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 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.

A functional analysis (FA) is the most commonly used assessment methodology for identifying maintaining variables influencing problem behavior. However, if an FA does not produce clear differentiation, researchers and practitioners often then modify procedures to include additional individualized variables. The interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) provides a marked departure from FA methodology and aims to include individualized factors at the initiation of the assessment in order to more rapidly produce differentiation and clear results. We sought to further evaluate and compare the outcomes of two different functional analysis methods: the single-contingency functional analysis (FA) and the interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) to determine the function of problem behavior and evaluate the subsequent function-based treatment determined from the functional analysis results with two children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both participants engaged in problem behavior maintained by single-contingencies of reinforcement identified within the single-contingency FA and emphasized by the effectiveness of each single-contingency function-based treatment.

Since fetal alcohol syndrome was first reported, studies have demonstrated a range of perinatal/developmental abnormalities that fall under the umbrella term fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Of these, low birth weight in exposed children is among the most commonly observed and widely accepted. However, in the past, assertion of an association between prenatal alcohol exposure and preterm birth was controversial. Methodological difficulties may have contributed to failure to consistently detect such a relationship. However, new evidence suggests that pregnancy drinking may be a major contributor to extreme, but not mild prematurity. Extreme prematurity is a major cause of severe perinatal morbidity and mortality. If recent findings are confirmed, it suggests that extreme prematurity might be reduced by eliminating prenatal alcohol exposure.

Thesis advisor: Kristen Bottema-Beutel / Many autistic students enrolled in colleges/universities, who are academically qualified for admission, experience difficulties adjusting to their college life. Disability support offices (DSOs) of higher education institutions (HEIs) assume the responsibility of providing supports to autistic students, but many DSOs lack the resources to cater to the varied needs of these students. To gain a nuanced understanding, this set of three studies explores contextual factors around DSOs that may influence autistic students’ experiences with DSOs and their perspectives about available DSO support. In Study 1, DSO websites of 12 US HEIs were examined using multimodal discourse analysis, and the study revealed that DSO websites share genre features with advertisements. DSO websites advertised the services they provide in efforts to ‘brand’ their institution. This commodification of DSO supports raises concerns because accommodations given to students with disabilities should be understood as their legal rights rather than sellable products. In Study 2, a nationwide sample of 153 DSO staff members completed a battery of online surveys to determine significant predictors of their attitudes and knowledge about autism. The quality of previous contact was shown to be associated with social distance, openness, and knowledge about autism, and several institutional variables significantly predicted staff members’ attitudes and knowledge about autism. Lastly, in Study 3, 27 autistic undergraduate students were interviewed about their experiences with DSOs, and their responses were qualitatively analyzed using a generic inductive approach. Students reported on their general perceptions of DSOs, decisions about not receiving DSO supports, and their perception of ways that DSOs could support them better. Together, the findings of the three studies inform the work of DSOs in developing appropriate systems that support autistic students to successfully navigate college. Developing service provision systems that comprehensively address these issues reported by autistic students should be a collective institutional responsibility to increase autism awareness and acceptance on college campuses and make online and physical space accessible for autistic students. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity. Our analysis of functional networks perturbed in ASD suggests that both truncating and non-truncating de novo mutations contribute to autism. Moreover, we find that truncating mutations affecting the same exon lead to strikingly similar intellectual phenotypes in unrelated ASD probands and propose that exons, rather than genes, represent a unit of effective phenotypic impact for truncating mutations in autism. The phenotypic effects are likely mediated by nonsense-mediated decay of splicing isoforms and similar patterns may be observed in other genetic disorders. While multiple cell types and brain areas are affected, the impact of ASD mutations converge on a strongly interconnected system of neural structures that involve basal ganglia loops and the limbic system. We observe that distant projections constitute a disproportionately large fraction of the network composition, suggesting that the integration of diverse brain regions is a key property of the neural circuit. We demonstrate that individual de novo mutations impact several disparate components of the network and may further explain the phenotypic variability. Overall, our study presents a method that, to our knowledge, is the first unbiased approach using genetic variants to comprehensively discover and identify the neural circuitry affected in a psychiatric disorder.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of individualized social story interventions on the social communication skills of three children with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Using a multiple baseline across participants desing, three social stories were implemented and direct observations of the participants' identified target behaviors were collected three times per week during unstructured school activities (e.g, recess). Data revealed an increase in the social communication skills of two of the three participants when the treatment was implemented. In addition, maintenance of treatment effects was observed in two participants. These data support recommendations for using social stories to teach social skills to children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

Parenting is a stressful endeavor that can be even more difficult for parents of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has become increasingly prevalent over the past 15 years, which has baffled researchers and frustrated parents. Respite can be important to help alleviate stress for parents of individuals with ASD, and serve as a break for them from the demands of parenting. The present study utilized a mixed methods design to study the effect of respite on caregiver well-being. Using quantitative data, the study examined the effects of a respite cruise vacation organized by a travel group called Autism on the Seas on various indices of well-being among 20 parents of children with ASD. Parents provided survey responses prior to the cruise (pre-cruise measure) and three months after the cruise (post-cruise measure). Variables included caregiver stress, caregiver self-efficiency, caregiver social network and family quality of life. It was hypothesized that the Autism on the Seas respite vacation experience would be related to increased well-being among caregivers, specifically decreased caregiver reports of stress, increased caregiver reports of social network, increased caregiver reports of family quality of life, and increased caregiver report of self-efficacy. The quantitative study found significant associations among the well-being variables, however no statistical difference between the caregivers’ reports of well-being on pre and post cruise measures. The qualitative component of the study aimed to describe perceptions of respite, barriers to respite-utilization, and aspects of respite that caregivers of children with ASD described as most beneficial. Six couples and one single father participated in the qualitative component of the study. Interview transcriptions were all analyzed through open coding and then axial coding to find data trends and themes. It was hypothesized that respite would bring positive experiences to caregivers, allowing caregivers to take time to maintain their own well-being psychologically and physically. The qualitative study revealed the themes of the centrality of trusted caregivers to parent’s willingness to accept respite, limited social networks of parent with children with ASD, and both caregiver well-being and child well-being and severity of ASD as important to parents’ use of respite programs such that parents of children with more severe ASD reported more trouble accessing respite care. Together, the study points to the need for future studies to investigate a broad range of types of respite programs for individuals with ASD and their families.