Thesis (BTech (Fashion Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010 / Children with autism experience fine motor difficulties that affect their ability to perform daily tasks. The purpose of this research study was to help improve these fine motor difficulties by teaching the child a specific skill which is to be able to dress oneself. The information gathered through the data gathering techniques described in this study, proved important in creating the practical component of this research study. It included a practical and functional children's wear range with a corresponding interactive Leam-To-Dress storybook. The findings of this study suggest that there is a need for the acquisition of the important life skill, to be able to dress oneself. This was made possible with the use of the interactive Leam-To-Dress. storybook with its' corresponding outfit

In recent years the number of studies on resilience emerging within the field of positive psychology has increased. However, such studies are limited within the South African context and so the proposed study aims to explore and describe the factors that facilitate adjustment and adaptation in South African families living with Autism Spectrum Disorder. McCubbin, McCubbin and Thompson (2001) developed the Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment and Adaptation which were used to conceptualise the family’s adaptation. Mothers (n = 19) from 19 families participated in the study. The families consisted of at least three members, of which two are parents and one a child younger than 18 years of age that has been diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. A combination of non-probability purposive sampling and snowball sampling was used to select participants. The study had an exploratory and descriptive aim and employed triangulation of method, including both qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures. A biographical questionnaire and the following seven structured paper-and-pencil questionnaires were used: the Family Attachment and Changeability Index 8 (FACI8), the Family Crisis-oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES), the Family Hardiness Index (FHI), the Family Problem-solving Communication (FPSC), the Family Time and Routine Index (FTRI), the Relative and Friend Support (RFS), and the Social Support Index (SSI). Descriptive statistics were used to describe the biographical information. Qualitative data were analysed by means of content analysis. Quantitative data were manipulated by means of correlation and regression analysis. The results from the quantitative analysis indicate three significant positive correlations with the FACI8. These variables were the family hardiness (measured by FHI), family problem-solving communication (measured by the FPSC), and family time and routines (measured by the FTRI). The findings from the qualitative analysis point out that social support, the spousal relationship and family time, togetherness and routines are the most important strength factors that contribute to the family’s adjustment and adaptation. Even though this study had a small sample size and several other limitations, the findings of this study could still assist in guiding specialised institutions toward providing more comprehensive information and support to families living with a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This study also contributes to the studies on family resilience within a South African context.

Children’s self-regulation has shown to be related to the trajectories across various domains of adaptive functioning and school success. Delay in self-regulation development represents an area of major challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (e.g., Jahromi, 2017), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction as well as restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Children with ASD are often reported academic difficulties and underachievement compared to their typically developing peers (e.g., Nation et al., 2006). It has been well-documented that typically developing children with greater self-regulation had better academic achievement (e.g., Blair & Razza, 2007). However, few studies have extended the examination of the association between self-regulation and academic learning to the populations with special needs, especially to those with ASD. Moreover, the majority of previous studies solely relied on standardized assessments to reflect children’s temporary learning outcomes rather than their dynamic learning process. Little is known about how children’s self-regulatory skills are related to the way they learn and how various child characteristics moderate this association. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine how the self-regulatory capacities of children with ASD, including executive function and effortful control, were linked to their dynamic academic learning process and to investigate the moderating effects of various child characteristics on this association, including ASD-related symptoms severity, school engagement, reward sensitivity, and adaptive behavior, all of which represent areas of challenge for children with ASD. Additionally, children with ASD often receive many different types of reinforcement at school. Their ability to wait for delayed reinforcement and their responsiveness to different reinforcers seem crucial for how successful they could adapt to school lives. Thus, another goal of this study was to investigate children with ASD’s responses to delayed reinforcement as well as token and social reinforcers in the natural classroom environment and to identify strategies that can facilitate their tolerance to delayed reinforcement and responsiveness to different types of reinforcers. Thirty-two preschoolers aged 36 to 68 months from two specialized applied behavior analysis schools in the greater New York City area participated in the study. Each participant had an Individualized Education Program with a classification of Preschooler with Disability and had a current diagnosis of autism confirmed with the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012). Children with ASD received direct measures on their executive function in a laboratory setting and assessments on their responses to delayed reinforcement as well as token and social reinforcers in the natural classroom environment. Parents filled out reports regarding children with ASD’s executive function, effortful control, and reward sensitivity. Teachers completed scales on these children’s school engagement and adaptive behavior. Regarding the participants’ academic learning, instead of using one-time standardized assessments, this study derived school data of multiple literacy and mathematics programs over a period of time to investigate the number of learning opportunities and additional one-to-one educational interventions a child required to achieve an academic objective in the learning process. Findings in this study showed that children with ASD with better self-regulation engaged in school activities to a greater extent, demonstrated better adaptive behavior at school, and were reported to have stronger social communication skills. Children with ASD with better emotional control, attention, and inhibitory control achieved academic objectives in literacy faster, especially in the domains of word recognition and reading comprehension. Also, children with ASD with a better overall EF level learned math concepts and problem-solving skills faster in both trial-based and script-based mathematics curricula, and those with better working memory demonstrated a higher learning rate in the trial-based mathematics programs. Further analyses showed that the relationship between self-regulation and academic learning in children with ASD was influenced by their behavior school engagement and reward sensitivity. These results inform future interventions to focus on the school engagement behaviors and sensitivity to reward in children with ASD when developing their self-regulation and academic learning skills. Moreover, three socially-oriented strategies, including using language, gestures, and eye contact, were found to help children with ASD respond better to delayed reinforcement, above and beyond their self-regulation level. Also, these children responded better in a task that they already mastered under a situation in which tokens could be earned for exchanging preferred items or activities contingent on their performance rather than in a situation where only social attention was available. Overall, self-regulation emerged as a potential protective factor for young children with ASD in their school success in terms of engagement and adaptive level as well as academic learning rates. Self-regulation development is recommended to be included as an essential component in future academic and social-emotional interventions for children with ASD. Meanwhile, developing the ability to use language, gestures, or eye contact to communicate needs and emotions may help children with ASD have a better response to delayed reinforcement in the natural classroom environment. Considering the majority of them demonstrated altered reward sensitivity characterized by nonsocial stimuli hypersensitivity and social rewards hyposensitivity, it is important to enhance their responsiveness and sensitivity to social reinforcers to promote their school adjustment and success.

