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Biomedical subjects

D Tantam

Publications and source records attributed to D Tantam.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1994

Face perception in children with autism and Asperger's syndrome.

Children with diagnoses of either autism or Asperger's syndrome were matched on measures of verbal mental age with nonautistic control children. They were tested on their abilities to process both facial and nonfacial stimuli. There were no significant differences between the low ability autistic and control groups, but the high ability autistic and Asperger's children performed significantly worse than controls across all tests. Group averages masked substantial individual variation. The results are seen as indicating a general perceptual deficit that is not specific to faces or emotions. This appears to be a common correlate of autism and Asperger's syndrome, rather than a core symptom.

Aptitude↗
PubMed1993

Nonverbal expression in autism of Asperger type.

Short unstructured social interactions between a volunteer interviewer, an adult with autism of Asperger type, and a control subject with a schizoid personality disorder were video-recorded. Asperger subjects tended to look less at the other person, to make more self-stimulatory gestures, and to look at the interviewer significantly less than normal subjects, and substantially less than schizoid subjects, during the periods when the interviewer was vocalizing although there were no such differences when the interviewer was listening. We suggest that the gaze avoidance of autism may in actuality be a lack of expected gaze (e.g., gaze when the other person is talking) rather than an absolute avoidance, and suggest that a lifelong absence of gaze response to social cues including speech could explain a number of the developmental features of autism including lack of joint attention with others, lack of understanding and affective response to others, and poor discrimination of facial expressions.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Expressed emotion and schizophrenia: the ontogeny of EE during an 18-month follow-up.

Key relatives of 30 first or early admission psychotic patients (mainly with a diagnosis of schizophrenia) were interviewed (for a second time) 18 months after participating in an initial assessment of expressed emotion (EE). The patients were followed up throughout the interim period, during which time 17 experienced a psychotic relapse. Although there continued to be a negligible association between initial EE rating (established during the index admission) and relapse, a significant association between EE rating at 18 months and psychiatric status of the patient during the follow-up period emerged. Results are discussed in the context of recent interactional theories of the relationship between household EE and psychiatric morbidity.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

A new community mental health team based in primary care. A description of the service and its effect on service use in the first year.

A new community multidisciplinary team based in primary care is described and the experience of the first year discussed. The effect the team has had on the use of psychiatric services in its first year was studied. There was a threefold increase in the rate of inception to care, leading to a doubling in the prevalence of treated psychiatric disorder. There has been a reduction in the demands made on the hospital out-patient services, but no change in the use of in-patient resources or emergency contacts.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Do general practitioners and general psychiatrists want to look after drug misusers? Evaluation of a non-specialist treatment policy.

A new means of monitoring drug misuse which was developed in the north west of England, but is now widely used throughout the United Kingdom, is described and evaluated. Report forms which had been specially designed and ensured the anonymity of drug misusers were widely distributed among doctors and non-medical health workers who may have had contact with drug misusers. The forms were returned post-free to a centre where they were entered on a customized drug misuse database. There were 2127 reports from the north west of England (population 3.99 million) relating to 1792 individuals over a 15-month period. However, despite intensive promotion of the project among doctors, the number of reports from doctors remained virtually unchanged over the 15 months despite a 33% increase in the overall number of reports. When the reports from three health districts, selected so as to be representative of the region demographically (total population 658,500, population aged 15-44 years 292,200), were considered there was a substantial fall (70%) in reports from general practitioners which was considerably greater than the 2% fall in all reports. In a linked study all the psychiatrists, 30% of probation officers and a one in six sample of general practitioners from the three selected health districts were approached for interview at the beginning of the 15-month period and again a year later. This structured enquiry about caseloads, treatment, and attitudes also revealed a fall in the number of drug misusers attended by general practitioners and general psychiatrists and a reduction in the services provided for them by general practitioners.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Personality disorder and self-wounding.

At least 1 in 600 adults wound themselves sufficiently to need hospital treatment. More men than women do it, although more women receive psychological treatment. Many have a history of sexual or physical abuse. Self-wounding differs from other self-harm in being aimed neither at mutilation nor at death. Self-wounding coerces others and relieves personal distress. Repeated self-wounding is one criterion of borderline personality disorder but we prefer to consider it an 'addictive' behaviour rather than an expression of a wider disorder. Psychological management may need to be augmented by drug or social treatment. Carers, including professional carers, usually need help to contain the turbulence that self-wounding produces.

Combined Modality Therapy↗
PubMed1992

Characterizing the fundamental social handicap in autism.

