A non-speech response mode similar to the one used by Prepack (1971) to teach language to a chimpanzee was utilized to teach two simple language functions to three autistic children. The response mode consisted of picking up a geometric symbol and placing it on a response tray. The geometric symbol was the basic unit in this language system. The symbols were used to represent objects in the environment and relationships between the objects.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between receptive oral expressive vocabularies. It was hypothesized that receptive discrimination pretraining has a greater influence on the reate of acquisition of its expressive vocal counterpart as compared to the reate of vocal acquisition of words without receptive pretraining.

This book documents a design study and creative project undertaken toward the fulfillment of a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Interior Environments at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. This book documents a year long accumulation of study and research done toward the development of an early intervention, therapy and research center for children with autism. This creative project demonstrates how an environment can be a catalyst for social interaction, way finding, therapy, and intervention. The goal was to design a space that would be multi-functional and also benefit the surrounding community. This design study will explain how colors and materials can affect children with autism and what colors and materials are detrimental to their functional abilities.

A significant, yet understudied issue that demands attention is the experience of peer victimization among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Research indicates that youth with disabilities, including those with ASDs, are victimized more frequently as compared to their typically developing peers. However, little is known about the peer victimization experience for adolescents with ASDs beyond its frequency of occurrence. This study examined relations between peer victimization and individual, peer, and parent factors and outcomes including internalizing and externalizing symptoms among adolescents with ASDs. No significant indirect effects were found for peer victimization on relations between individual social-cognitive and emotion regulation factors and internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Moderating effects of peer (i.e., friendship companionship, closeness, and help) factors on relations between peer victimization and internalizing and externalizing symptoms were not supported. Significant direct effects were found as higher levels of friendship companionship and help were associated with lower levels of internalizing symptoms. Parental knowledge moderated the relations between both adolescent-reported and parent-reported peer victimization and internalizing but not externalizing symptoms. Study findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts including adolescents with ASDs and directions for future research.

Improving family quality of life is an important goal when working with families of children with autism. Researchers have attempted to measure changes by developing indices of quality such as affect, stress, and confidence. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a group parent-coaching program on measures aimed at addressing quality: a) parent confidence, stress and affect ratings; b) child affect ratings; c) the frequency of coordinated joint attention (CJA); and d) parent report of satisfaction and efficacy. Over the course of four weeks, the coaching program involved group presentations, discussions, video sharing, and problem solving, and individual in-vivo coaching sessions regarding specific child skill development. Results from the five parent-child dyads suggested increases in areas associated with quality of life. Results are discussed in the context of quality themes and mixed methods research.

Previous research reports that individuals working with children with autism can positively affect social behavior through the use of socially embedded consequences. There is no research on training teachers to use socially embedded consequences. The current study had three purposes: to evaluate the effects of video modeling on teachers' embedded consequences, to evaluate the addition of feedback to increase effectiveness, and to evaluate the effects of the teacher's use of socially embedded consequences on other teacher behaviors. Results indicate that video modeling alone was not sufficient in changing teacher behavior and that the addition of feedback was necessary for meaningful teacher behavior change. Additionally, the increased used of socially embedded consequences had positive effects on teacher social engagement and indices of interest. A discussion of the results and suggestions for future research is also provided.

