DHD and autism symptoms in youth: a network analysi

Author(s)

Farhat, Luis C. ^[1] ; Brentani, Helena ^[1] ; de Toledo, Victor Hugo Calegari ^[1] ; Shephard, Elizabeth ^{[1, 2]} ; Mattos, Paulo ^[3] ; Baron-Cohen, Simon ^[4] ; Thapar, Anita ^[5] ; Casella, Erasmo ^[6] ; Polanczyk, Guilherme V. ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Fac Med FMUSP, Dept Psiquiatria, Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] Kings Coll London, Inst Psychiat Psychol & Neurosci IoPPN, London - England

^[3] Univ Fed Rio de Janeiro, Inst Psychiat, Rio De Janeiro - Brazil

^[4] Univ Cambridge, Autism Res Ctr, Dept Psychiat, Cambridge - England

^[5] Cardiff Univ, Sch Med, Med Res Council, Ctr Neuropsychiat Genet & Genom, Div Psychol Med &, Cardiff - Wales

^[6] Univ Sao Paulo, Hosp Clin HCFMUSP, Fac Med, Inst Crianca, Sao Paulo - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY; v. 63, n. 2, p. 143-151, FEB 2022.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

Background Previous research investigating the overlap between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (henceforth, autism) symptoms in population samples have relied on latent variable modeling in which averaged scores representing dimensions were derived from observed symptoms. There are no studies evaluating how ADHD and autism symptoms interact at the level of individual symptom items. Methods We aimed to address this gap by performing a network analysis on data from a school survey of children aged 6-17 years old (N = 7,405). ADHD and autism symptoms were measured via parent-report on the Swanson, Nolan, Pelham-IV questionnaire and the Childhood Autism Spectrum test, respectively. Results A relatively low interconnectivity between ADHD and autism symptoms was found with only 10.06% of possible connections (edges) between one ADHD and one autism symptoms different than zero. Associations between ADHD and autism symptoms were significantly weaker than those between two symptoms pertaining to the same construct. Select ADHD symptoms, particularly those presenting in social contexts (e.g. `talks excessively', `does not wait turn'), showed moderate-to-strong associations with autism symptoms, but some were considered redundant to autism symptoms. Conclusions The present findings indicate that individual ADHD and autism symptoms are largely segregated in accordance with diagnostic boundaries corresponding to these conditions in children and adolescents from the community. These findings could improve our clinical conceptualization of ADHD and autism and guide advancements in diagnosis and treatment. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/22455-8 - Early childhood interventions and trajectories of cognitive, social and emotional development
• Grantee: Guilherme Vanoni Polanczyk
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 18/22396-7 - A multimodal neuroimaging investigation of changes in neural circuitry during early interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders
• Grantee: Elizabeth Shephard
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 19/27680-8 - The network structure of ASD and ADHD traits in a large population sample of children and adolescents
• Grantee: Luis Carlos Farhat
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation