Search

News & Events

Professor Andrew Whitehouse awarded the most prestigious award in the country for young researchers – the 3M Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in Science.

News & Events

Western Australian babies and children with autism and developmental delay will be able to access world-first therapies and interventions backed by the latest research, thanks a unique clinical service developed by The Kids Research Institute Australia.

News & Events

PACT is a communication therapy at CliniKids

News & Events

Thank you to Dave and Marieke Taylor of the Rotary Club of Scarborough who have donated a frangipani tree from their own garden to CliniKids to honour our late colleague, Kate Sorensen.

News & Events

Chloe recently decided to bake cupcakes to sell to her school friends and teachers and it was all for a cause very close to her heart - autism research.

Research

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of neurodevelopmental disorders which are more common in males. The 'prenatal sex steroid' hypothesis links excessive sex-steroid exposure during foetal life with the behavioural differences observed in ASD. However, the reason why sex steroid exposure may be excessive remains unclear. Epidemiological studies have identified several environmental risk factors associated with ASD, including developmental vitamin D (DVD) deficiency.

Research

The broad autism phenotype commonly refers to sub-clinical levels of autistic-like behaviour and cognition presented in biological relatives of autistic people. In a recent study, we reported findings suggesting that the broad autism phenotype may also be expressed in facial morphology, specifically increased facial masculinity.

Research

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient. However, the eye avoidance hypothesis proposes the opposite-that amygdala hyperactivity causes eye avoidance. This review evaluated studies that measured the relationship between eye gaze and activity in the 'social brain' when viewing facial stimuli.

Research

The study of temperament in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has the potential to provide insight regarding variability in the onset, nature, and course of both core and co-morbid symptoms. The aim of this systematic review was to integrate existing findings concerning temperament in the context of ASD. Searches of Medline, PsychInfo and Scopus databases identified 64 relevant studies. As a group, children and adolescents with ASD appear to be temperamentally different from both typically developing and other clinical non-ASD groups, characterized by higher negative affectivity, lower surgency, and lower effortful control at a higher-order level.

News & Events

Researchers at The Kids Research Institute Australia and University of Western Australia have recently published data describing the use of an attention training game designed for school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).