Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:08:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ivana carvalheira.pdf: 1499667 bytes, checksum: beb0cba4ab3133ac41bacec304771573 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-03-28 / Considering the pain and suffering of the burned child who is in hospital, this author was concerned mostly with the kinds of current clinical help which are offered by the psychology professionals staff. From this view point when one researched about the saber fazer , that is, the psychological and clinical know-how, there were a great number of possibilities as to the fazer saber , e.g. how to reach the suffering child in his/her innerself and let him/her know that there is someone who in fact can help. It was found out that there were a number of attitudes, actions, interventation and interpretation which the psychologist could make use of in his relationship and care for the subject, the burned child. Therefore, the psychologist and/or researcher should be conscious about how broad the psychological clinical field is, and further he/she needs to understand clearly what may help as well as what may prevent a certain contextual action . One should start from understanding the subject s individual experience as a unique human being. This study aims to take a rather different look at the burned child specific experience, and tries to provide a new meaning to the psychological clinical action, inside a hospital, enlightened by both the existential phenomenon and attitudes for the psychological clinical action. The qualitative methodology was chosen, and it was inspired by the narrator himself. It was also supported by the phenomenal method for interpretation. The material analysed is made up of narratives based on the psychologist/researcher experiences, as well as from the burned child and the mother, who were in the Burned Treatment Center (BTC). In addition, reports from professionals belonging to the same health staff were considered. Finally , special attention was given to both the experienced/affectionate knowledge and the theoretical one, all deriving from talks to area field experts. It was discovered that the psychological action done at the BTC is in the pratical-theoretical field from the Psychological Advice, and it is deemed as an educational and psychological-clinical practice, in an interdisciplinary dimension of a clinical social action. M oreover, some special peculiarities were found from the communication among the professional psychologist, the burned child and the mother. Those peculiarities were the tools which facilitated the psychologist / Considerando a experiência de aflição da criança queimada hospitalizada, buscou-se pensar, como maior propriedade, sobre os modelos assistenciais clínicos instituídos, disponibilizados no atendimento a sua demanda psicológica. Nessa perspectiva, ao pesquisar sobre o saber/fazer clínico psicológico, revelaram-se múltiplas atitudes, ações, intervenções, orientações, interpretações, possíveis e cabíveis, ao psicológico na relação/cuidado com o sujeito. Lançando como profissional e/ou pesquisador no vasto campo da clínica psicológica , é importante compreender o que facilita ou dificulta uma ação situada. Parte-se de uma compreensão de ação implicada como constituinte no modo de ser humano: sujeito que age. Assim, este trabalho visa, a partir de uma experiência específica, trazer um outro olhar, ressignificando o fazer clínico psicológico no contexto do hospital, à luz da fenomenologia existencial e de dispositivos para a ação clínica psicológica. Recorreu- se à metodologia qualitativa, inspirada na figura do narrador e amparada no método fenomenológico para interpretação. A matéria-prima desta obra consiste em narrativas da experiência do psicólogo/pesquisador e dos interlocutores nos atendimentos, criança e sua mãe, no Centro de Tratamento de Queimados, além de relatos de profissionais dessa mesma equipe de saúde. Ao final, procurou-se uma articulação entre o conhecimento vivido/afetivo e o conhecimento teórico, a partir do diálogo com autores. Vislumbrou-se que a ação psicológica no C.T.Q. situa-se no campo teórico-prático do Aconselhamento Psicológico, como prática clínico- psicológica e educacional, numa dimensão interdisciplinar de ação social clínica. Foram, ainda, evidenciadas peculiaridades da comunicação entre a psicóloga, a criança e sua mãe, compreendidas como utensílios/utilitários facilitadores da intervenção psicológica. Espera-se, com este trabalho, apontar aberturas para ousadias responsáveis na atuação clínica, com implicações para o estudo e prática interdisciplinar

