUSION: In this very high-risk population, some established risk factors (for example, a history of suicide attempts) may not predict suicidality. Our results suggest that adolescents who retain high scores for depression or hopelessness, who remain depressed, or who express a low value for life or an abnormally high connection with the universe are at higher risk for suicidality and should be targeted for more intense intervention. Improving adolescent motivation in school and in work may be protective. Given the sample size, the model should be regarded as exploratory.

Coping skills among adolescent suicide attempters: results of a multisite study.

OBJECTIVES: A multisite study was undertaken to advance our understanding of how coping skills, depression, and suicidal ideation are related among adolescents who attempt suicide. Two hypotheses were postulated: productive coping and nonproductive coping would be associated, respectively, with lower and higher depression scores when age, sex, and stressful life events (SLEs) were controlled; and productive coping and nonproductive coping would be associated, respectively, with the presence and absence of suicidal ideation when age, sex, and SLEs were controlled. METHODS: Participants were 167 adolescents (13 to 17 years of age) hospitalized for attempting suicide in 5 pediatric departments across France. Four instruments were administered: the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime Version, the Adolescent Coping Scale, the Life Events Questionnaire, and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Descriptive analyses and univariate and multiple regression models were completed. RESULTS: Both hypotheses were confirmed. Focus on the positive emerged as a significant variable in both models; depression emerged as a significant variable in the suicidal ideation model. The only sex difference observed was that girls made greater use of wishful thinking and seek social support. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that coping skills are important mechanisms through which depression and suicidal ideation are maintained after attempting suicide. In intervening with adolescents who have attempted suicide, it may be useful to emphasize cognitive work geared to looking on the bright side, positive thinking, and fighting depression.

Coping strategies associated with suicidal behaviour in adolescent inpatients with borderline personality disorder.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the coping strategies of adolescents with borderline personality disorder (BPD) to the coping strategies of adolescents without BPD, and to explore the association of coping with suicidal ideation and attempts among adolescents with BPD. METHOD: Adolescent inpatients (n = 167) aged 13 to 17 years were admitted after suicide attempts and evaluated within 10 days, using the abbreviated version of the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines-Revised, the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version supported by a team consensus best estimate method for the primary diagnosis, the Adolescent Coping Scale, and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. RESULTS: Firstly, compared with adolescents without BPD, adolescents with BPD relied more on nonproductive coping strategies, mostly avoidant strategies, and less on productive coping strategies. Secondly, coping appeared as a factor associated with suicidal ideation in adolescents with BPD. While while controlling for age, sex, and depression, multivariate analyses showed a significant positive association between the coping strategy to focusing on solving the problem and suicidal ideation. CONCLUSION: The use of avoidant strategies by adolescents with BPD could be viewed as attempts to increase emotional regulation. Problem-solving strategies in the immediate aftermath of a suicide attempt may prevent adolescents with BPD from overcoming a crisis and may increase suicidal ideation.

Acute behavioral crises in psychiatric inpatients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): recognition of concomitant medical or non-ASD psychiatric conditions predicts enhanced improvement.

During adolescence, some individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in severe challenging behaviors, such as aggression, self-injury, disruption, agitation and tantrums. We aimed to assess risk factors associated with very acute behavioral crises in adolescents with ASD admitted to a dedicated neurobehavioral unit. We included retrospectively in 2008 and 2009 29 adolescents and young adults with ASD hospitalized for severe challenging behaviors and proposed a guideline (Perisse et al., 2010) that we applied prospectively for 29 patients recruited for the same indications between 2010 and 2012. In total, 58 patients were admitted (n=70 hospitalizations, mean age=15.66 (±4.07) years, 76% male). We systematically collected data describing socio-demographic characteristics, clinical variables (severity, presence of language, cognitive level), comorbid organic conditions, etiologic diagnosis of the episode, and treatments. We explored predictors of Global Assessment Functioning Scale (GAFS) score and duration of hospitalization at discharge. All but 2 patients exhibited severe autistic symptoms and intellectual disability (ID), and two-thirds had no functional verbal language. During the inpatient stay (mean=84.3 (±94.9) days), patients doubled on average their GAFS scores (mean=17.66 (±9.05) at admission vs. mean=31.4 (±9.48) at discharge). Most common etiologies for acute behavioral crises were organic causes [n=20 (28%), including epilepsy: n=10 (14%) and painful medical conditions: n=10 (14%)], environmental causes [n=17 (25%) including lack of treatment: n=11 (16%) and adjustment disorder: n=6 (9%)], and non-ASD psychiatric condition [n=33 (48%) including catatonia: n=5 (7%), major depressive episode: n=6 (9%), bipolar disorder: n=4 (6%), schizophrenia: n=6 (9%), other/unknown diagnosis: n=12 (17%)]. We found no influence of age, gender, socio-economic status, migration, level of ID, or history of seizure on improvement of GAFS score at discharge. Severity of autism at admission was the only negative predictor (p<.001). Painful medical conditions (p=.04), non-ASD psychiatric diagnoses (p=.001), prior usage of specialized ASD care programs (p=.004), functional language (p=.007), as well as a higher number of challenging behaviors upon admission (p=.001) were associated with higher GAFS scores at discharge. Clinical severity at admission, based on the number of challenging behaviors (r=.35, p=.003) and GAFS score (r=-.32, p=.008) was correlated with a longer inpatient stay. Longer hospitalization was however correlated (r=.27, p=.03) with higher GAFS score at discharge even after adjustment for confounding factors. Challenging behaviors among adolescents with ASD may stem from diverse risk factors, including environmental problems, comorbid acute psychiatric conditions, or somatic illness such as epilepsy or acute pain. The management of these behavioral challenges requires a unified, multidisciplinary approach.

