In the tradition of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive fusion is a transdiagnostic risk factor and occurs when one becomes overly attached to or "caught up" in their thoughts, leading to a more narrowed behavioral repertoire and difficulty taking effective action in response to life's demands. Cognitive defusion is ACT's curative answer to fusion, and denotes the process of taking a step back, seeing thoughts as "simply thoughts," thereby reducing the negative impact of distressing or anxiety-provoking thoughts. While these components have been widely studied in neurotypical (NT) samples, the purpose of this study was to extend findings to people diagnosed on the autism spectrum (AS). Specifically, this study aimed to examine the impact of cognitive fusion in this population and the effectiveness of a brief defusion technique. Forty-two AS participants and fifty-five neurotypical participants were given a battery of questionnaires measuring psychological distress and dispositional levels of cognitive fusion. Participants were then randomized into either a brief cognitive fusion technique or a brief active distraction technique. In both conditions participants chose a distressing thought and rated it on a visual analogue scale (VAS) in terms of thought discomfort and believability. They were then read a rationale regarding their assigned technique, practiced the technique, and applied the technique to their chosen distressing thought. After the intervention participants immediately re-rated the thought on the same VAS. Throughout the study, participants' heart rate and skin conductance were monitored to determine physiological effects of the conditions. Finally, a follow-up survey was sent at a one-week and two-week follow-up, where participants re-rated the believability and discomfort of their thoughts. Results of this study showed that the AS group had higher overall levels of fusion than the NT group, and that fusion was moderately to strongly related to psychological distress in the AS group and the NT group. In terms of the intervention effects, all interpretation statements must be taken with caution, as there were significant pre-group differences despite randomization. Both defusion and distraction worked equally well in immediately reducing thought believability and thought discomfort for AS and NT groups. Furthermore, treatment effects were maintained at the two-week follow-up period for all groups except for the AS group in the defusion condition. There were no treatment effects for physiology. The current study provides evidence that cognitive fusion may be an important factor in the psychiatric comorbidity that people with AS experience, and a brief technique can be effectively used.

Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often perform better than typically developing (TD) individuals in simple, albeit difficult, visual search tasks. This ability is often attributed to a lack of drive for coherence or superior local processing. We compare thirty adults with ASD with forty-nine TD individuals and twenty-seven adults with anxiety (ANX) across two real-world visual search tasks. Individuals had to find either a number superimposed over a real-world scene ("œno context" condition) or an object located in a contextually relevant location ("œcontext" condition). Each participant completed forty-one trials in each condition, each with a unique scene. Eye movements were recorded using an SR Research EyeLink 1000 eyetracker. All groups performed better in the context condition. However, the ASD group was less accurate than both groups, across conditions. All groups were quicker to find the target in the context condition but the ASD group was slower than the TD group. Furthermore, the ASD group took longer to initiate their search, fixate on the target, and decide that they had found the target than the TD group. These results suggest that individuals with ASD are able to integrate contextual information to aid the search but that their previously seen visual search advantage may not transfer to visual searches of real-world scenes.

Families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in developing countries may not have as much access to needed behavioral services as families living in developed countries. Caregivers of children with ASD in developing countries would benefit from an affordable, efficient parent training to teach them behavior techniques to use with their children. Pyramidal training is a cost-efficient method of training individuals through peers and would be a supportive intervention for families in developing countries. This study used a repeated acquisition design across three variables to examine whether a caregiver could train another caregiver on three behavioral interventions. These interventions were appropriately redirecting repetitive behaviors, using praise, and requesting eye contact. The study also examined if the caregivers could acquire the three skills and the extent caregivers were receptive to this training model based on their comments about the training. The participants were six ethnic Macedonians or Albanians between the ages of 38 and 43 who were caregivers of a child with ASD. The results indicate the caregivers were able to train another caregiver on three skills for working with their child with autism, all the caregivers were able to acquire the three skills, and the training model's goals were socially appropriate based on participants' comments. This implicates professionals such as doctors, social workers, behavioral therapists, or school psychologists could use this form of parent training to share information throughout a family in order to benefit children with disabilities and their families.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) now affects 1 in 68 children in the United States. Disorders within this spectrum share hallmark deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication, repetitive behavior, and social interaction. The cause of ASD is still unknown. Even though hundreds of genetic abnormalities have been identified in ASD, these markers account for less than 1% of all ASD cases. Researchers continue to search for pathological markers common to all or most cases of ASD. The research presented in this dissertation used a novel combination of state-of-the-art methods to investigate brain pathology in ASD. Postmortem anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) from ASD and typically developing brain donors was obtained from 2 national brain banks. The ACC was chosen for study because of its documented role in influencing behaviors characteristically disrupted in ASD. An initial study revealed elevated glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in ACC white matter from ASD brain donors compared to typically developing control donors. Laser capture microdissection was then employed to isolate specific cell populations from the ACC from ASD and control brain donors. Captured cells were used to interrogate potential gene expression abnormalities that may underlie biological mechanisms that contribute behavioral abnormalities of ASD. The expression of 4 genes associated with synaptic function, NTRK2, GRM8, SLC1A1, and GRIP1, were found to be significantly lower in ACC pyramidal neurons from ASD donors when compared to control donors. These expression abnormalities were not observed in ACC glia. Given robust evidence of neuronal and glial pathology in the ACC in ASD, a novel method for whole transcriptome analysis in single cell populations was developed to permit an unbiased analysis of brain cellular pathology in ASD. A list of genes that were differentially expressed, comparing ASD to control donors, was produced for both white matter and pyramidal neuron samples. By examining the ASD brain at the level of its most basic component, the cell, methods were developed that should allow future research to identify common cellular-based pathology of the ASD brain. Such research will increase the likelihood of future development of novel pharmacotherapy for ASD patients.

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