Ina van Berckelaer-Onnes

Leiden University | LEI · Institute of Education and Child Studies

Background Autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability (ID) are linked to atypical sensory processing, but consensus lacks on the impact of their co-occurrence. We studied the impact of the presence of ID in autistic individuals on (1) sensory processing and (2) the relation between sensory processing and behavioral outcomes. Methods A sy...

Evidence of the effectivity of play-based interventions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was evaluated by PRISMA-based literature study and a Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment. Many of the 32 eligible randomized controlled trials (RCT) reported improved social interaction, communication, daily functioning and play behaviour. They also re...

We investigated the effect of a live online educational program in 93 Dutch Youth and Family Center (YFC) physicians who were screening for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the general child population. The educational program raised the physicians’ level of specific ASD knowledge and it remained higher at six months follow-up (p < .01). Their sel...

Objective: This study examines the association between child autistic traits and constipation symptoms, and explores whether this association is mediated by food selectivity. Method: The sample included participants (N = 2,818) from the population-based birth cohort, Generation R (Rotterdam, the Netherlands). Parents reported their child's autis...

Professionals’ limited knowledge on mental health and their stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness can delay the diagnosis of autism. We evaluated the knowledge on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and stigmatizing attitudes in 93 physicians at Dutch Youth and Family Centers (YFC). These physicians screen for psychiatric symptoms in children. We...

Background Atypical sensory processing often impairs the emotional and behavioural functioning and social participation of autistic individuals. However, evidence lacks on the effect of cognitive abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the moderating effect of cognitive abilities on both associations. Method We studied 241 indiv...

Eating problems are common among children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but it is unknown to what extent infant eating behavior is associated with later autistic traits. As eating behavior is currently not included in ASD screening instruments, it is important to evaluate whether infant eating behavior predicts later autistic traits and migh...

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit problematic eating behaviors, an observation mostly based on male dominated, clinical ASD study samples. It is, however, important to evaluate both children with an ASD diagnosis and children with subclinical autistic traits as both often experience difficulties. Moreover, considering the s...

De combinatie van autisme en ADHD komt veel voor maar wordt vaak over het hoofd gezien. In deze fascinerende publicatie beschrijft Josine Bouwmans, een vrouw met ASS en ADHD haar persoonlijke zoektocht naar eenheid. Ze koppelt haar ervaringen aan verschillende leeftijdsfasen, waarin ze haar gedrag tracht te verklaren vanuit het perspectief van bei...

Parents of children with autism, especially the mothers, have had to walk a long and arduous path, but they are now no longer considered to have caused the aberrant behaviour of their child. In the 1970s it was proven scientifically that these parents do not bring their children up differently from parents with normal children. However, the view th...

Parents of children with autism, especially the mothers, have had to walk a long and arduous path, but they are now no longer considered to have caused the aberrant behaviour of their child. In the 1970s it was proven scientifically that these parents do not bring their children up differently from parents with normal children. However, the view th...

Background: Although understanding picture-referent relations is a very important skill, it is also an extremely complex process to master. Despite the frequent use of pictures in the communication with children with ASD, understanding of picture-referent relations in this group is hardly ever investigated. Objectives: In this study, we first com...

Accessible summaryYoung adults with mild to borderline intellectual disability can be very different from each other.We talked with the young adults about their homes and jobs, and whether they were happy with the support they received.The support used did not always match their needs. The study showed the good things of the support and how the sup...

Recent research has investigated the capability of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) descriptions to identify individuals who should receive a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) using standardised diagnostic instruments. Building on previous research investigating behaviours essential for the diagnosis of D...

The objective of this study was to identify a set of ‘essential’ behaviours sufficient for diagnosis of DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Highly discriminating, ‘essential’ behaviours were identified from the published DSM-5 algorithm developed for the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO). Study 1 identified a red...

Background: Introduction of proposed criteria for DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has raised concerns that some individuals currently meeting diagnostic criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD; DSM-IV-TR/ICD-10) will not qualify for a diagnosis under the proposed changes. To date, reports of sensitivity and specificity of the new c...

Appendix S1. Draft DSM-5 criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorders (in bold) and DISCO algorithm items and subdomain thresholds in Sample 1. Appendix S2. ROC curve and subdomain thresholds. Appendix S3. Identifying the DISCO items that differ significantly between high- and low-ability individuals or between children and adults in Sample 3.

Het doel van ons onderzoek is het in kaart brengen van de receptieve en expressieve taalvaardigheden van kinderen met autisme en een verstandelijke beperking. De taalprofielen van deze kinderen zijn significant verschillend van de taalprofielen van kinderen met een verstandelijke beperking en typisch ontwikkelende kinderen. De groep kinderen met au...

The cognitive growth of children with developmental disorders, like autism, can be seriously impaired due to the disorder. If so, in the Netherlands, these children can attend special schools where they are treated to ameliorate disorder symptoms and to stimulate cognitive growth. The aim of this paper was to identify teaching strategies that stimu...

The Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO; Wing, 2006) is a standardized, semi-structured and interviewer-based schedule for diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The objective of this study was to evaluate the criterion and convergent validity of the DISCO-11 ICD-10 algorithm in young and low-functioning childre...

Aims: Augmentative communication is very important for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. The ComFor (Forerunners in Communication; Verpoorten, Noens, & Van Berckelaer-Onnes, Dutch version: 2004, revised Dutch version: 2007; English version: 2008) is an instrument for the indication of augmentative communication,...

Language profiles of children with autistic disorder and intellectual disability (n = 36) were significantly different from the comparison groups of children with intellectual disability (n = 26) and typically developing children (n = 34). The group low-functioning children with autistic disorder obtained a higher mean score on expressive than on r...

This study investigated whether clinical profiles in individuals with mild intellectual disability (MID) could be defined in terms of their histories (e.g., behavioral, socialenvironmental, educational, and service use characteristics). The clinical psychologists administered the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders to the (s...

The purpose of the study was to investigate the development of symptomatology and academic growth of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) attending a special needs education school in the Netherlands as well as to explore the relationship between academic achievement and symptom reduction of those children. To this end a three-year follow...

The present study examined levels of sense-making in relation to adaptive functioning and autism symptomatology in low-functioning children with autistic disorder. Thirty-six children with autistic disorder and intellectual disability were compared with 27 children with intellectual disability and 33 typically developing children with a comparable...

Unlabelled: In this study we characterized profiles of communicative functions and forms of children with autism and intellectual disability (n=26), as compared to typically developing children (n=26) with a comparable nonverbal mental age (2-5 years). Videotapes of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales - Developmental Profile were analyz...

Local information processing in 42 adults with high functioning autism, 41 adults with Asperger syndrome and 41 neurotypical adults was examined. Contrary to our expectations, the disorder groups did not outperform the neurotypical group in the neuropsychological measures of local information processing. In line with our hypotheses, the self-report...

The Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO; Wing, 2006) is a standardized, semi-structured and interviewer-based schedule for diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The objective of this study was to evaluate the criterion and convergent validity of the DISCO-11 ICD-10 algorithm in young and low-functioning childre...

Background: Research showed that features of ASD can change over the course of development. Only a limited number of studies assessed cognitive strengths and impairments in high-functioning adults with ASD and results were contradictory. Therefore, it is not clear whether the three characterizing cognitive theories are still appropriate when indi...

Background: Receptive and expressive language are often studied separately in ASD, except for some studies in toddlers (e.g. Weismer et al., 2010). Prior research indicated several predictors of early language abilities. Both limited intentionality and symbol formation are considered to be core deficits in the communication development of individua...

Background: Over the last 20 years an increasing number of papers have been published about autism in relation to delinquent behaviour. Several of these concern case histories, others concern incidence searches. The question arises whether people with autism are prone to delinquent behaviour. Objectives: The main questions in our research are...

Background: Augmentative communication is very important for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability and visual impairment. Most individuals with autism spectrum disorder take in information most readily through visual channels. Consequently, visualization forms the key to many educative programs and communication strat...

