Every year children are unintentionally injured or killed due to finding an unattended firearm. Although research evaluating various approaches to teach safety skills shows that behavioral skills training and in situ training are effective, limited research exists evaluating small-scale simulation training in teaching safety skills to children. Furthermore, there is no research evaluating this approach with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study evaluated the effectiveness of small-scale simulation training in teaching firearm safety to 5- to 6-year-old children with ASD. Simulation training was effective for one participant and in situ training was necessary for one participant. However, in situ training was not effective for the third participant.

Many individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have deficits in social skills (e.g., Church, Alisanski, & Amanullah, 2000;). More specifically, individuals with an ASD may have deficits in tacting and commenting on the emotions of others as well as their own (Hobson, 1986). One potential way to facilitate the acquisition of social skills by individuals with an ASD is through the use a social skill application. The OiGO© application was developed to offer a modality to allow individuals to appropriately tact and comment on emotions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether participants would learn to tact and comment on the emotional responding of other individuals using OiGO©. This study used a multiple baseline across participants with embedded probes design to assess the effects of OiGO© plus reinforcement on tacting and commenting vocally and through the use of the application. Correct vocal responding increased from baseline levels for one of three participants. In addition, all participants quickly met mastery criterion via OiGO© responding during the OiGO© plus reinforcement phase. Furthermore, responding during the generalization probes was variable. These results combined suggest that individuals with autism can quickly learn to use this application.

Title: Specifics of swimming teaching children with autism spectrum disorder. Objectives: Application of the structured learning by the concept of common preparatory and basic swimming lessons for children with autism spectrum disorder. Presentation and evaluation of nine case studies and subsequent implementation of policy for teaching swimming to children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: Analysis of specialized literature, case studies, surveys, interviews, scaling observation and statistics method. Results of the work: Methods of the structured learning support and facilitate the implementation of standard swimming lessons for children with autism spectrum disorder. The case studies confirm the effectiveness of our taught realized swimming lessons. The principles for swimming education of children with autism spectrum disorder are designed based on the above-mentioned examples of swimming lessons. Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorders, structured teaching swimming lessons

Bakgrund: Autismspektrumtillstånd, AST, är ett samlingsnamn för flertalet neuropsykiatriska funktionsnedsättningar. AST påverkar hjärnans kognitiva delar och resulterar i svårigheter med det sociala samspelet, kommunikation och begränsad föreställningsförmåga. 1 av 160 barn har diagnosen och antalet individer med AST ökar i samhället och stor sannolikhet föreligger därmed att vårdpersonal möter dem som patienter. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien är att undersöka vårdpersonals erfarenheter av att vårda patienter med autismspektrumtillstånd.  Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturstudie baserad på åtta vetenskapliga artiklar. Artikelsökning genomfördes i databaserna Cinahl, PubMed, PsycInfo och Google Scholar. Analys utfördes utifrån Fribergs femstegsmodell.  Resultat: Utifrån analysen formades två huvudteman med tillhörande subteman. De huvudteman som bildades var; Svårigheter i mötet med vården och Faktorer som underlättar mötet.  Konklusion: Vårdpersonal är i behov av kontinuerlig träning och utbildning för att kunna ge lämplig vård anpassad för patienter med AST. Kommunikationssvårigheter upplevs som ett hinder i omvårdnaden och sjukhusmiljön behöver anpassas. Vidare forskning bör utföras för att belysa vårdpersonals erfarenheter så att fler kan bli medvetna om hur vården kan anpassas för att gynna patienter med AST. / Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder, AST, is a collective name for most neuropsychiatric disabilities. AST affects the cognitive parts of the brain and results in difficulties with social interaction, communication and limited imagination. 1 in 160 children has the diagnosis and the number of individuals with AST is increasing in society and there is a high probability that care staff will meet them as patients.  Aim: The aim of this literature study is to examine healthcare professionals' experiences of caring for patients with autism spectrum disorders. Methods: A qualitative literature study based on 8 scientific articles. Article search was performed in the databases Cinahl, PubMed, PsycInfo and Google Schoolar. Analysis was performed based on Friberg's five-step model. Results: Based on the analysis, two main themes with associated sub-themes were designed. The main themes that were formed were: Difficulties in the encounter with care and Factors that facilitate the encounter. Conclusion: Healthcare professionals are in need of continuous training and education to be able to provide appropriate care adapted for patients with AST. Communication difficulties are perceived as an obstacle in nursing and the hospital environment needs to be adapted. Further research should be carried out to shed light on the experiences of healthcare professionals so that more people can become aware of how healthcare can be adapted to benefit patients with AST.

This thesis focuses on adults with Asperger syndrome, more specifically on parenthood. As these people, just like everyone else, have a right to have children and become parents, this thesis deals with how people with Asperger syndrome themselves view this issue. The theoretical part first presents a description of Asperger syndrome, how it manifests and the process of diagnosis. Then the period of adolescence and adulthood is described. Finally, the thesis deals with the issue of supporting people with Asperger syndrome. The research part states the objective of the thesis which is to find out what parenthood and family means to people with Asperger's, and whether in the Czech Republic there is any form of support offered to these people regarding parenthood and raising children. The qualitative research method was selected for this thesis and the specific method of questioning, or more specifically, interviewing. The interviews were conducted remotely per the request of the respondents. Subsequently, the thesis presents a characteristic of the sample group which comprised adults with Asperger syndrome, then the process of data processing during which each statement was given a code which was then assigned to a specific category. The final part of the thesis presents the results. It has been...

