Common practices for sociodemographic data reporting in digital mental health intervention research: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: The ability of digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) to reduce mental health disparities relies on the recruitment of research participants with diverse sociodemographic and self-identity characteristics. Despite its importance, sociodemographic reporting in research is often limited, and the state of reporting practices in DMHI research in particular has not been comprehensively reviewed. OBJECTIVES: To characterise the state of sociodemographic data reported in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of app-based DMHIs published globally from 2007 to 2022. METHODS: A scoping review of RCTs of app-based DMHIs examined reporting frequency for 16 sociodemographic domains (eg, gender) and common category options within each domain (eg, woman). The search queried five electronic databases. 5079 records were screened and 299 articles were included. RESULTS: On average, studies reported 4.64 (SD=1.79; range 0-9) of 16 sociodemographic domains. The most common were age (97%) and education (67%). The least common were housing situation (6%), residency/location (5%), veteran status (4%), number of children (3%), sexual orientation (2%), disability status (2%) and food security (<1%). Gender or sex was reported in 98% of studies: gender only (51%), sex only (28%), both (<1%) and gender/sex reported but unspecified (18%). Race or ethnicity was reported in 48% of studies: race only (14%), ethnicity only (14%), both (10%) and race/ethnicity reported but unspecified (10%). CONCLUSIONS: This review describes the widespread underreporting of sociodemographic information in RCTs of app-based DMHIs published from 2007 to 2022. Reporting was often incomplete (eg, % female only), unclear (eg, the conflation of gender/sex) and limited (eg, only options representing majority groups were reported). Trends suggest reporting has somewhat improved in recent years. Diverse participant populations must be welcomed and described in DMHI research to broaden learning and the generalisability of results, a prerequisite of DMHI's potential to reduce disparities in mental healthcare.

Impaired Attention Orienting in Young Children With Fragile X Syndrome.

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disorder caused by a trinucleotide CGG expansion within the FMR1 gene located on the X chromosome. Children with FXS have been shown to be impaired in dynamic visual attention processing. A key component of dynamic processing is orienting-a perceptual ability that requires disengagement and engagement of attention from one stimulus to fixate on a second. Orienting, specifically the disengagement and engagement of attention, has previously not been studied in young children with FXS. Using an eye tracking gap-overlap task, the present study investigated visual disengagement and engagement in young children with FXS, compared to mental age (MA)- and chronological age (CA)-matched typically developing children. On gap trials, the central stimulus elicited fixation, but then disappeared before the peripheral target appeared, imposing a visual gap between stimuli. On overlap trials, the central stimulus elicited fixation, and remained present when the peripheral target appeared, creating visual competition. A gap effect emerges when latencies to shift to the peripheral target are longer in overlap versus gap conditions, reflecting the recruitment of cortical and subcortical disengagement and engagement mechanisms. The gap effect was measured as the latency to orient attention to the peripheral target during gap versus overlap conditions. Both MA and CA groups showed the expected gap effect, where children were slower to orient to peripheral targets on overlap trials than on gap trials. In contrast, in the FXS group, saccadic latencies between gap and overlap trials were not significantly different, indicating no significant gap effect. These findings suggest disrupted attentional engagement patterns in FXS that may be underlying impairments in attention orienting, and suggest potential targets for attention training in this population.

Implicit Measures of Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Individuals With Level 3 Autism.

Implicit measures of cognition are essential for assessing knowledge in people with Level 3 autism because such individuals are often unable to make reliable overt behavioral responses. In this study, we investigated whether three implicit measures-eye movement (EM) monitoring, pupillary dilation (PD), and event-related potentials (ERPs)-can be used to reliably estimate vocabulary knowledge in individuals with Level 3 autism. Five adults with Level 3 autism were tested in a repeated-measures design with two tasks. High-frequency 'known' words (eg, bus, airplane) and low-frequency 'unknown' words (eg, ackee, cherimoya) were presented in a visual world task (during which EM and PD data were collected) and a picture-word congruity task (during which ERP data were collected). Using a case-study approach with single-subject analyses, we found that these implicit measures have the potential to provide estimates of receptive vocabulary knowledge in individuals with Level 3 autism. Participants differed with respect to which measures were the most sensitive and which variables best predicted vocabulary knowledge. These implicit measures may be useful to assess language abilities in individuals with Level 3 autism, but their use should be tailored to each individual.

Visual and linguistic narrative comprehension in autism spectrum disorders: Neural evidence for modality-independent impairments.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have notable language difficulties, including with understanding narratives. However, most narrative comprehension studies have used written or spoken narratives, making it unclear whether narrative difficulties stem from language impairments or more global impairments in the kinds of general cognitive processes (such as understanding meaning and structural sequencing) that are involved in narrative comprehension. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we directly compared semantic comprehension of linguistic narratives (short sentences) and visual narratives (comic panels) in adults with ASD and typically-developing (TD) adults. Compared to the TD group, the ASD group showed reduced N400 effects for both linguistic and visual narratives, suggesting comprehension impairments for both types of narratives and thereby implicating a more domain-general impairment. Based on these results, we propose that individuals with ASD use a more bottom-up style of processing during narrative comprehension.

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Semantic Processing in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An ERP Study.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience difficulties with language, particularly higher-level functions like semantic integration. Yet some studies indicate that semantic processing of non-linguistic stimuli is not impaired, suggesting a language-specific deficit in semantic processing. Using a semantic priming task, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to lexico-semantic processing (written words) and visuo-semantic processing (pictures) in adults with ASD and adults with typical development (TD). The ASD group showed successful lexico-semantic and visuo-semantic processing, indicated by similar N400 effects between groups for word and picture stimuli. However, differences in N400 latency and topography in word conditions suggested different lexico-semantic processing mechanisms: an expectancy-based strategy for the TD group but a controlled post-lexical integration strategy for the ASD group.