A phenomenological study was conducted to understand the lived experience of parents parenting a child with autism in a rural area. The philosophy of hermeneutic phenomenology was used to guide this inquiry. Interviews of 26 families served as primary data. Thematic statements were isolated using van Manen’s (1990) selective highlighting approach. Making the invisible, visible emerged as the essence of the parents’ experience. Parents shared that although autism is an invisible disability, they in fact made it visible in their constant battles to ensure their child received the best quality of life. Five themes represented this essence: using autism to enable, lifelong advocating, centering autism within the family, the ups and downs of living rurally, and a renewed sense of parenting. Findings from this study may be used to guide program development that is concerned with improving the quality of life families of children with autism.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate a self-instructional package (Fazzio & Martin, 2007) to train parents of children with autism to conduct discrete-trials teaching (DTT). In Study 1, I investigated the effectiveness of a self-instructional manual and a self-instructional video for teaching five parents of children with autism to correctly apply DTT to teach three tasks to a confederate who role-played a child with autism. For three of the parents I also evaluated their ability to apply DTT to their children with autism. Following an average of 4.76 hours of training, the package produced a strong effect with three parents and a weak effect with two parents. In Study 2, I investigated the effectiveness of the self-instructional manual combined with role-playing and feedback, plus the self-instructional video, for teaching an additional five parents of children with autism to apply DTT to a confederate and to their children. Following an average of 4.68 hours of training, all five parents demonstrated large, clinically significant gains in their performance of DTT, both with a confederate as well as with their own child, with a minimal investment of one-on-one instructor time. The treatment procedures in both experiments were very well received by the parent participants. These results suggest that the training package in Experiment 2 has considerable potential as an effective, efficient and acceptable method of training parents of children with autism to apply DTT.

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) is an empirically validated assessment tool for assessing the learning ability of persons with intellectual disabilities and children with autism. During the administration of an ABLA, an examiner attempts to teach an examinee to perform six individual tasks, called levels, using standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures until either a pass or fail criterion is met on each task. The majority of studies investigating the ABLA have been conducted with adults with intellectual disabilities. Research has demonstrated that the six levels of the ABLA are hierarchical in terms of difficulty, and that pass/fail performance on the levels is highly predictive of the ease or difficulty with which examinees will learn a variety of training tasks (Vause, Yu, & Martin, 2007). The present study examined the predictive validity of the ABLA with 9 children with autism, assessed at ABLA levels 2 and 3. A parent of each child was asked to predict the child’s pass-fail learning performance on 20 criterion tasks. In addition, according to the child’s ABLA performance, I predicted that each child would pass the criterion tasks that corresponded to his/her previously passed ABLA levels, and would fail the criterion tasks that were corresponded to his/her previously failed ABLA levels. I then attempted to individually teach each criterion task to each child, using standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures, until each child met either the pass criterion or the fail criterion of the ABLA. Ninety-two percent of the predictions based on the children’s ABLA performance were confirmed, and the ABLA was significantly more accurate than the parents for predicting the children’s performance on the criterion tasks.

Domain specific theories of development postulate that mental state reasoning (i.e., theory of mind; ToM) develops independently of general problem solving ability. In contrast, domain general theories suggest that the abilities develop concurrently. To assess the relation between mental state reasoning and problem solving, children with autism, developmental delay, and typical development were administered 2 ToM tasks, and 3 problem solving tasks that did not require mental state reasoning. Typically developing children performed better than both groups on the problem solving tasks, each of which required the use of embedded rules. For all groups, positive within-group correlations emerged between the tasks that required mental state reasoning and the general problem solving tasks, suggesting that a common mechanism underlies both abilities, and challenging the notion of domain specificity. The current findings are discussed in the context of a domain general versus domain specific account of ToM acquisition in typical and atypical populations.

Few research studies have been conducted to investigate the use of a Social Story as sole intervention in changing inappropriate behaviors in children with autism. Most of the studies that used Social Stories as an intervention showed limitations like improper story construction (Appendix G), unsatisfactory design (AB design), and most lacked generalization and maintenance as described in the literature review. This study assessed the utility of a properly constructed Social Story (Appendix G) as the sole intervention to change a dangerous and socially unacceptable way of eating in an eight year old girl with autism. Because of her unusual and sometimes aversive way of eating, often typical of children with ASD, morning tea and lunch times at the mainstream school she attended posed safety as well as social issues. The decision was made to use a changing conditions design (ABC).

The purpose of this autoethnography is to recount a one-year personal and professional journey of a parent/teacher/researcher as she designs and implements a teacher-led imaginative drama program for children, ages 5 – 10, with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The program uses strategies (familiar routines, picture boards, etc.) that assist children with ASD to learn new skills. Parents in the final ten-week session of the program are surveyed regarding their perceptions; 19 of the 22 students in the program participated in the 10-week study and 15 parents were present on the day the surveys were distributed and collected and completed. The researcher was specifically looking for what aspects of the program parents found valuable and what aspects needed improvement. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed that parents were satisfied with the program and would recommend it to families who have children on the autism spectrum. Key findings indicate that parents specifically appreciated the classroom structure and the teacher’s knowledge of ASD. Recommendations for future improvements to the program are also discussed. The researcher discusses why a program like this is so important for children on the autism spectrum: aiding in the ability to perspective take and make friends.