A Multidimensional Approach to the Study of Emotion Recognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Although deficits in emotion recognition have been widely reported in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), experiments have been restricted to either facial or vocal expressions. Here, we explored multimodal emotion processing in children with ASD (N = 19) and with typical development (TD, N = 19), considering uni (faces and voices) and multimodal (faces/voices simultaneously) stimuli and developmental comorbidities (neuro-visual, language and motor impairments). Compared to TD controls, children with ASD had rather high and heterogeneous emotion recognition scores but showed also several significant differences: lower emotion recognition scores for visual stimuli, for neutral emotion, and a greater number of saccades during visual task. Multivariate analyses showed that: (1) the difficulties they experienced with visual stimuli were partially alleviated with multimodal stimuli. (2) Developmental age was significantly associated with emotion recognition in TD children, whereas it was the case only for the multimodal task in children with ASD. (3) Language impairments tended to be associated with emotion recognition scores of ASD children in the auditory modality. Conversely, in the visual or bimodal (visuo-auditory) tasks, the impact of developmental coordination disorder or neuro-visual impairments was not found. We conclude that impaired emotion processing constitutes a dimension to explore in the field of ASD, as research has the potential to define more homogeneous subgroups and tailored interventions. However, it is clear that developmental age, the nature of the stimuli, and other developmental comorbidities must also be taken into account when studying this dimension.

Treatment use in a prospective naturalistic cohort of children and adolescents with catatonia.

We aimed to (1) describe the treatment used in a large sample of young inpatients with catatonia, (2) determine which factors were associated with improvement and (3) benzodiazepine (BZD) efficacy. From 1993 to 2011, 66 patients between the ages of 9 and 19 years were consecutively hospitalized for a catatonic syndrome. We prospectively collected sociodemographic, clinical and treatment data. In total, 51 (77%) patients underwent a BZD trial. BZDs were effective in 33 (65%) patients, who were associated with significantly fewer severe adverse events (p = 0.013) and resulted in fewer referrals for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) (p = 0.037). Other treatments included ECT (N = 12, 18%); antipsychotic medications, mostly in combination; and treatment of an underlying medical condition, when possible. For 10 patients, four different trials were needed to achieve clinical improvement. When all treatments were combined, there was a better clinical response in acute-onset catatonia (p = 0.032). In contrast, the response was lower in boys (p = 0.044) and when posturing (p = 0.04) and mannerisms (p = 0.008) were present as catatonic symptoms. The treatment response was independent of the underlying psychiatric or systemic medical condition. As in adults, BZDs should be the first-line symptomatic treatment for catatonia in young patients, and ECT should be a second option. Additionally, the absence of an association between the response to treatment and the underlying psychiatric condition suggests that catatonia should be considered as a syndrome.

Diagnostic transition towards schizophrenia in adolescents with severe bipolar disorder type I: an 8-year follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of bipolar disorder-I (BD-I) is currently well-established. However, more studies exploring diagnostic stability and psychosocial adaptation during follow-up in adulthood are needed. OBJECTIVES: We assessed factors at follow-up (FU): (1) the diagnostic stability of manic/mixed episodes from adolescence to adulthood, (2) psychosocial adaptation, and (3) factors associated with psychosocial adaptation. METHODS: A sample of 80 adolescents hospitalized in a university hospital between 1993 and 2004 for a manic or mixed episode were contacted for an FU assessment on average 8 years after the index episode. Assessments included socio-demographic data, mortality, lifetime psychiatric diagnosis, the Social Adaptation Scale, negative life events and insight. RESULTS: Of the 64 patients with available information, one patient died from a heart attack. Of the 55 patients available for an FU assessment, 35 (63.6%) still presented a diagnosis of BD-I at FU, whereas 20 (36.4%) had changed diagnosis towards a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Psychosocial adaptation was moderate to poor for most patients, and 91% of the patients had at least one relapse. A low socio-economic status, intellectual disability, negative life events, a history of sexual abuse, and treatment with classical antipsychotics at FU were significantly associated with poorer psychosocial adaptation. In contrast, better insight, a family history of depression and a diagnosis of BD-I at FU were associated with better psychosocial adaptation. CONCLUSION: BD-I in adolescent inpatients can lead to important morbidity and mortality during outcome. Diagnostic stability is high, but a high proportion of patients also show a transition towards a schizophrenia spectrum disorder.