Questa sintesi conclusiva del percorso di dottorato ruota attorno al costrutto di fragilità, attualmente definita come una condizione disfunzionale dinamica di natura multi-sistemica, associata a un aumentato rischio di conseguenze negative quali istituzionalizzazione, ospedalizzazione e morte. Come illustrato tramite gli studi inclusi nella presente tesi, le osservazioni empiriche e l’esperienza in ambito clinico hanno sistematicamente evidenziato l’assenza di strumenti di screening cognitivo nella fragilità che presentino sistematicamente valore clinico e validità trasversalmente a diverse tipologie di pazienti o utenti fragili, affetti da disturbi neurologici e cognitivi o che presentino profili di rischio psicosociale. Nei capitoli empirici sono stati riportati tre studi che hanno riguardato, il primo, la valutazione del potenziale clinico di un nuovo test di screening cognitivo, il CASP, somministrabile anche a persone affette da afasia. Questo è stato comparato con strumenti classici come il MMSE e il MoCA. Nel secondo studio è stato sviluppato e testato un protocollo di valutazione della fragilità cognitiva e psicosociale nella malattia cronica, ideato per essere inclusivo anche nel suo utilizzo con pazienti migranti. Infine, il terzo studio, oltre a mirare – come i precedenti – all’arricchimento della cassetta di attrezzi del neurospicologo, si è focalizzato sull’integrazione del testing neuropsicologico classico con le potenzialità della neuroinformatica, avendo come obiettivo lo sviluppo di un approccio di screening multi-componenziale e di un sistema di machine learning per finalità diagnostiche nell’ambito dell’invecchiamento fisiologico e patologico, che non fosse una mera digitalizzazione di test neuropsicologici tradizionali. / This final synthesis of the PhD program revolves around the construct of fragility, currently defined as a dynamic dysfunctional condition of a multi-systemic nature, associated with an increased risk of negative consequences such as institutionalization, hospitalization and death. As illustrated through the studies included in this thesis, empirical observations and experience in the clinical setting have systematically highlighted the absence of cognitive screening tools in frailty that systematically present clinical value and validity across different types of patients or frail users, suffering from neurological and cognitive disorders or with psychosocial risk profiles. Three studies have been reported in the empirical chapters which concerned, the first, the evaluation of the clinical potential of a new cognitive screening test, CASP, which can also be administered to people with aphasia. This has been compared with classical instruments such as the MMSE and the MoCA. In the second study, a protocol for assessing cognitive and psychosocial frailty in chronic disease was developed and tested, designed to be inclusive also in its use with migrant patients. Finally, the third study, in addition to aiming - like the previous ones - at the enrichment of the neurospychologist's toolbox, focused on the integration of classical neuropsychological testing with the potential of neuroinformatics, aiming at the development of a screening approach. multi-component and a machine learning system for diagnostic purposes in the field of physiological and pathological aging, which was not a mere digitization of traditional neuropsychological tests.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition that carries high costs for families and the healthcare system, requiring extensive management both in terms of diagnosis and treatment. The implementation of AI-based systems in clinical practice represents a possible supportive solution that can help clinicians by providing more systematic meth- ods to monitor child behavior. The main advantage over more traditional observational approaches is to offer quantitative and refined analysis solutions that can be ecological at the same time. The relevance of AI in clinical applications can have a role both in the challenge of early detection and in designing intervention programs better tai- lored to the specific functioning of children with ASD. The research project presented in this dissertation focused on developing AI-based systems for fine-grained analysis of autism-related social behaviors and their validation in concrete clinical environments. Specifically, in Chapter 2, our first study is presented, which targets on implementing a computational phenotyping system to address the need for new early markers of the condition. Through fine-grained analytics of facial dynamics in videos, we identified a set of features that distinguished young (6-12 months) infants with ASD (18 ASD, 15 non-ASD) during unconstrained at-home interactions. In Chapters 3 and 4, we introduce EYE-C, a Behavior Imaging model for robust analysis of eye contact episodes in eco- logical therapist-child interactions. The system was validated in the clinical setting for personalized early intervention. First, we investigated the influence of extracted features in categorizing spectrum heterogeneity across a sample of 62 preschool (<6 years) chil- dren with ASD. Further, we tested our metrics as predictors of early intensive treatment outcomes in a sub-sample of 18 subjects with ASD. The project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of effective computational systems that are robust to the high variability of unstructured interactions, with emphasis on the applicative value in real-world scenar- ios. Even though based on limited sample sizes, the work presented may offer interesting insights into the perspective of integrating AI into clinical practice. The research project was funded by an FBK scholarship and developed in a double in- ternship at ODFLab (University of Trento) and the FBK Data Science for Health (DSH) research unit.