This study investigated the impact of perinatal complications on the developing child and the relationship of those complications to the development of autism in an individual. The biological mothers of autistic children (N = 183) completed the Maternal Perinatal Scale, a maternal selfreport which surveys complications of pregnancy and medical conditions of the mother. Archival data on normals (N = 209), obtained during previous perinatal investigations, was utilized as a control group.Previous research in this area has been limited, with no definitive conclusions. All previous investigators have declined to state that events identified in previous research were definitely related to the development of autism.An overall multivariate test was performed to determine if significant differences existed between the autistic and normal subjects. Following this exploration of the data, previously identified complications were entered into a stepwise discriminant analysis in the order of theirtheoretical importance to determine the extent of their contribution to autism. Following this analysis, medical conditions of the mothers (items 27-47 as included on the MPS) were entered into the stepwise analysis to determine their contribution, if any, to autism in the sample.The results of this analysis revealed that the two groups differed significantly on three of the ten factors of the MPS. The overall multivariate test was highly significant and revealed that the groups differed on Factor 2 (Gestational Age), Factor 4 (Maternal Morphology), and Factor 8 (Intrauterine Stress). Moreover, five of the six previously identified items were found to be significant. These were: prescriptions raken during pregnancy, length of labor, viral infection,, abnormal presentation at delivery, and low birthweight. Three of the maternal medical conditions examined were also highly significant and contributed to separation between groups. These were: urinary infection, high temperatures, and depression. These were items which have not been identified in previous investigations.Based on discriminant analysis of the 10 factors of the MPS, 65% of the cases were correctly grouped. The MPS would be a useful clinical tool in identification of those children who are at risk for development of autism. / Department of Educational Psychology

Den här systematiska litteraturstudien syftar till att behandla inkludering av autistiska elever i skolan. Studien avhandlar och sammanställer resultat från sju olika internationella forskare och appliceras sedan på den svenska skolan. Syftet är att ge svar på forskningsfrågorna 1)Hur kan man i skolan inkludera barn som har diagnos inom det autistiska spektrat? 2) Kan samarbete med hemmet öka dessa barns inkludering? I studien kan man tydligt urskilja att samarbete mellan lärare och annan personal är essentiellt, samt att man behöver ha lärare som är utbildade inom det autistiska spektrat. Dessutom är det viktigt att ha resurser till rätt utrustning och att det finns en tydlig strategi för undervisningen. Slutligen är det av vikt att familjen är engagerad och att de ger stöd. Resultatet diskuteras sedan i diskussionskapitlet och slutsatser dras.

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) is an empirically validated assessment tool for assessing the learning ability of persons with intellectual disabilities and children with autism. During the administration of an ABLA, an examiner attempts to teach an examinee to perform six individual tasks, called levels, using standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures until either a pass or fail criterion is met on each task. The majority of studies investigating the ABLA have been conducted with adults with intellectual disabilities. Research has demonstrated that the six levels of the ABLA are hierarchical in terms of difficulty, and that pass/fail performance on the levels is highly predictive of the ease or difficulty with which examinees will learn a variety of training tasks (Vause, Yu, & Martin, 2007). The present study examined the predictive validity of the ABLA with 9 children with autism, assessed at ABLA levels 2 and 3. A parent of each child was asked to predict the child’s pass-fail learning performance on 20 criterion tasks. In addition, according to the child’s ABLA performance, I predicted that each child would pass the criterion tasks that corresponded to his/her previously passed ABLA levels, and would fail the criterion tasks that were corresponded to his/her previously failed ABLA levels. I then attempted to individually teach each criterion task to each child, using standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures, until each child met either the pass criterion or the fail criterion of the ABLA. Ninety-two percent of the predictions based on the children’s ABLA performance were confirmed, and the ABLA was significantly more accurate than the parents for predicting the children’s performance on the criterion tasks.

Children with sensorial and cognitive disabilities have been largely ignored under the ‘universal’ design philosophy. This is clearly an oversight on the part of the design community as autism, present designers with the opportunity to take on new environmental design challenges. As research demonstrates, children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are extremely disadvantaged when it comes to playing both with others and alone. As a result, children with autism have underdeveloped socializing skills and can suffer from low self-esteem, self-worth and loneliness. This practicum supposes that safe, stimulating and engaging play spaces for autistic children could not only improve their development in these areas, but enrich their lives. Furthermore, it provides background into autism, its affect on the human senses and play, supplies results of an observational study and provides an example of a play space designed to increase social interaction and accommodate sensorial needs in order to decrease isolation.