The Covid-19 pandemic has caused multilevel changes worldwide. Everyday life of all people has been altered drastically. Children with ASD seem to face difficulties due to their heightened sensitivity to unpredictable and complex changes in their lifestyle. Our presentation aims to reveal the effects of Covid-19 on school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The main thematic areas of this research, concerning the social workers’ questionnaire, focused on the routine, psycho-emotional field, school performance, sociability and school environment of children with ASD.

Between June 22nd and August 16th, 2021, social workers (n=38) and parents (n=25) administrated a questionnaire -through google form platform- which investigated issues around routine, psycho-emotional field, school performance, sociability, school, and family. Descriptive statistics were used for statistical analysis of the data.

The routine and psycho-emotional conditions of children with ASD were found to have a negative shift. Moreover, the degree of change on school performance was moderate, while sociability change was minimal. The significance of the school’s contribution and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the family functionality was highly observed. Another interesting finding was that children with ASD did not display discomfort for the mandatory social limitations or fear for the virus transmission.

Lastly, it is important to implement appropriate practices for the protection of children with ASD, through the mobilization of the responsible parties and thus, social policy transformations are vital for this vulnerable population.

No significant relationships.

Several studies suggest significant relationships between migration and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but there are discrepant results. Given that no studies to date have included a pathological control group, the specificity of the results in ASD can be questioned.

To compare the migration experience (premigration, migratory trip, postmigration) in ASD and non-ASD pathological control groups, and study the relationships between migration and autism severity.

Parents’ and grandparents’ migrant status was compared in 30 prepubertal boys with ASD and 30 prepubertal boys without ASD but with language disorders, using a questionnaire including Human Development Index (HDI)/Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) of native countries. Autism severity was assessed using the Child Autism Rating Scale, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised scales.

The parents’ and grandparents’ migrant status frequency did not differ between ASD and control groups and was not associated with autism severity. The HDI/IHDI values of native countries were significantly lower for parents and grandparents of children with ASD compared with the controls, especially for paternal grandparents. Furthermore, HDI/IDHI levels from the paternal line (father and especially paternal grandparents) were significantly negatively correlated with autism severity, particularly for social interaction impairments.

In this study, parents’ and/or grandparents’ migrant status did not discriminate ASD and pathological control groups and did not contribute either to autism severity. However, the HDI/IHDI results suggest that social adversity-related stress experienced in native countries, especially by paternal grandparents, is potentially a traumatic experience that may play a role in ASD development. A ‘premigration theory of autism’ is then proposed.

Although there is a recommendation that toddlers be screened for Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during their 18- and 24-month well-care child visits, diagnosis often occurs well after the child turns 4 years old. Such delayed diagnosis hinders the implementation of early intervention thus worsens the long-term prognosis of ASD.

The current community-based study in its stage I aimed at early screening of Egyptian toddlers for ASD using an Arabic validated version of Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT).

A cross-sectional community-based descriptive study was carried out enrolling 5546 Egyptian toddlers. They were randomly recruited from those attending Primary Health Care Units in six Egyptian governorates with a fair representation of the urban, semi-urban, and rural Egyptian populations. An Arabic validated version of M-CHAT was used as a screening tool for ASD.

The current study revealed failure of M-CHAT (suspected to have ASD and needs further evaluation) in 1320 out of the enrolled 5546 Egyptian toddlers (23.8%).

M-CHAT as a screening tool for ASD has flagged a considerable percent of the enrolled toddlers that necessitates referral for further evaluation (stage II) to settle the diagnosis of ASD in the true positive cases. Perfecting the delicate balance between sensitivity and specificity for ASD screening tools is crucial in order not to miss early detection of ASD cases and at the same time, to avoid over-diagnosis with subsequent abuse of the limited healthcare resources in developing countries.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) are neurodevelopmental disorders with considerable overlap in terms of their defining symptoms of compulsivity/repetitive behaviour. Little is known about the extent to which ASD and OCD have common versus distinct neural correlates of compulsivity. Previous research points to potentially common dysfunction in frontostriatal connectivity, but direct comparisons in one study are lacking. Here, we assessed frontostriatal resting-state functional connectivity in youth with ASD or OCD, and healthy controls. In addition, we applied a cross-disorder approach to examine whether repetitive behaviour across ASD and OCD has common neural substrates.

A sample of 78 children and adolescents aged 8–16 years was used (ASD n = 24; OCD n = 25; healthy controls n = 29), originating from the multicentre study COMPULS. We tested whether diagnostic group, repetitive behaviour (measured with the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised) or their interaction was associated with resting-state functional connectivity of striatal seed regions.

No diagnosis-specific differences were detected. The cross-disorder analysis, on the other hand, showed that increased functional connectivity between the left nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and a cluster in the right premotor cortex/middle frontal gyrus was related to more severe symptoms of repetitive behaviour.

We demonstrate the fruitfulness of applying a cross-disorder approach to investigate the neural underpinnings of compulsivity/repetitive behaviour, by revealing a shared alteration in functional connectivity in ASD and OCD. We argue that this alteration might reflect aberrant reward or motivational processing of the NAcc with excessive connectivity to the premotor cortex implementing learned action patterns.