People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties in dealing with social interaction (DSM V, 2013). From long time, it has been reported deficit in recognizing gaze, face and intentions of others. Besides that, in the last decade numerous finds have showed an impairment in coding the human body movements. During my PhD I have explored the ability in recognizing the emotional valence of human movements in people with ASD and with typical development. In order to understand developmental changes, I have initially compared this ability between children and adults. In order to understand the role of intelligence, I have included people with high and low functioning ASD, either in children and adults samples. In the first study, we compared TD children and children with ASD with different level of functioning to investigate i) whether the difficulties in ASD population were associated to emotion comprehension or related to a more basic visual processing of biological motion, and ii) to explore whether this ability improves according to the age and to the non-verbal IQ. To this purposes, we presented point-light (PLDs) and full-light (FLDs) version of human movements with three different emotional valence (Happy, Fearful, Neutral). Our main findings showed that: -TD children were more accurate in recognizing the emotional content of body movements when the shape of the body was visible (i.e. FLDs), compared to the view of pure motion information (i.e. PLDs), but there were no differences in RT across display conditions. This result suggests that school-aged children are able to correctly identify the emotional valence of dynamic bodily expression, also when the form information is minimized by presenting PLDs. -According to the emotional content, we found that the valence had an effect on the performance of TD children. In particular, TD children recognized happy bodily expressions with lower accuracy than fearful and neutral movements. Besides, fearful movements were identified more rapidly. We hypothesized that, from an evolutionary point of view, it is more important to recognize fearful signals when they are far from us. Body movements are particularly relevant to convey other people’s state and intentions from a distance, hence bodies are preferential channels to convey fearful signals. -Comparing typical and atypical children, we found that TD were more accurate and more rapid than children with ASD in recognizing the emotional valence of body movements. Moreover, children with HF ASD outperformed children with LF ASD and their performance was significantly predicted from age and nonverbal IQ. This results suggest that the nonverbal abilities have a role in body movement comprehension, probably underpinning the development of compensatory mechanisms which improve with age. -Compared to TD children, children with ASD were impaired not only in understanding the emotional expressions, but also in recognizing the neutral actions. Irrespectively to their IQ level, children with ASD did not benefit from the richness of visual information, and their ability to recognize BM did not change according to the emotional valence. This finding suggests that the difficulty encountered by individuals with ASD in social interaction could be more generally related to biological motion elaboration, rather than being specific for the emotions comprehension. Hence, the lack in emotion recognition in ASD seems to be attributable to a deficit in elaborating motion cues rather than emotional information. To interpret the body movements, children with ASD may adopt compensatory mechanisms, which acquisition seems to be mediated by the nonverbal IQ and improving with age. If this was the case, we should expect an improvement in the ability of recognizing the BM in adults with ASD, with respect to children with ASD, and this improvement should have been correlated with the non-verbal IQ level. To explore this hypothesis, we run a second experiment, were we asked to a group of TD adults, a group of adults with high functioning Autism matched for age and non-verbal IQ, and a group of adults with low functioning Autism matched for age, to performed the same BM recognition task that children did in our first experiment. Results with adults confirmed what we found in children: the emotional valence and the richness of visual information did not modulate the Accuracy and the velocity in recognizing the BM stimuli in ASD, suggesting that the whole body movement is elaborated differently in ASD than in TD adults and that the impairment in ASD is more related to the processing of body movement, rather than being specific for the emotion comprehension. In a third study, we explored the developmental changes in the ability of recognizing the emotional meaning of human whole-body movements from childhood to adulthood. To this aim, we compared the performance between children and adults in each group of Functioning. Results showed that TD adults were more accurate and faster than TD children; FLDs were recognized with higher accuracy and quicker than PLDs; and fearful and neutral movements were recognized significantly better than happy ones. In participants with ASD, adults were significantly more accurate than children, but not faster. Also, we did not find any difference between displays or emotional categories. This results suggest that the understanding of body movements in individuals with ASD improve with age but the mechanism underpinning this ability works differently. In a fourth experiment we investigate whether the impairment in understanding social relevant signals in individuals with high functioning autism (HF ASD) was restricted to body movements or widespread to other social cues, such as facial expressions. Also, we investigated the role of movement in perceiving bodily expressions. To this aim, we explored whether there was a difference in recognizing the body expressions represented by dynamic or static stimuli. Finally, we investigated whether the vision of the body form, compared to the sight of pure motion information, could influence the identification of the emotional content of body movements. We did not found any group differences in accuracy, but there was a group difference in RTs specific for dynamic stimuli (TD were significantly faster than ASD in recognizing PLDs, and marginally in FLDs). These results suggest that HF ASD adopt compensatory mechanism to