Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

It has been a great pleasure and an honor to be invited by The Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior to be the guest editor of this special issue entitled “ Autism spectrum disorder; the past, the present, and the future. Our aim was to make it an issue to enjoy surfing and a reference to keep about the perplexing issue; autism spectrum disorder. It includes a bunch of interesting articles from eminent contributors that we hope they will be very useful and enjoyable for the readers and journal subscribers.

Zaky [1] in her inaugural editorial for the issue summarized in short all aspects of autism spectrum disorder from definition to prognosis and from the past to the present. Furthermore, she highlighted the future scope of this interesting and complex issue.

Deala [2] in a pilot study examined the impact of using a multiapproach intervention on the improvement of adaptive skills of autistic children. A combination of music, play, Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC), humor, and fun has been used and proven to be a helpful modality for the studied children in enhancing their adaptive skills especially of social and motor domains and subdomains.

On the other hand, Renzo et al. [3] studied the link between sensory dysfunctions and stereotypic behavior in a group of autistic preschoolers. Their findings confirmed the coexistence of such a link. In their enrolled cases, they reported that hypersensitivity to touch, abnormal auditory filtering, and hyporeactivity with low energy per week as the most frequently encountered sensory dysfunctions and stereotypy as the commonest repetitive behavior in their studied sample of autistics and recommended the combined direct and indirect assessment to gather both ecological and structured observations.

Solomon and Aptowitzer [4] explained the importance of movement in normal development and showed the link between movement disruption and acquisition of autistic behavior. They recommended the use of Waldon Approach in a trial to cross the gaps in developing movements in autistic children and hence, ameliorating their autistic behavior at any age.

Zaky [5] reviewed the background, etiology, manifestations, and management of Tourette syndrome (TS) and wondered if it is a disturbing disorder or a motivating and inspirational mate while Zaky and Mahmoud [5] reported a case of TS and showed the importance of exclusion of comorbidities and differential diagnoses in such cases. They emphasized on the differentiation between the tics in patients with TS from the stereotypic behavior of autistic children.

Muller and Kane [6], in their pilot study, explored teaching of perspective taking among High School autistic students and students with other social cognitive impairment. They used group therapeutic film study program with microanalysis of one film over an academic year. Their results were promising as the enrolled students showed better engagement of perspective taking exercises and improvement of their potentials to consider the views of others. The results need future studies on larger samples to examine if these results would be replicated and consolidate the positive role of such approach.

Zaky [7] commented on a study that investigated the link between heavy metals intoxication and the subsequent development of autism spectrum disorder. In that study, hair samples were used for assessment of the level of some heavy metals; mercury, aluminum, and lead. Higher levels of the tested heavy metals were detected in the studied sample of children with autism compared to controls. Zaky summarized the possible mechanisms that might underlie such hazardous outcome of exposure to these heavy metals and highlighted the recommended preventive measures to reduce the exposure to such risky environmental factors.

Lastly but by no means least, I would like to express my gratitude for the management of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior for giving me this opportunity to guest edit such a valuable issue of a distinguished journal.