The ComFor study has indicated that individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show enhanced visual local processing compared with individuals with ID only. Items of the ComFor with meaningless materials provided the best discrimination between the two samples. These results can be explained by the weak central...

To help children with Down syndrome reach optimum levels of adaptive behaviour, caretakers need to know how and to what extent children with Down syndrome acquire adaptive skills. The adaptive levels of motor, daily living, communicative and social behavioural skills were determined in a group of 984 Dutch children with Down syndrome, aged between...

Parenting stress was investigated in mothers with a child with Angelman syndrome (AS) or Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), which are genetically related. Mothers of 24 children with AS and 23 children with PWS (2-12 years) completed the Nijmegen Parenting Stress Index-Short, Developmental Behaviour Checklist, and Vineland Screener 0-12. Parenting stress...

Only case reports have described the co-occurrence of gender identity disorder (GID) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This study examined this co-occurrence using a systematic approach. Children and adolescents (115 boys and 89 girls, mean age 10.8, SD = 3.58) referred to a gender identity clinic received a standardized assessment during which...

Background: The Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders – version 11 (Wing, 2003) is a standardized, semi-structured and interviewer-based schedule. The DISCO can be used to collect information about developmental history and description of skills and behavior and provides a classification based on different classification syste...

Uit het onderzoek komt naar voren dat volwassenen met de autistische stoornis, volwassenen met de stoornis van Asperger en een neurotypische controlegroep, allen met een normale tot hoge intelligentie, vergelijkbaar zijn wat betreft Verbaal begrip, Perceptueel inzicht en Werkgeheugen. Bij de participanten met de autistische stoornis is er sprake va...

According to the major classification systems it is not possible to diagnose a comorbid autistic disorder in persons with Rett syndrome. However, this is a controversial issue, and given the level of functioning of persons with Rett syndrome, the autistic disorder is expected to be present in a comparable proportion as in people with the same level...

This study investigates the parental perception of stress related to the upbringing of children with CHARGE syndrome and its association with behavioral and physical child characteristics. Parents of 22 children completed the Nijmegen Parenting Stress Index-Short, Developmental Behavior Checklist, and Dutch Vineland Screener 0-12 and reported their...

Theory of mind was assessed in 32 adults with HFA, 29 adults with Asperger syndrome and 32 neurotypical adults. The HFA and Asperger syndrome groups were impaired in performance of the Strange stories test and the Faux-pas test and reported more theory of mind problems than the neurotypical adults. The three groups did not differ in performance of...

Studies into the phenotype of rare genetic syndromes largely rely on bivariate analysis. The aim of this study was to describe the phenotype of Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) in depth by examining a large number of variables with varying measurement levels. Virtually the only suitable multivariate technique for this is categorical principal comp...

Questions about the international reliability and validity of aspects of psychopathy have been raised for adults, but hardly considered when applying the constructs to children. Our aim was to compare the psychometrics of a new instrument to measure psychopathic traits in children between two countries - the Netherlands and Greece. We also tested t...

In Western countries the need to assess the adaptive behaviour of a wide range of individuals within the framework of research and policy-making has increased in recent years. To meet this need a screener version of the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS) was developed in The Netherlands. This screener is a questionnaire to be filled out by p...

Background: Autistic traits tend to be continuously distributed in the general population (Constantino & Todd, 2003; Ronald et al., 2006). The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) (Constantino et al., 2003) is a 65-item reporter based questionnaire with a total score and 5 theory-based subscales. This informant-report questionnaire has proven to qua...

Background: In literature often is stated that children with an ASD initiate communication less frequently compared to typically developing children, both to regulate behavior of others and to share objects and experiences with others (joint attention). Furthermore, when children with an ASD do communicate, they rather communicate for behavior regu...

Background: Clinical experience suggests that the co-occurrence of gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is not a rare phenomenon; it occurs more frequently than one would expect by chance. To date, however, only case studies have been published and authors have very different views on how to understand the co-existence of ASD and ge...

