Inclusion of children with autism in public education has become a pressing issue. As more and more children are diagnosed, schools are increasingly unable to provide individualized educational services and one to one aides for each of these children. In this master's thesis, the author describes the ways in which discourses around public education and the ideal neoliberal worker have in turn shaped discourses around students and workers with autism. Reimagining inclusion of students with autism pushes us to reimagine "autism" and "school" itself. Through discussions of the paradoxes of autistic speech and self determination, and the relationship between discourses of autism and discourses of education, the author suggests a new way to imagine autism, inclusion, and education.

Research suggests that brain growth follows an abnormal trajectory in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A better understanding of when and how patterns of brain development diverge from that seen in typically developing children could yield insight into the etiology of the disorder, and resulting symptomatology. To investigate this hypothesis, three studies examined the relation between structural and functional brain measures and age in a group of children with an ASD, aged 6 to 14 years. Age by group interactions were found in all three studies, providing further evidence that brain development may follow an atypical trajectory in ASD. Study 1: Differences in the relation between structural indices and age were found in grey matter volume, surface area and thickness, as well as in cortical thickness of specific regions in the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44) and left precuneus. These measures of grey matter structure generally decreased with age in the ASD children, compared to little or no change with age in the typically developing children. Study 2: Differences in the relation between age and measures of longitudinal, radial and mean diffusivity were found in frontal, long distant, interhemispheric and posterior white matter tracts; diffusivity decreased with age in the typically developing group, but showed little or no change in the ASD group. Study 3: Differences in the relation between BOLD activation on a set-shifting task and age were found in brain regions important for cognitive flexibility, such as areas of prefrontal, right insula and parietal cortex. These effects were mainly due to decreasing activation with age for the ASD group, but increasing or no age-related change in the TD group. The findings of these three studies provide converging evidence in support of an hypothesis of dysregulated brain development in this population, which could have significant, compounding effects on the development of neural connectivity, and contribute to atypical cognitive development in children with ASD.

The effects of a video-modeling intervention, given to five children with autism while playing kickball, were evaluated through a multiple-baseline design across subjects. The researcher targeted two social skills, verbal compliments and appropriate gestures, using the iPad as a portable video device to model the desired behaviors in situ, on second base mid-game. Children were required to verbally and non-verbally compliment their peers during the kickball games. After presented the video clip, children showed rapid mastery of the verbal complimenting skills, and displayed an increased but less profound number of gestures displayed in the intervention phase.

Discrete-trials teaching (DTT) is one of the principal techniques used in Applied Behaviour Analysis programs for children with autism. Although the demand for training individuals to implement DTT is high, published studies on strategies to do so are few. I conducted two experiments to investigate a training package for teaching individuals to implement DTT. In Experiment 1, I used a modified multiple-baseline design to evaluate the training package for teaching five university students to implement DTT to teach three tasks to a confederate role-playing a child with autism. Also, in an AB within-subject design with each participant, I compared two components of the training package, a Self-Instructional Manual and Feedback plus Demonstration. Experiment 2 was a systematic replication of Experiment 1, with 2 teaching assistants, a resource teacher, and 3 parents of children with autism as participants. In both experiments I assessed the generalization (G1) of participants’ ability to implement DTT (while teaching the confederate) to teach tasks not targeted for Feedback plus Demonstration, as well as generalization (G2) of DTT while teaching a child with autism. After an average of approximately 3 hours to master the self-instructional manual, participants’ DTT accuracy in both experiments improved from an average of 34% in Baseline to an average of 61% following the Self-Instructional Manual. Results appeared to be due to the Self-Instructional Manual phase for 9 of the 11 participants. Following an average of 35 minutes of Feedback plus Demonstration of DTT of one task, participants’ DTT accuracy improved to an average of 91% while teaching a confederate. The improvement appeared to be due to the intervention with 10 of the 11 participants. The participants’ DTT accuracy averaged 90% during G1 and 86% during G2. These results demonstrate that this training package has considerable potential for teaching DTT to tutors, educational assistants, and parents of children with autism. / February 2008