The purpose of this study was to raise awareness and to analyze the process of diagnosing African American children with autism and identify variables that correlate with late diagnosis.

This research project offered an overview of Autistic spectrum disorder and discussed the need for research regarding the family's role in treatment. The treatment framework examined in this research project was Applied Behavioral Analysis. The study took place at the University Center for Developmental disabilities (UCDD), located at California State University San Bernardino.

The project contributes to the significance of special education by providing information on how to identify early signs of autism in order to implement appropriate strategies as early as possible and by examining the effectiveness of early intervention programs. A quantitative and qualitative approach was used to measure the responses of parents and special educators regarding the importance of early detection of autism for early socialization of children before entering the school setting.

published_or_final_version / Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In the current literature, little is written about issues of identity in relation to persons with autism. Identity can be defined within a social context, in which individuals are seen as having multiple, changing identities that are expressed in specific, though fluid, social relationships. This dissertation explored the individual arts experiences of four children with autism spectrum disorder in relation to their social identity formation. The dissertation explored three research questions: (a) What are the contextual conditions that aid and make arts experiences salient for the child with ASD? (b) What are the outcomes of arts experiences for children with ASD? and (c) How do these experiences impact the lived experience of children with ASD? Data were collected over four months, beginning in March of 2009 and continued through June, in a private school for children with learning differences in southeastern, Texas. Data included interviews with students, parents and teachers and classroom observations. Qualitative research methodology, specifically, grounded theory was used to analyze the data. Findings were that arts experiences for children with autism spectrum disorder engendered an identity transformation for the participants. The central phenomenon of the study was termed: Re-imagining of the identity of the child with autism spectrum disorder. Through shared discourse of the classroom teachers, arts teachers, and parents, the children participants became identified as “art kids” and “drama kids” within the school community. Re-imagining consisted of re-envisioning the child’s future, re-defining the child by his or her talents versus his or her deficits, and re-interpreting the child’s actions and behaviors. / text

A 5-year-old child with autism was taught to: (a) ask "What is that?" in the presence of unknown objects and (b) name the objects he did know. Generalization in the presence of the experimenter was probed across four new tasks. The child's performance generalized to the first 3 tasks without additional training. The fourth task required programming of common stimuli before generalization occurred.

Few studies have investigated methods for establishing neutral stimuli as conditioned reinforcers in human subjects. Conditioned reinforcers, however, can alleviate some of the problems encountered in applied behavior analytic (ABA) therapy for children with autism, such as satiation and suitability of reinforcers for specific environments. A series of reversals evaluated the effects of a conditioning procedure involving pairing a neutral stimulus, the remote control stimulus (RCT), with an identified reinforcer. Phase 1 demonstrated that the RCT was neutral. In Phase 2, alternating pairing and testing conditions were run. During testing the effects of pairing were evaluated by the effectiveness of the RCT in maintaining a response in the absence of a previously available reinforcer (extinction test) and in increasing a new response over a baseline level (learning test). Results from the extinction test suggest that under some pairing conditions the RCT can acquire properties of a reinforcer.