understand the meaning of facial and bodily expression that allow them to correctly recognize the emotional valence conveyed by face and body movements. However, this mechanism has a cost in terms of rapidity. In particular, ASD seems to need more time to identify dynamic body stimuli but not images of body expressions, suggesting a deficit in processing the actual body motion. In particular, the comprehension of happy body movements result difficult and time consuming. Indeed, happiness was better recognized from facial expressions and was harder to be identified when expressed by body movements. In the fifth experiment we used TMS-adaptation paradigm to explore the existence of a neural system specialized for the elaboration of emotional body movements. We first behaviourally investigated the existence of an adaptation for emotional PLDs. TD adult participant were adapted with point-light video clips depicting fearful, happy or neutral actions and then asked to recognize point-light with same/different emotional content. Results showed an adaptation after-effect only for incongruent stimuli, suggesting the existence of a neural mechanism for perceiving the body emotion specifically. Subsequently, in a TMS experiment we explore the possible brain location of this mechanism. The sites we stimulated are nodes of the neural network responsible for the human motion understanding, and they are reported to be abnormally activated in ASD. We found a reversed after-effect following TMS over aIPS, while the adaptation was still present after stimulation over pSTS and the control site. These results demonstrate that aIPS contains neurons that specifically code for the emotional body expressions, suggesting that the difficulties encountered by individuals with ASD in understanding the emotional signal during social interaction might rely to deficit in this mirror area.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social communication and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These key characteristics of autism each create a number of difficulties for individuals with autism and also their parents. It is well established that parenting a child with ASD is stressful, impacting on mental health and overall quality of life (Baker-Ericzn, Brookman-Frazee, & Stahmer, 2005; Davis & Carter, 2008; Eisenhower, Baker, & Blacher, 2005; McStay, Dissanayake, Scheeren, Koot, & Begeer, 2013). However, there are some doubts or gaps in the literature of parenting children with ASD which we addressed in this thesis. Two main goals of this thesis were: a) examining well-being of parents of children with ASD, b) focusing on the parents’ responses to cries of infants with ASD and typical development, considering two types of responses: emotional and physiological. Therefore, this thesis is composed of two parts. The first part in which we aimed to examine well-being of parents of children with ASD has been divided into two sections. The first one dealt with similarities and differences between mothers and fathers in terms of parenting stress, parental mental health and attitude (Chapter 2). Results indicated that mothers of children with ASD reported higher level of depression than fathers and considerable percentages of both mothers and fathers had scores above the clinical cut-points of stress showing that they experience clinically significant levels of parenting stress. Moreover, in terms of parental attitude, mothers engaged with their children in more social exchange than fathers do. 8 The final chapter in Part 1 (Chapter 3) evaluated whether maternal well-being and sense of competence are affected by the outcomes of children receiving intervention. The results suggested that child and family factors, including mothers’ age, were linked to maternal well-being. However treatment-related changes in children’s communication, and parenting satisfaction contributed to well-being above and beyond other factors. A mediation analysis indicated that mothers whose children make treatment gains in communication skills experience a reduction in their level of negative well-being as a consequence of increased parental sense of competence with regards to parenting satisfaction. The second part of the thesis aimed to evaluate emotional and physiological responses of parents of children with ASD during infant crying. This part begins by laying out the theoretical dimensions of the research, and then proceeds as follows: a) the first experiment was concerned with the preparation and validation the cry episodes as unpleasant acoustic stimuli (Chapter 4); b) the second one examined emotional and physiological responses of non-parents adults while listening of infant crying (Chapter 5); c) the last experiment focused on parents of children with ASD and parents of typically developing children, examining their emotional and physiological responses during the listening of crying of children with ASD and of typically developing (TD) children (Chapter 6). Findings from Chapter 4 indicated that all cry episodes, regardless of the types (e.g., cries of children with ASD or cries of typically developing children) were perceived as unpleasant by non-parents adults. The following study in Chapter 5 showed that cries of children with ASD (ASD cry) were reported more stressed, aroused and less pleasant compare to cries of typically developing children (TD cry) by non-parents adults; however, similar pattern was not seen in the physiological responses of listeners. Results 9 from the final experiment (Chapter 6) showed that parents of children with ASD and parents of TD children were not differentiated in their self-reports of stress, arousal and valence levels for ASD cry and TD cry. However, their physiological responses showed that parents of children with ASD have higher heart rate than parents of TD children during ASD cry and TD cry. Moreover, the analysis on the comparisons between ASD cry and TD cry suggested both parents perceived ASD cry more stressful, aroused and less pleasant, but physiological responses of parents of children with ASD did not show the differences between ASD cry and TD cry. The overall structure of the thesis takes the form of seven chapters, including a general introduction (Chapter 1). The importance of those findings for future theoretical and clinical work is considered in detail in the end of related chapters and in the general discussion chapter (Chapter 7).

