Purpose: This was a pilot study assessing the impact of a sensory adapted dental environment (SADE) on children with developmental disabilities (DD) receiving routine dental care. Methods: A crossover study of 22 children with DD, aged 6 through 21, was conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University Pediatric Dental clinic. Each participant was randomized to a sequence of two dental cleanings, one regular dental environment (RDE) and one SADE with a 3-4-month recall. Outcomes included physiological measures (heart rate and oxygen saturation) and cooperation (Frankl scores). Results: Study subjects completed a total of 36 visits. None of the physiological measures differed at either time point between the two treatment settings. The Frankl scores were significantly higher with SADE setting than RDE (p =0.0368). Forty-six percent of parents strongly agreed that they would prefer the SADE for their child’s next visit. Conclusion: SADE may be associated with improved behavior in children with DD.

It is of utmost importance that students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the public school setting across the United States are receiving the best, most researched services and treatments. This study aimed to find out what services and treatments are most commonly being used for students with ASD in the public schools, to see whether or not those practices are supported by research, and to discover how involved parents and families are in the services being provided to their students. This study found that of the top 25 most commonly used practices, 17 of those were supported by and recommended by research, 3 are considered to have some research support, 1 was considered to not have research support, and 4 were undetermined to have research support. This study also found that overall, parents are aware of the services being provided to their students with ASD, but they do not feel like they are actively involved with majority of the services being provided.

ABSTRACT Based on my experience and research, I believe more educational resources are needed for teaching students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I have combined interviews of participants --two certified and currently practicing art teachers working in the public school setting, two adaptive art specialists, and two art therapists-- with relevant information from my Review of Literature to compile an initial set of practices and adaptive techniques specifically for art teachers to use in constructing a successful learning environment in the art classroom for students with ASD. According to my review of literature, three factors necessary for creating a successful learning environment for students with ASD are preparation, collaboration, and instruction. To examine these factors, I focused my interviews on these topics. Results were aligned with the initial research as those interviewed described a need for more complete and applicable training, more opportunities for collaboration, and information about possible strategies to use with students with ASD in the art classroom. INDEX WORDS: Art Education, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Art Therapy, Adaptive Art

Working collaboratively with VSA Texas, the research study examined how a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) curriculum functions for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in an art learning setting. The curriculum focused on learning new media for art making in the form of digital film and video. My research and proposed successful classroom strategies are intended to assist current and future art educators in implementing aspects of UDL in their inclusive art classrooms to better educate students with disabilities through art. / text

Social communication deficits have been identified as one of the core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous studies have shown that video modeling is an effective intervention for improving social communication in children with ASD. The purpose of this project is to provide an accessible resource for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) seeking to implement video modeling interventions for children with ASD, drawing upon empirical research to inform recommended procedures for SLPs. This guidebook provides step-by-step procedures for implementing video modeling intervention, including selection of target behaviors and video models, video production, techniques for implementing interventions, and methods of measuring progress. Associated intervention strategies are also discussed. Additional resources are provided to support SLPs in implementing video modeling interventions, including data collection forms, sample scripts, and sample lesson plans. This project also includes examples of videos created using children and adults as models. As video modeling appears to be an effective approach for ameliorating social communication deficits in children with ASD, SLPs may benefit from a practical guide for implementing video modeling interventions in a variety of settings. / text

One of every 166 children born today could be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (CDC 2006). Growing bodies of evidence show sensory integration issues may be at the root of many of the symptoms children with ASD exhibit. Sensory integration is defined as the ability to feel, understand, and organize sensory information from the body and environment. The issues surrounding sensory integration are reflected in both hypersensitive and hyposensitive reactions by children with ASD to the vestibular, proprioception, visual, audio, tactile, and olfactory senses.The goal of this paper is to address the sensory integration issues of children with ASD by creating a sensory garden which would allow them to focus on therapeutic and diagnostic interventions. By using the principles and elements of design, guidelines for this garden focused on producing calming effects for hyper reactive children with ASD and stimulating effects for hypo reactions.

名古屋大学博士学位論文 学位の種類 : 博士(医学)(課程) 学位授与年月日:平成25年3月30日 川上ちひろ氏の博士論文として提出された

Examining responses to violations of communication may provide insight into children’s communicative competencies not apparent during reciprocal interactions. In this study, the caregivers of 18-month-old typically developing children, 30-month-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and 30-month-old children with Down syndrome followed our suggestion to playfully violate communication with their children in two contexts: requesting and social interacting. Caregivers of children with ASD made fewer bids and violations, which their children accepted less often than typically developing children; they also used instrumental behaviors more often when responding. Children with Down syndrome responded to their caregivers similarly to typically developing children, and used more high-level communicative behaviors in the requesting, versus social interacting, context. This study highlights the bidirectional nature of parent-child interactions, and suggests that violations of communication may serve as a “press” to elicit child behaviors not present during reciprocal communication.

Social communication deficits have been identified as one of the core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous studies have shown that video modeling is an effective intervention for improving social communication in children with ASD. The purpose of this project is to provide an accessible resource for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) seeking to implement video modeling interventions for children with ASD, drawing upon empirical research to inform recommended procedures for SLPs. This guidebook provides step-by-step procedures for implementing video modeling intervention, including selection of target behaviors and video models, video production, techniques for implementing interventions, and methods of measuring progress. Associated intervention strategies are also discussed. Additional resources are provided to support SLPs in implementing video modeling interventions, including data collection forms, sample scripts, and sample lesson plans. This project also includes examples of videos created using children and adults as models. As video modeling appears to be an effective approach for ameliorating social communication deficits in children with ASD, SLPs may benefit from a practical guide for implementing video modeling interventions in a variety of settings.

Oral health problems have been a major public health concern profoundly affecting people’s general health and quality of life. Given that oral health data is composed of several measurable dimensions including clinical measurements, socio-behavioral factors, genetic predispositions, self-reported assessments, and quality of life measures, strategies for analyzing multidimensional data are neither computationally straightforward nor efficient. Researchers face major challenges to identify tools that circumvent the processes of manually probing the data. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide applications of the proposed methodology on oral health-related data that go beyond identifying risk factors from a single dimension, and to describe large-scale datasets in a natural intuitive manner. The three specific applications focus on the utilization of 1) classification regression tree (CART) to understand the multidimensional factors associated with untreated decay in childhood, 2) network analyses and network plots to describe connectedness of concurrent co-morbid conditions for pediatric patients with autism receiving dental treatments under general anesthesia, and 3) random forests in addition to conventional adjusted main effects analyses to identify potential environmental risk factors and interactive effects for periodontitis. Compared to findings from the previous literature, the use of these innovative applications demonstrates overlapping findings as well as novel discoveries to the oral health knowledge. The results of this research not only illustrate that these data mining techniques can be used to improve the delivery of information into knowledge, but also provide new avenues for future decision making and planning for oral health-care management.