Background: The weak central coherence account has been modified. A local or detail-focused information processing style seems crucial in autism. Research in detailed information processing in adults with ASD is limited; it remains undetermined if, and to what extent adults with HFA or Asperger syndrome have an enhanced local perception. Most stu...

In een handboek persoonlijkheidspathologie hoort een hoofdstuk over autisme zeker thuis, al is het alleen al om de heersende discussies over de vraag of autisme bij volwassenen nu wel of niet samen kan gaan met een persoonlijkheidsstoornis. Is er sprake van comorbiditeit of betreft het slechts een overlap van bepaalde symptomen? Kan autisme bij ont...

Uit statistische gegevens blijkt dat zeker 7% van de kinderen last heeft van psychiatrische problemen waarvoor professionele behandeling noodzakelijk is. Maar slechts 2,5% maakt daar gebruik van. Het boek 'Psychiatrische stoornissen' geeft een beknopt overzicht van de meest voorkomende kinder- en jeugdpsychiatrische stoornissen. Ieder hoofdstuk is...

The semantic and phonemic fluency performance of adults with high functioning autism (HFA), Asperger syndrome and a neurotypical control group were compared. All participants were matched for age and verbal ability. Results showed that the participants with HFA were significantly impaired in their performance of both semantic fluency tasks and the...

Many researchers have studied the population of individuals with mild mental retardation (MIMR) as if it is a clear entity. Few researchers have investigated potential subtypes within the MIMR population. The purpose of the present study was to investigate which subtypes can be identified on the basis of intellectual, adaptive and behavioral functi...

Background: The standardization study of the ComFor (Forerunners in Communication – Verpoorten, Noens, & Van Berckelaer-Onnes, 2004) - a clinical instrument measuring visual perception and sense-making at the levels of presentation and representation – has shown that individuals with an intellectual disability (ID) and an autism spectrum disorder (...

Background: In the last 15 years an increasing number of papers have been published about autism in relation to delinquent behaviour. Several of these concern case histories, others concern incidence searches. The question arises whether people with autism are prone to delinquent behaviour. Objectives: To find out whether people with autism r...

Background: Research showed evidence for impaired verbal fluency functioning in children with autism. However, verbal fluency functioning in adults with HFA or Asperger syndrome is still unclear. Besides, not much is known about the cognitive processes underlying verbal fluency performance in these individuals. Objectives: To examine if late diagn...

The WAIS III was administered to 16 adults with high functioning autism (HFA) and 27 adults with Asperger syndrome. Differences between Verbal Intelligence (VIQ) and Performance Intelligence (PIQ) were not found. Processing Speed problems in people with HFA appeared. At the subtest level, the Asperger syndrome group performed weak on Digit Span. Co...

According to the central coherence account, people with autism have a tendency to focus on local rather than global processing. However, there is considerable controversy about the locus of the weak drive for central coherence. Some studies support enhanced bottom–up processing, whereas others claim reduced top–down feedback. The results of the sta...

The number of children displaying childhood disorders in the Netherlands is estimated through a questionnaire referencing DSM-IV symptoms filled out by the parents of 2,563 4- 18-year-old Dutch children randomly taken from the general Dutch Youth population in 2004. The number of impaired children was estimated by applying the DSM-IV criteria for i...

The behavioural and emotional development of children with ADHD visiting day treatment centres after school hours is described and the childrearing factors that govern positive development explored. Test scores on the Child behaviour checklist (CBCL) and ADHD behavioural symptoms rating scale were obtained over a period of nine months, in a sample...

The ComFor (Forerunners in Communication) is an instrument to explore underlying competence for augmentative communication. More specifically, it measures perception and sense-making of non-transient forms of communication at the levels of presentation and representation. The target group consists primarily of individuals with autism and intellectu...

Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is a multiple congenital anomaly syndrome characterised by a distinctive facial appearance, prenatal and postnatal growth deficiency, psychomotor delay, behavioural problems, and malformations of the upper extremities. Recently mutations in NIPBL, the human homologue of the Drosophila Nipped-B gene, were found to c...