The social impairments of autism, which are especially salient in autism of the Asperger type, have been attributed to a failure of affective processing, and more recently to a failure to develop a "theory of mind". Recent research evidence bearing on these theories is reviewed and a new hypothesis is put forward, based on research in progress, which posits a developmentally earlier abnormality of the "social gaze response": the inherent tendency of the normal infant to focus gaze and attention on social cues and, later, on objects in the environment as indicated by the gesture of gaze of others. Weakness or absence of the social gaze response is enough, it is argued, to account for many of the typical symptoms of autism, including the failure to acquire a theory of mind.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Expressed emotion and early onset schizophrenia: a one year follow-up.

Key relatives of 33 first or early admission psychotic patients (mainly schizophrenics) were interviewed to determine household levels of expressed emotion (EE). The patients were followed up for 12 months from index admission, during which time 13 (39%) experienced psychotic relapse. There was no association between relapse rate and household EE, but correlations between individual components of EE and pre-morbid measures suggest that level of criticism may be related to less acute onset of index episode, greater elapsed time since first signs of illness, and poor adjustment in the realm of work/study. The results are discussed in the context of continuing uncertainties about the precise nature of the relationship between EE and relapse.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Gender differences in the incidence of definite schizophrenia and atypical psychosis--focus on negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

In a catchment area study of 101 first inceptions of schizophrenia, mania and atypical psychoses, women were significantly more likely to have atypical psychosis and men were more likely to have definite schizophrenia. Negative symptoms such as affective flattening and poverty of speech were already present in many cases, and were significantly increased in patients with definite schizophrenia (geometric mean 5.6) compared with those with atypical psychosis (geometric mean 3.2) and mania (geometric mean 1.5). Negative symptoms were also twice as severe in men (geometric mean 5.5) than women (geometric mean 2.6). There was a significant increase in negative symptom severity with longer illness and greater depression, but the diagnosis and the sex effects were not caused by these factors. We suggest that our findings are further support for the hypothesis that men have a greater biological vulnerability to negative symptoms and consequent social disability in the face of psychosis, particularly a schizophrenic psychosis, and that this may be one explanation for the apparently greater risk of definite schizophrenia and its poorer prognosis in men.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Negative symptoms in chronic schizophrenia. Relationship to duration of illness.

The frequency and distribution of negative symptoms in a sample of 40 patients admitted to hospital with RDC-definite schizophrenia were examined. There was a highly significant positive correlation between negative symptom scores obtained using three different rating scales, but the presence of negative symptoms was not significantly related to duration of illness or number of episodes of illness. These findings do not support a model of negative symptoms being the consequence of schizophrenic relapse, but are in favour of their being an integral component of the schizophrenic syndrome, as salient in the first as in later episodes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Asperger's syndrome and ligamentous laxity.

Two autistic girls and one autistic man in whom Asperger's syndrome coexists with lifelong ligamentous laxity and muscular incoordination are described. Two had cranial circumferences at or above the 90th percentile as children, two have complex partial epilepsy, one has a colloid cyst of the third ventricle, and one had evidence of Sotos syndrome. Echocardiography was performed in the two girls and both had evidence of increased aortic compliance. It is suggested that all three suffer from a Marfan-like disorder of connective tissue and, more speculatively, that this has led to anomalous development of midline brain structures with consequent social handicaps characteristic of Asperger's syndrome.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Psychiatric day hospitals--another route to institutionalization?

Nineteen long-stay day patients were referred to a rehabilitation team and their outcome after a year is compared with 19 day patients who were not referred, but were matched for age, sex and diagnosis. Seven rehabilitation team patients had been discharged at 12 months as against 3 of the non-rehabilitation patients, but this was not a significant difference. Discharged patients were less disturbed at the beginning of the study and had fewer negative symptoms throughout. Discharge did not reduce the frequency of social contact. There was a suggestion that morale was sustained better in the rehabilitation patient and in their nurses. We conclude that rehabilitation planning may have beneficially accelerated the discharge of less ill day-patients, but that more resources are needed to prevent 'institutionalization' within the day-hospital.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Autistic children's ability to interpret faces: a research note.

Ten autistic children were compared with 10 non-autistic children matched for chronological age and performance IQ on two tests of finding the odd face out of a set of photographs of faces, two tests of labelling photographs of faces, and a test of labelling photographs of common objects. The autistic children were significantly worse than the non-autistic children at finding the odd person out and the odd facial expression of emotion out, and at labelling facial expressions of emotion. They did no worse than the non-autistic children at labelling upside down faces or at labelling objects. The results, which replicate the findings of Hobson (J. Child Psychol, Psychiat. 27, 321-342, 671-680, 1986; Communication, 20, 12-17, 1986) are consistent with other evidence for a specific perceptual abnormality in at least some children with autism, the nature of which is discussed.

Adolescent↗