[pt] A presente pesquisa aborda a questão da violência a partir da teoria psicanalítica, analisando sua relação com a constituição subjetiva e os processos de simbolização. Primeiramente procuramos investigar a noção de violência em psicanálise, partindo da relação que Freud estabelece entre violência, poder e domínio. A partir desse percurso na obra freudiana chegamos a duas teorias que tomam a violência como conceito central em suas obras: Jean Bergeret e Piera Aulagnier, e a partir da teoria de Aulagnier podemos entender a constituição da subjetividade como um processo que se desenvolve em uma relação intersubjetiva, estando subjacente a esse processo a imposição de um discurso que tem a marca de uma exterioridade violenta, porém estruturante. Essa violência, no entanto, pode apresentar-se pelo excesso, marcadamente desestruturante. Essa face excessiva da violência é tema central do segundo capítulo, onde procuramos pensar nos efeitos de uma relação primária alienante, onde a violência do objeto paralisa o sujeito numa passividade traumática. No terceiro capítulo nossa atenção se concentra na clínica, e defendemos nossa hipótese de que algumas manifestações de sofrimento que presenciamos na clínica com crianças como sintomas ligados ao vazio (apatia, dificuldades de aprendizagem), assim como pelo sofrimento corporal se relacionam com um excesso de violência no contexto das primeiras relações. / [en] The present research approaches the issue of violence based on psychoanalytic theory, analyzing its relation to the subjective constitution and the processes of symbolization. First, we seek to investigate the notion of violence in psychoanalysis, starting from Freud s relationship between violence, power and domination. From this path in the Freudian work we come to two authors that take violence as central concept in its works: Jean Bergeret and Piera Aulagnier. From Aulagnier s theory we understand the constitution of subjectivity as a process which develops in to an intersubjective relationship, underlining this process is the imposition of a speach that has the mark of a violent but structuring exteriority. This violence, however, may appear as a destructive excess that, instead of working in favor of the processes of symbolization, paralyzes the subject in a traumatic passivity. This excessive violence is the central theme of the second chapter, where we approach the effects of a primary alienating relationship. In the third chapter our attention is focused on the clinic, and we defend our hypothesis that some manifestations of suffering, which we witness in the clinic with children as symptoms related to emptiness (apathy, learning difficulties) as well as to the suffering of the body, are related to an excess of violence in the context of early relationships.

