Obsessive Competitive Behaviors

In this study conducted at Duke University, researchers hypothesized that a significant relationship would be found between individuals with ASD who exhibit repetitive behaviors and their parents with clinically significant obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Participants included 45 people with autism from 3 to 21 years of age and 69 of their parents (27 fathers and 42 mothers). All parents completed the Y-BOCS and a genetic counselor collected a family medical and psychiatric history in order to detect the presence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Upon evaluation of the Y-BOCS scores, analyses indicated that 33% of parents had clinically significant OCD symptoms. Maternal scores were significantly higher than paternal scores. The Fisher’s Exact

The sample (n=100) was selected from a pool of participants from a longitudinal study called the FIRST WORLDS Project. Social communication skills and RRB were measured using the CSBS (Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile). Results indicated that children diagnosed with ASD exhibited the following behaviors at a significantly higher rate compared to their TD peers: rocking, rubbing their bodies, stiffening their fingers, rocking/flipping objects, swiping objects, rolling objects, moving/placing objects, clutching objects, spinning objects, licking and fixating. Overall findings support previous findings that increased frequency of RRBs in early childhood may be indicative of

Authors of this scale argued that the commonly used 43-item repetitive behaviour scale (RBS) and the revised version (RBS-R) lacks some aspects of RRB, specifically behaviors such as echolalia and certain mannerisms. They claimed the newly developed scale covered these items from a neurological standpoint. In order to test the validity of the scale, authors recruited a large and varied population in terms of age, intellectual capacities, symptom severity, and residential settings. 145 participants of all ages from 13 different centers took part in the study. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation was used to explore the factor structure of the scale. In order to check reliability, two raters filled out each scale for each subject independently and the weighted kappa was calculated for each item. Results indicated that the RRB scale showed good reliability. Specifically, 9 items on the scale had excellent reliability, 17 items had good reliability and 9 items had moderate reliability. Additionally, validity was shown to be strong, as the psychometric qualities of the scale were sound and the scale accurately measured four clinically meaningful components of RRB behaviors in ASD: 1) sensorimotor stereotypies, 2) reaction to change, 3) restricted behaviors,