This thesis is focused on the general knowledge about the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the matter of social integration and most importantly about the experiences of the parents of the children with ASD. The theoretic part begins with the chapter introducing the problematics where one shall find the definition, specific types of the ASDs, the diagnostics and the reaction of the family to the diagnosis. The second chapter describes specific integration ways which could help with the social integration of an ASD child. I refer to certain obstacles that may come up during their integration. Afterward, I move onto the methods and services helpful in the matter of more effective education of the child and getting to know its own surroundings. The third chapter continues with the topic of the prior one. It is dealing with the education possibilities for these children in the Czech Republic, the way the helping services have been established and how are they functioning nowadays. The last chapter is talking about society itself. More specifically, what are the differences among the children with and without ASDs, what myths are connected to the ASD topic today and what types of education are currently available to fight such myths. To demonstrate, I shall present a few organizations and research on...

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Speech development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has rarely been studied, yet residual speech sound errors are over 30 times more common in children with ASD than in the general population. Two main theories could explain this. The Social Feedback Loop proposes that toddlers with ASD vocalize less often and so have fewer opportunities to benefit from adult feedback. Thus, fewer vocalizations and perceptible differences in those vocalizations should be found in toddlers with ASD. The Speech Attunement Framework proposes that while toddlers with ASD “tune in” to their native languages well enough to acquire language normally, they lack the ability to “tune up” their articulation to the same level of precision as typically-developing children. Thus, differences in the vocalizations of toddlers with ASD may be perceptible or not, and should exist irrespective of differences in vocalization rate. This study longitudinally examines vocalization rate, consonant inventory size, and voice-onset time (VOT) in syllable-initial bilabial stops using 30-minute speech samples from toddlers in three groups: those at low risk for ASD (LRC), those at high risk for ASD with ASD themselves (HRA+), and those at high risk for ASD without ASD (HRA ) . Transient delays in consonant development were found in both HRA- and HRA+, but only HRA+ toddlers vocalized less often. Further, the relationship between vocalization rate and consonant inventory was significantly different from LRC only for HRA-. VOT development was similar across groups, except that fewer HRA+ 36-month-olds produced distinct /b/ and /p/ populations, as measured by t-test and by Cohen’s d ≥ 0.8 between mean VOTs in the two populations of stops. Results support the Speech Attunement Framework. Consonant acquisition delays are not related to differences in vocalization rate and are not found only in toddlers who develop ASD. The finding of sub-perceptual acoustic differences in stop production in toddlers who develop ASD, with no accompanying differences in production rate, also supports the Speech Attunement Framework. This suggests that the Social Feedback Loop is not diminished in ASD by lower vocalization rate, but that toddlers with ASD may have diminished ability to monitor their own speech.

This thesis is concerned with compensatory mechanisms used by people with a lighter form of autism spectrum disorder (shortly ASD) in social situations. In terms of ASD, compensatory mechanisms are labeled as camouflage, because they hide symptoms of autism. Camouflage can, according to research results, complicate the diagnostic process and lead to ASD not being recognized, especially in women. The theoretical part of this thesis deals with the description of today's understanding of ASD. It shows information about the diagnostic process and the symptomatics od ASD. It also describes the differences in the severity of ASD and the different symptoms of autism in men and women. The last chapter is concerned with the issue of compensatory mechanisms and camouglage in people with ASD. The empirical part of this thesis includes a quantitative research that explored the level of camouflage in 170 respondents using a translated version of CAT-Q (Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire), that was distributed online. The results show a higher level of camouflage in people with a mild form of ASD, compared to people without ASD. The research also shows that the level of camouflage in people with ASD is higher in female respondents than in male respondents. The research found a positive correlation...

Before the acquisition of speaker-as-own-listener (SOL) where individuals demonstrate verbal governance of their own overt and covert behavior (Skinner, 1957), individuals have to have the correspondence between listening to one’s own voice and doing, which I name self-listening. Self-listening is defined as the correspondence between listening to one’s own voice and doing in two forms: listening to one’s own voice and doing in isolation, and joining of print with listening to one’s own voice after reading aloud and doing. I conducted two experiments to investigate the establishment of self-listening in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I evaluated two different topographies of the target behavior: listen-to-own-voice-do (LOVD), which is defined as the correspondence between listening to one’s own voice and doing in isolation, and read-aloud-do (RAD), which is defined as the correspondence between reading aloud and doing. As Skinner (1957) explained, reading is an extension of listening. When individuals are reading, they see print, say print, and then hear themselves. For that reason, listening to one’s own voice was targeted as one dependent variable and reading aloud as a second to compare the participants’ performance on both topographies accurately, as RAD includes both a listening and a reading component, while LOVD includes a listening component only. Using a multiple probe design across participants, I analyzed the participants’ performance in the two different topographies, LOVD and RAD, across two different tasks: a drawing task and a building task. The participants had to follow written directions in RAD and spoken directions in LOVD to produce a drawing in the drawing task and a construction in the building task. The dependent variables were identical across Experiments I and II, but varied in terms of the measurement system for the building task. In Experiment I, the intervention was listener instruction and in Experiment II the intervention was listener and reader instruction, in which I utilized the learn unit (Albers & Greer, 1991) in presenting the instruction and consequating the participants’ correct and incorrect responses. The intervention in both experiments was presented in the form of a treasure hunt where the participants had to complete a 20-step treasure hunt accurately to earn a desired reinforcer. The results of both experiments showed that the dependent variables, LOVD and RAD, were established across all participants. There were limitations in Experiment I, which were addressed in Experiment II. Keywords: self-listener, self-listening, listening, following instructions, spoken instructions, written instructions, joining of print, say-do correspondence, speaker-as-own- listener, listen-do correspondence, read-do correspondence, reading comprehension, listening comprehension.