In the last two decades several studies have been trying to explore a possible role for gut microbiota in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), supported by the high incidence of gastrointestinal disorders among ASD children and by the now well recognized existence of the brain-gut-microbiota axis (the complex system of bidirectional interactions between central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract and microorganisms inhabiting the gut). Nevertheless, results about alterations in gut microbiota composition and/or activity in ASD are to date strongly contrasting. A possible explanation could be that these studies tend to treat ASD as a unique pathology, whereas it includes different cognitive-behavioural phenotypes. Moreover, they do not consider factors which are important for children’s gut flora development, such as type of delivery, nutritional history (e.g. formula milk during lactation) and medical history (e.g. antibiotics intake) as well as factors that may affect the present composition of microbiota, such as the current diet (e.g. the strong food selectivity that often occurs in ASD children) and the presence of gastrointestinal disorders. In this study, I developed an interview to parents to assess whether there are differences related to the above mentioned aspects between ASD children and typically developing children and among ASD themselves, considering differences in cognitive level and severity of autistic traits. I also explored the use of special diets such as gluten-, lactose and casein free diets, the reasons for their adoption and the possible benefits for the child. Moreover, I decided to include in this interview also a section dedicated to parental difficulties in managing mealtime in order to collect information useful to plan future interventions. I found differences between ASD- and typical children in the incidence of gastrointestinal disorders and food selectivity. Especially, some children initially eat everything and then switch to a more and more restricted diet. This could be considered an early symptom of the pathology. I also found an association between gastrointestinal disorders and severity of autistic traits. Furthermore, I collected faecal samples from ASD families (two parents, an ASD child and a typically developing sibling) and analysed them with metaproteomics and bioinformatics techniques in order to assess microbiota activity and evaluate it in light of ASD phenotype, nutritional habits, gastrointestinal disorders and genetic proximity. Demonstrating the existence of a different microbiota composition in ASD or at least in a subgroup could allow to identify a biomarker of a possible development of ASD and to design preventive interventions, even through probiotics intake. Moreover, it could help to better understand the molecular mechanism underlying this pathology.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:39:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Lourenco Maeda.pdf: 503002 bytes, checksum: 7aa342814a5c45db50d1356bb3f56ffc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-30 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study had as general goal investigate the perception of partner s support and the impact of the pain in the relationship as a couple of patients suffering of chronic lower back pain, of both gender, in ambulatory treatment in a big public hospital of São Paulo city. The study was made with 50 patients, where 25 were men and 25 were women, aged 35 to 65 years. The main used instruments were: social-demographic questionnaire, visual analogical scale of pain intensity, medical Outcomes study 36- item short form-health survey and semi directed interviews. The results demonstrated that all the participants of the study had the quality of their lives harmed, and that women showed intensity pain levels considered severe, whereas men obtained intensity pain levels considered moderate. 70% percent of the sample mentioned a negative impact on their sexual relations, due to their functional limitation and intensity of the pain, while the rest mentioned a marital adjustment when facing the symptoms of the pain. 86% of the sample mentioned perceiving their partners as supportive, being the helpful behavior considered the main way of support. The analysis of the results showed that the participants that had received partner s support, obtained better levels in the control of Vitality and Mental Health, when compared to the ones that had had no support. The conclusion of the results indicated that the chronic lower back pain causes a negative impact in the couple s relationship and that the partners support can work as a protection factor for depressive and anxiety symptoms, being this an important aspect to be considered in the health process of individual with chronic pain and in the planning of therapeutic procedures / Este estudo teve como objetivo geral investigar a percepção de apoio conjugal e o impacto da dor no relacionamento de casal de pacientes portadores de dor lombar crônica, de ambos os gêneros, em tratamento ambulatorial em um hospital de grande porte da rede pública da cidade de São Paulo. O trabalho foi realizado com 50 pacientes, sendo 25 homens e 25 mulheres, com faixa etária entre 35 e 65 anos. Os principais instrumentos utilizados foram: Questionário Sócio-demográfico, Escala VAS de intensidade da dor, Questionário de Qualidade de Vida SF 36 e Entrevista Semi-dirigida. Os resultados demonstraram que todos os participantes do estudo obtiveram qualidade de vida prejudicada, sendo que as mulheres apresentaram intensidade de dor considerada severa, enquanto os homens obtiveram intensidade de dor moderada. 70% da amostra relataram impacto negativo no relacionamento sexual, em decorrência da limitação funcional e gravidade da dor, enquanto que o restante referiu um reajustamento conjugal frente aos sintomas da dor. 86% da amostra relataram que percebem seus cônjuges como apoiadores, sendo que o comportamento solícito foi considerado o principal meio de apoio. A análise dos resultados demonstrou que os participantes que receberam apoio do cônjuge, obtiveram melhores índices nos domínios Vitalidade e Saúde Mental, quando comparados com aqueles que não receberam apoio. A conclusão dos resultados indicou que a dor lombar crônica causa impacto negativo no relacionamento de casal e o apoio conjugal pode funcionar como fator de proteção para sintomas depressivos e de ansiedade, sendo este um aspecto importante a ser considerado no processo da saúde dos indivíduos com dor crônica e no planejamento de condutas terapêuticas