Orientador: Jorge Luís Ferreira Abrão / Banca: Helena Rinaldi Rosa / Banca: Viviana Carola Velasco Martinez / Resumo: Apesar de as ideias relativas à psicanálise de crianças já circularem entre os profissionais brasileiros, desde a década de 1930, é só a partir da década de 1990 que as publicações de analistas brasileiros dedicados ao tema do autismo ganham representatividade, resultando em um elevado número de trabalhos científicos em periódicos nacionais, decorrentes em grande parte de práticas institucionais. Desse modo, a presente pesquisa buscou compreender, valendo-se de um vértice histórico, o surgimento e o desenvolvimento das práticas institucionais psicanalíticas ligadas ao atendimento de crianças autistas, no Brasil, no período de 1990 a 2010. Com o intuito de alcançarmos os objetivos propostos, fizemos uso de duas fontes históricas, a saber: as fontes documentais e as fontes orais. As fontes documentais foram empregadas na primeira etapa deste trabalho e, por meio delas, pudemos identificar quais são as práticas psicanalíticas, onde se localizam e quais as características das mesmas, bem como verificar quais os profissionais que mais publicaram na área, os quais participaram da segunda etapa da pesquisa. A escolha por utilizar as fontes orais reside no fato de que, no período que nos propomos estudar, a maioria dos profissionais responsáveis pelo desenvolvimento dessas práticas clínicas se encontra em plena atividade profissional. Dessa maneira, por meio da análise das entrevistas, discorremos acerca de questões importantes para compreensão das práticas psicanalíticas desenvolvidas em território nacional, quais sejam: mudanças em relação à forma pela qual o autismo tem sido compreendido, ao longo dos anos; contribuições da psicanálise para o entendimento e tratamento do autismo; diagnóstico diferencial entre autismo e psicose; pluralidade de entendimentos sobre a etiologia do autismo; práticas... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Despite the ideas concerning psychoanalysis of children already circulate among Brazilian professionals since the 1930s, it is only from the 1990s that publications of Brazilian analysts dedicated to the topic of autism gain representation, resulting in a large number of scientific papers in national journals, stemming largely from institutional practices. Therefore the present study aimed to understand, using a historical view, the emergence and development of institutional psychoanalytical practices dedicated to the care of autistic children in Brazil, from 1990 to 2010. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, we made use of two historical sources, namely: the documentary sources and oral sources. The documentary sources were used in the first stage of this paper, and, through it, we could identify what are the psychoanalytical practices, where they are located and what are their characteristics, as well as identify which professionals published most in the area, who participated in the second stage of the research. The choice to use oral sources lies in the fact that, during the period in which we propose ourselves to study, most of the professionals responsible for the development of these clinical practices is in full professional activity. Thereby, through the analysis of the interviews, we discuss about important issues to the understanding of psychoanalytical practices developed in the country, namely: changes towards the way autism has been understood over the years; contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding and treatment of autism; differential diagnosis between autism and psychosis; plurality of understandings about the etiology of autism; institutional psychoanalytical practices oriented to the treatment and schooling of autistic children; innovations brought by Brazilian authors and the difficulties that... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Brain development and function rely on vascular features that ensure adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients from the blood stream. These features consist of a well-established vascular network, a functional blood-brain barrier, as well as cerebral blood flow regulation. Early life impairments in these features can lead to neurodevelopmental defects. Very few studies have considered the contribution of the brain vasculature to autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A recent postmortem study in young ASD brains suggested an impairment in angiogenesis, a process through which new vessels are formed. A possible link between ASD and altered cerebral perfusion has also been suggested by functional imaging studies. Yet, contribution of cerebrovascular deficits to ASD physiopathology remains elusive, hence a detailed analysis of these deficits is needed. ASD are viewed as neurodevelopmental conditions associated with genetic origins. Mutations identified as a possible cause for ASD include the common 16p11.2 deletion, which leads to the haploinsufficiency of approximately 30 highly-conserved genes. In this thesis, we are using a multidisciplinary approach in order to decipher the cerebrovascular underpinnings of ASD in a mouse model of the 16p11.2 deletion syndrome (16p11.2df/+ mice). We have identified functional and structural cerebrovascular deficits during postnatal development in constitutive 16p11.2df/+ mutants. In particular, 16p11.2df/+ mice display a significant decrease in microvascular branching and density in the cerebral cortex at P14 when compared to age-matched WT littermates. In addition, 16p11.2df/+ mice display a collection of functional abnormalities at P50 when compared to WT mice, such as altered neurovascular coupling in vivo and altered vascular reactivity ex vivo. Notably, we demonstrated a defective endothelium-dependent vasodilation in 16p11.2df/+ mice, while smooth muscle function is unaffected. Furthermore, we generated mice harboring the endothelial-specific 16p11.2 haploinsufficiency (Cdh5-Cretg/+;16p11.2flox/+) in order to dissect the endothelial contribution to ASD phenotypes. These mice underwent behavioral testing to assess whether they display 16p11.2 syndrome -related characteristics. We demonstrated that these conditional mutant mice show home cage hyperactivity in the beam break test, repetitive behaviors in the marble burying test, as well as motor coordination deficits in the rotarod test. Our findings thus establish endothelial cells as key contributors to the pathophysiology of the 16p11.2 deletion syndrome, and provide novel insight into how the cerebral endothelium fine-tunes brain maturation.

Assessing higher-level verbal repertoires of individuals with autism and related intellectual disabilities is crucial due to the language and cognitive deficits experienced by this population as well as is the need for valid assessment tools for data-driven and individualized treatment. In addition to, curricula or instructional protocols that produce changes toward improvement of language and cognitive skills are vital to the overall well being of these individuals. Several assessments and instructional guides are available to behavior analysts however few have demonstrated evidence of validity, reliability, and/or utility in its effectiveness in producing causal changes in higher-level cognition and adaptive ability. The presentation will present correlational data between PEAK-T with IQ (WISC-V) as well as provide preliminary normative sample data of PEAK-T-PA with neuro-typical children.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by two distinct features; the social, including impairments in communication and social functioning (empathizing), and the non-social, including preoccupation with restricted interests and repetitive behaviours (systemizing). This thesis investigated non-social cognition in the autism spectrum by undertaking six studies, three with neurotypical participants from the general population and three with an ASD group and matched neurotypical controls. These studies measured autonomic arousal to social and non-social stimuli and stimuli associated with the participant's own special interest or hobby, and change blindness tasks that utilized both social and non-social changes, along with measures of attention to detail and anxiety in an attempt to understand some of the cognitive and affective mechanisms that underlie non-social cognition in ASD and in the wider autism spectrum. A further study assessed 'drive to systemize' along with an objective behavioural assessment of logical thinking ability and a measure of preference for deliberative or intuitive thinking style, to try to further elucidate connections between drive to systemize and ability to systemize, and the modes of cognition that relate to systemizing. Findings included the relationship between autistic traits and stronger physiological responses to non-social stimuli in the neurotypical sample, and a significantly stronger response in the ASD group to non-social stimuli related to personal special interest than in controls. Participants with a larger number of autistic traits showed enhanced change blindness when changes were social in nature. Self-reported high systemizers report that they prefer slow, deliberative styles of thinking and provide more accurate responses to questions that should involve logical thinking-yet they are less able to provide sound logical reasoning for their correct answers than those who are low systemizers. Together, the results suggest that non-social cognition, or systemizing, in autism is motivated by bottom up perceptual and affective processes that share features with conventional social and emotional cognition, or empathizing.