Unlabelled: The communication of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a qualitative impairment in verbal and non-verbal communication. In past decades a growing body of descriptive studies has appeared on language and communication problems in ASD. Reviews suggest that the development of formal and semantic aspects is rel...

The article describes an exploratory study of the biography and the diagnostic history of a sample of normally to highly intelligent adults with an autistic spectrum disorder. The educational level and the adaptive functioning in adulthood do not meet the expectation on the ground of their intelligence. Both the ages for the first parental concern...

The Children's Communication Checklist (CCC; Bishop, 1998) is a questionnaire that was developed to measure pragmatic language use and may be completed by parents and teachers. Two studies are reported, which were designed to investigate: (1) whether children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) encounter pragmatic language problems...

Sixteen studies on attachment in children with autism were reviewed, and ten studies with data on observed attachment security (N = 287) were included in a quantitative meta-analysis. Despite the impairments of children with autism in reciprocal social interaction, the majority of the studies found evidence for attachment behaviours in these childr...

The communicative capabilities of people with autism are impaired and limited in significant ways. The problems are characterized by a lack of intentionality and symbol formation, which indicates that the deviant development of communication in autism is associated with a specific cognitive style. The central coherence theory can offer insight into...

The concept of autism has been broadened the last few years from 'early infantile autism' to 'an autistic spectrum'. Autism and related contact disorders are grouped together under 'pervasive developmental disorders' or 'autistic spectrum disorders'. The autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specifie...

Early forms of play involving the exploration of objects is repetitive and limited in scope in children with autism, consistent with a weak drive towards central coherence. The importance is stressed of early manipulative and relational play for the development of meaningful perceptual representations and the subsequent development of functional an...

People with intellectual disability often exhibit severe behavioural problems. Treatment of these problems is frequently very difficult. In The Netherlands, parents, institutes, schools and others can request the services of an independent advisory team with a pool of professionals who have experience with individuals who exhibit challenging behavi...

This study uses the attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom ratings of professional care workers to estimate the prevalence of ADHD symptoms among children in day treatment centres (N = 162) and residential treatment centres (N = 195) in Holland. Although further research is needed, the study supports the suggestion that such rating...

In this study the factorial validity and the reliability of DSM-IV related ADHD symptom ratings made by care professionals working in residential treatment centres were determined in a sample of 412 residential youngsters. Three concurrent models of the ADHD disorder were investigated, a one-factor model comprising all 18 symptoms, a two-factor mod...

Al tien jaar en dan pas met een vraag naar autisme aangemeld? Autistisch ben je toch vanaf de geboorte? Dat herken je toch direct? Een visie die helaas nog door velen wordt gedragen. Autisme manifesteert zich voor de 36e levensmaand, maar dat wil niet zeggen dat eenieder het als zodanig herkent. Nog veel complexer ligt het bij intelligente kinderen...

Discusses object and symbolic play in autistic children, reviews scientific studies on the play of autistic children published after 1964, and presents possible explanations for the impaired play development. The picture of the play of autistic children that has emerged from research shows that their play is often limited to simple manipulation, th...

Comparisons were made of developmental scores (administered with the Psychoeducational Profile [PEP] and the Handicaps Behaviour and Skills Schedule [HBS] for a group of 72 children ages 23 to 148 months. All children had been referred to the Centre of Autism in Leiden, the Netherlands. This Centre is a collaboration between the University clinic o...

Interrater reliability of the classification of specific developmental disorders according to ICD and DSM is not satisfactory. Moreover, the conditional hierarchical structures which define the categories for specific developmental disorders may result a loos of information. We present a hierarchical scheme in which not only the specific developmen...

S a m e n v a t t i n g ] Kanners 'vroeg infantiel autisme' is in de loop der jaren uitgegroeid tot een autismespectrum. Hoewel de kennis over autisme enorm is toegenomen, zijn er nog altijd geen harde markers voor-handen. Ondanks het feit dat de autismespectrumstoornissen als neurobiologische ontwikkelingsstoornisen worden beschouwd, zijn we nog s...