Le interazioni sociali richiedono che un agente sia in grado di selezionare ed elaborare informazioni ambientali rilevanti, che sia situato in un contesto complesso, e che interagisca con altri agenti, rispettando le opportunità e i vincoli di contesto. Riconoscere noi stessi e gli altri come agenti intenzionali è un passaggio cruciale per il processo generale di comprensione sociale e, in particolare, per la nostra capacità di percepire le intenzioni e gli scopi altrui. Tali competenze sociali sostengono il nostro sviluppo fisico, cognitivo e affettivo promuovendo interazioni adattive. Di conseguenza, una disfunzione di tali competenze può compromettere gravemente l’autonomia e la qualità di vita. Si ritiene che un sistema distribuito medi la percezione di agentività e degli stati mentali altrui, ma la struttura interna dei processi che costituiscono la nostra capacità di comprendere i nostri simili e di interagire adeguatamente è tuttora per buona parte sconosciuta. Il progetto ha come obiettivo indagare le fasi iniziali di tali processi e, in particolare, l’elaborazione precoce di cues sociali (social affordances) per la detezione di agentività e opportunità d’interazione in contesti sociali. È strutturato in tre studi principali: il primo mira a esplorare i correlati elettrofisiologici (ERPs e dati di source localization) dell’elaborazione di informazioni visive per la detezione di agentività in interazione; il secondo mira a indagare possibili marcatori (ERPs) del profilo delle competenze di comprensione sociale associate alla sindrome di Williams; il terzo ha testato, tramite TMS, il ruolo causale di rTPJ nel mediare l’elaborazione pre-riflessiva di agentività e intenzionalità nel comportamento osservato. / Social interactions require an agent to be able to select and process relevant environmental information, to be situated in a complex context and to interact with other agents, according to the opportunities and boundaries of that context. Sensing ourselves and detecting others as intentional agents is a crucial step for the overall social understanding process and, in particular, for our ability to perceive others’ intentions and goals. Those social skills foster our physical, cognitive and affective development by promoting adaptive interactions. Consequently, a dysfunction of such skills can seriously affect the autonomy and quality of life. A distributed system is thought to subserve the perception of agency and others’ mental states, but the internal structure of processes that constitute our ability to understand our similars and interact adequately is still largely unknown. This project aimed at investigating early stages of those processes and, in particular, the initial elaboration of social cues (social affordances) for the detection of agentivity and opportunities for interaction in social situations. It is structured in three main empirical studies: the first one aimed at looking electrophysiological correlates (ERPs and source localization data) of visual information processing for the detection of agency in interactions; the second one aimed at looking for possible markers (ERPs) of the uneven profile of basic WS social understanding; the third one tested the causal role of rTPJ in mediating pre-reflective processing of agency and intentionality from observed behaviour by means of TMS.

Il presente progetto di ricerca si occupa degli interventi di gruppo per figli di genitori separati, con la finalità di operare una riflessione di stampo metodologico sui dispositivi che sono stati analizzati e studiati in letteratura, per poi approfondire alcuni aspetti dell’intervento Gruppi di Parola, attivo in Italia. L’articolazione in tre studi, di carattere qualitativo, ha permesso di avvicinare l’oggetto di ricerca secondo prospettive e metodologie differenti. Il primo studio coincide con una rassegna sistematica narrativa, condotta al fine di sistematizzare la letteratura di livello internazionale relativa agli interventi di gruppo per figli di genitori separati che sono stati analizzati attraverso un impianto di ricerca rigoroso. Gli altri studi approfondiscono rispettivamente due aspetti del dispositivo Gruppi di Parola: gli elementi teorico-pratici che lo fondano attraverso una prospettiva etnografica focalizzata (secondo studio) e le dinamiche interattive messe in movimento durante una specifica fase rituale del processo (l’accoglienza) per mezzo di una metodologia osservativa complessa (terzo studio). / The present research project deals with group interventions for children having separated parents. Its aim is a methodological reflection about the programs analyzed and studied in the literature in order to later deepen some aspects of the Italian intervention Gruppi di Parola. The organization in three qualitative studies has allowed the researcher to approach the research object according to different perspectives and methodologies. The first study corresponds to a Systematic Narrative Review, carried out in order to systematize the international literature about the group interventions for children having separated parents which have been analyzed through a rigorous research design. The other studies respectively deepen two aspects of the intervention Gruppi di Parola: the theoretical and practical underpinnings through a focused ethnographic perspective (second study) and the interactive dynamics activated during a specific ritual phase of the process (welcoming) by means of a complex observational methodology (third study).