Autism is a severe childhood neuropsychiatric condition characterized by impairments in socialization and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behaviours. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex and largely unknown disease with a strong genetic basis, multiple genes involved and environmental factors determining its phenotype. Interestingly, the DLX1/DLX2 and DLX5/DLX6 bigene clusters are located in autism susceptibility loci and Dlx genes are involved in GABAergic interneurons differentiation and migration to the cortex during forebrain development. Dlx gene expression is controlled by different cis-regulatory elements. Of these, 4 are active in the forebrain, URE2, I12b, I56ii and I56i. In order to determine the role of the DLX genes in ASD, variants were found in gene exons and in cis-regulatory elements in autistic individuals. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), a change of an adenine for a guanine, was identified in I56i enhancer. Finding a SNP in I56i was very surprising considering that it is located in a Dlx binding motif highly conserved among >40 species. We showed, using in vitro approaches, that the presence of this SNP affects the affinity of Dlx for their binding site and reduces the transcriptional activation of the enhancer. The SNP also affects activity of the I56i enhancer in transgenic mice. In order to determine the real impact of the SNP in vivo, mutant mice harboring the SNP in their I56i enhancer were produced. That involved the insertion of the I56i enhancer with the SNP, using homologous recombination in mouse embryonic stem cells to replace the wild type version of the enhancer. With these mutant mice, we demonstrated that, in vivo, this SNP reduces Dlx5 and Dlx6 expression in the forebrain. Furthermore, this decrease in Dlx5/Dlx6 expression could affect the differentiation and/or migration of specific populations of inhibitory interneurons in the forebrain. No distinct iv behavioural phenotypes were observed between wild type mice and those carrying the SNP, during social interaction and anxiety tests. Therefore, these results suggest that even a subtle change in a regulatory element can have an impact in the development of the forebrain and may even contribute to disorders such as autism.

Detta är ett examensarbete som handlar om Funktionsinriktad Musikterapi – FMT. Det kan också beskrivas som en information och vägledning för dem som är intresserade av alternativa och kompletterande metoder för att ge ökat stöd och utveckling för personer med någon form av funktionsnedsättning. Arbetet belyser även aspekter rörande resurser. FMT kan beskrivas som en ”musikalisk rörelseterapi” där individen ställs i centrum och får möjlighet att utveckla sina funktionella förmågor i sin egen takt. I arbetet får vi också följa arbetet med två adepter varav den ena har diagnosen ADHD och den andra Autism.   Min slutsats är att FMT-metoden har en betydande roll som en resursförstärkare inom olika områden som barn- och skolomsorg, sjukvård, äldreomsorg, samt för den enskilda individen.

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I detta examensarbete beskriver jag FMT-metoden, Funktionsinriktad MusikTerapi. Fokus ligger på att undersöka hur man med musik som medel kan utveckla en samverkan genom att arbeta med denna metod. Jag beskriver i två fallbeskrivningar hur jag har arbetat med FMT-metoden med två personer, den ena med diagnosen autism och den andra med diagnosen ADHD.   Min slutsats är att man kan arbeta med FMT-metoden för att utveckla en samverkan genom en tydlig struktur där man samspelar med varandra i en ickeverbal kommunikation med musik som medel.

Denna studie syftade till att granska inkluderingen av autistiska barn i sju olika förskolor. Vi har fått en större förståelse för och insyn i hur det fungerar ute i verksamheterna och arbetet med autistiska barn. Syftet med uppsatsen var att ta reda på hur autistiska barn möjliggörs en inkludering i den övriga barngruppen i förskolorna, pedagogers kunskaper om autism och vilka arbetsmetoder som används. Vi letade efter skillnader och likheter mellan pedagoger som har arbetat/arbetar eller aldrig har arbetat med autistiska barn.   Sju pedagoger intervjuades på olika förskolor i södra Norrland. Den forskningsansats vi har utgått ifrån är fenomenografin. Vårt syfte har varit att ta reda på hur pedagogerna uppfattar inkludering av autistiska barn i förskolan. Data som vi fick in från informanterna analyserades och resulterades i följande fyra kategorier: Visade stor kunskap av arbetet med autistiska barn, visade kunskap men hade ingen vana med autistiska barn, visade lite kunskap och hade ingen vana av arbetet med autistiska barn samt visade ingen vana och ingen kunskap av arbetet med autistiska barn. Kategorierna tydliggjorde hur arbetet såg ut med inkludering av autistiska barn i förskolorna.   Genom vår studie har vi kommit fram till att det var de pedagoger som hade arbetat med ett autistiskt barn som visste hur dessa barn skulle inkluderas i den övriga barngruppen samt även hade god kunskap inom ämnet. Det framkom också att ekonomin var styrande i vissa fall där det behövdes extraresurser.

Syftet med vårt arbete var att ta reda på hur man kan integrera elever med Aspergers syndrom i skolan, samt ta reda på vad verksamma pedagoger tycker om integreringen. Vi ville också ta reda på olika material och undervisningsmetoder som kan användas för att integrera elever med Aspergers syndrom. För att få fram svar på dessa frågor har vi använt oss utav en kvalitativ metod, vi har genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra olika personer med olika yrkeserfarenheter. Vi har även tagit del av tidigare forskning för att få olika synvinklar på våra problemformuleringar. Resultatet vi har kommit fram till stämmer väl överens med den litteratur vi läst. För att integrera elever med Aspergers syndrom är det viktigt att ha kunskap och förståelse om funktionshindret samt att se varje individ för sig.