Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Clinical Heterogeneity Among Preschoolers Recruited as Infants Due to Elevated Likelihood of Autism: A Sibling Study
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Sciences, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.ORCID iD: 0009-0007-0303-5152
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology. Department of Women's and Children's Health, Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9714-0197
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8986-343x
County of Uppsala Habilitation Services, Uppsala, Sweden.
Show others and affiliations
2026 (English)In: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, ISSN 0036-5564, E-ISSN 1467-9450Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and developmental language disorder (DLD) are neurodevelopmental conditions (NDCs) that share etiological factors and frequently co-occur. Despite this, they have rarely been studied together?particularly in relation to functional outcomes. In this study, we investigate the association between the developmental pattern of sustained visual attention in infancy and number of diagnoses, and map the clinical profile of 6-year-old children. A cohort of 6-year-olds, originally recruited in infancy due to elevated (n = 42) or low (n =7) likelihood of ASD, were assessed for sustained visual attention, diagnostic outcomes, general adaptive functioning, intellectual abilities, and language skills. Participants were grouped based on the number of NDC diagnoses (ASD, ADHD, DLD, and/or Subthreshold ASD) they received at follow-up. We could not find statistical support for an association between sustained visual attention and number of diagnoses. Findings revealed no significant differences in adaptive functioning, intellectual abilities, or language skills between children with no diagnosis (n = 24) and those with a single diagnosis (n = 15). However, children with two or more diagnoses (n = 10) scored significantly lower in general adaptive functioning, intellectual ability, language production, and verbal comprehension compared to those with only one or no diagnosis. The results indicate that compared to children with only one diagnosis or no diagnosis, children with two or more diagnoses scored lower on several key functional domains, emphasizing the need to prioritize children with multiple diagnoses or confirmed functional impairment in clinical settings. Moreover, the findings indicate that a single diagnosis in preschool-aged children should not be a stand-alone outcome measure in sibling studies, if the goal is to identify early processes that predict meaningful differences in everyday functioning.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Wiley & Sons, 2026.
Keywords [en]
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, developmental language disorder, neurodevelopmental conditions, sibling study, sustained visual attention
National Category
Pediatrics Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-582182DOI: 10.1111/sjop.70088OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-582182DiVA, id: diva2:2045820
Funder
Riksbankens JubileumsfondKnut and Alice Wallenberg FoundationStiftelsen Sunnerdahls HandikappfondEuropean Commission, 847818EU, Horizon 2020, 777394Available from: 2026-03-13 Created: 2026-03-13 Last updated: 2026-03-13

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(250 kB)53 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 250 kBChecksum SHA-512
63b15a725a6451edf0664d01b45e3d3c1f5583933a6cf276c14f51b15171469626cdc56647cff355f5d5d8d1e13c800b5e636056f270ac0e60e3a075ee27e533
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Axelsson, LisaFalck-Ytter, TerjeNyström, PärFrick, Matilda

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Axelsson, LisaFalck-Ytter, TerjeNyström, PärFrick, Matilda
By organisation
Child and Adolescent PsychiatryDepartment of Psychology
In the same journal
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
PediatricsPsychology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 3773 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf