As the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) continues to rise, families and educators are challenged with providing intensive, evidence-based practices in the least restrictive environment. Evidence exists for a variety of effective intervention approaches. Selection of appropriate interventions requires consideration of the individual needs of the child and family. An activity-based approach to early intervention combines strategies from a variety of evidence-based practices and allows for intensity of instruction through distributed opportunities for practice. Brief teaching interactions are elicited within the context of typical routines and activities throughout the day. Thus, intervention can be provided in inclusive classroom settings as well as at home, without disrupting the ongoing activities and routines. The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of collaborative planning for an activity-based approach to early intervention for children with ASD across school and home settings. Dependent measures included the combined rate of learning opportunities delivered by the teacher and parent across settings as well as the combined rate of the child's correct demonstrations for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goal. Teacher and parent perceptions of the value and effectiveness of collaborative planning for an activity-based approach to early intervention were also assessed using pre- and post-survey responses as well as information from a final interview. Participants were a preschool-aged boy with ASD, his mother, and his preschool teacher. A single subject, multiple-probe design was selected to analyze the effect of collaborative planning for an activity-based approach to intervention for a young child with ASD across school and home settings. The teacher and parent selected three matched routines that typically occur both at school and at home as the context for embedding activity-based learning opportunities to address a selected IEP goal. Results indicated that following collaborative planning meetings for each of the routines, there was both an increase in the collective learning opportunities delivered at school and at home, as well as a simultaneous increase in child outcomes for the targeted IEP objective in both settings. Responses from the teacher and parent pre- and post-surveys and final interviews provided social validation for the ease and practicality of collaborative planning for activity-based intervention. Both the teacher and parent felt confident in supporting the child's IEP goal within the context of typical daily routines. The teacher also expressed that the collaborative planning helped her to really focus on the child's individualized goal. Furthermore, both the teacher and the parent affirmed the intervention's potential for generalization. Collaborative planning to embed children's goals within the context of typical routines both at school and at home allowed for a collective increase in learning opportunities and related child performance on an individualized goal that may not have otherwise been possible. By including the parent as an active an equal decision maker in the educational planning process, intervention at school was enhanced and carried over into the home. The use of collaborative planning for activity-based intervention with both the teacher and the parent strengthened the power of instruction for an IEP goal by providing multiple and varied learning opportunities throughout the day and across settings, ultimately increasing child outcomes.

The effect of grief on children with autism is an under-researched area of study. Until recently, it was often assumed that individuals with autism did not have the capacity to grieve. Because of deficits in social skills, interpersonal relationships, and language and communication skills, these individuals are especially vulnerable as they navigate the challenging social and emotional aspects associated with bereavement and grief. Bibliotherapy is offered as supportive strategy for bereaved children, providing them with structure and guidance through a time of uncertainty and change. This study is based on two focus groups, one with teachers of children with autism (n = 8) and one with parents of children with autism (n = 5). Researchers focused on the purpose of supporting children in grades K–3 through the death of a loved one or pet. Focus group participants discussed their perceptions of how this special population of children grieves and how to support them following a significant loss, such as the death of a loved one or beloved pet. After reviewing selected resources (supportive stories), participants offered their impressions regarding the appropriateness and potential effectiveness of the resources. Focus groups were audiotaped and later transcribed. Transcriptions were carefully reviewed and discussed by two individuals to identify and summarize themes. After summarizing the information from the transcriptions and organizing the information, one individual served as a quality check, to verify the accuracy of the findings. Additionally, a member check was offered to participants to assure accuracy in the typed transcripts (for intended meaning and content). The following information and recommendations are presented based on the input from the focus group participants. Three overarching themes were identified in this study, as well as some specific cautions and warnings. Participants emphasized the importance of individualization in the selection of stories for children with autism. Readers should be aware of the child’s specific needs and circumstances when they are selecting a story. The stories should be developmentally appropriate and should help support the child through the specific type of death or loss that has occurred. Participants also discussed the importance of selecting books that are concrete, simple, and structured. As children with autism often have difficulty with abstract concepts, the topic of death and loss should be approached in a concrete and literal way. Books that present information in this manner will best help the child to understand their experience. Practitioners who use bibliotherapy to support children with autism through a death or loss should be sensitive to family beliefs. Open communication should be used with the child’s family in order to select a book that best fits that child’s needs. Children with autism will also benefit from stories that help to normalize their experience and that help them to understand the emotions that they or their family and friends may experience. Future research is recommended to further explore the use of supportive stories in aiding a child with autism through the grief and loss process. It is important to examine how children with autism respond to the selected stories and to understand how effective the stories are in their coping and understanding process.

No description available.

Thesis (M Sport Sc (Sport Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The effect of an adapted physical activity (APA) program on the motor performance of children with autism was studied. A multiple single case studies approach was implemented. Three children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), aged between three and eight years old, were chosen for the study. A baseline, pre- and post-test assessment evaluated the effect of a 20-week intervention program. Motor abilities were tested using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, and selected items from the Brockport Physical Fitness Test were used to assess physical fitness. The intervention was administered three times per week and focused on the individual motor impairments of each child. The program termed “Mighty Muscles” was continuously developed according to the child‟s specific goals and developments. Additionally, social play and overall behaviour assessments were also done. The Sherrill-University of Virginia Adapted Physical Education Social Play Behaviour Inventory assessed social play and a behavioural profile developed by the researcher assessed daily living activities and behaviours associated with autism. Due to the nature of autism, the results of each child were analysed, graphed and discussed individually. For the three children, the APA program had a positive effect in improving the motor abilities, including improvements in ball skills, manual dexterity and balance. The APA program also improved the physical fitness of the three subjects including aerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance and flexibility. Self-stimulatory behaviours and inappropriate behaviours (fidgeting, self-injury) decreased in all three subjects while rates of appropriate physical activity during free time increased, demonstrating the positive contribution the APA program had on behaviours associated with autism. Social play became more spontaneous and interactive for case study two and three. From this study, it is concluded that an adapted physical activity program is an essential addition in the holistic treatment of autism. This study provides further research and insight into the components of a successful APA program. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: „n Ondersoek is gedoen om die effek van „n Aangepaste Bewegingsprogram op die motoriese vermoë van drie kinders wat met outisme ge-identifiseer is, na te gaan. Die ouderdomme van die deelnemers wissel tussen drie en agt jaar. „n Gevalle-studie navorsingsontwerp is gebruik en die effek van „n 20-weeklange intervensieprogram is bepaal deur die resultate van basislyn-, voor- en na-programtoetsing te vergelyk. Motoriese vermoë is nagegaan deur gebruik te maak van die Movement Assessment Battery for Children, en liggaamlike fiksheid deur die gebruik van die Brockport Physical Fitness Test. Bykomend is waarnemings gemaak omtrent die sosiale speeltendense en algemene gedragspatrone van elke kind. Die Sherrill –University of Virginia Adapted Physical Education Social Play Behaviour Inventory en „n selfontwerpte gedragsprofiel, om alledaagse aktiwiteite en geassosieerde outistiese gedrag waar te neem, is ook benut. Die intervensiesessies is drie maal per week gedoen en het gefokus op die motoriese agterstande van elke individuele deelnemer. Soos mikpunte bereik is, is die inhoud van die Mighty Muscles program voortdurend aangepas. As gevolg van die unieke aard van outisme, is die resultate van elke kind afsonderlik ontleed, word dit afsonderlik illustreer en bespreek. Die spesifieke aangepaste bewegingsprogram het „n positiewe effek op die motoriese vermoëns van al drie deelnemers gehad. Verbetering in bal-, handvaardighede en balansvermoë was opvallend. Die aërobiese kapasiteit, spierkrag en spieruithouvermoë asook lenigheid, met ander woorde fiksheid van al drie het as gevolg van deelname aan die intervensieprogram, verbeter. Selfstimulerende en onvanpaste gedrag het afgeneem terwyl deelname aan meer gepaste, spontane vryetydaktiwiteite, duidelik waargeneem is. Al bogenoemde resultate dui op die positiewe bydrae van „n aangepaste bewegingsprogram op die gedrag van kinders wat met outisme geïdentifiseer is.

This study investigated the effects of anaphoric cuing on the reading comprehension of 17 adolescent students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 19 typically developing (TD) students matched on age, intellectual ability and word decoding ability. In a within-subject design, participants read four Chinese passages of two types (narrative fictional vs. narrative nonfictional) under two conditions (control [reading only] vs. anaphoric cuing). The ASD group showed significantly poorer reading comprehension than the TD group in the control condition. Contrary to prediction, anaphoric cuing produced a hindrance effect rather than facilitation effect on the reading comprehension performance of both groups. Correlation analysis showed different patterns between ASD and TD groups in the relationship between the ability to resolve anaphora and comprehension of the two types of passages. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Previous research has been interested in studying parental emotion socialization practices in parents of typically developing (TD) children. The current study aimed to explore such practices among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Seventy-eight families participated in this study. Self-reported rating scales were adopted to measure the child's social competence, parenting stress and maternal emotional styles. As hypothesized, results showed significantly different patterns in maternal emotional styles between mothers of children with ASD and those with TD children. However, inconsistent to our hypothesis, the maternal emotional styles were found to be neither related to child's social competence nor parenting stress within the ASD group. Implications of findings on future research and practice are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This thesis discusses how autonomous robots can be used to foster and support collaborative play among children with autism in a number of different settings. Because autism impairs one’s skills in social communication and social interaction, this makes it particularly difficult for children with this disorder to participate in many different forms of social play, particularly collaborative play due to the interpersonal skills needed to coordinate and synchronize people’s actions through constantly communicating with them. Since these children have trouble playing collaboratively, this further hinders their ability to develop the necessary skills of interacting and communicating with others. I approached this idea from an empirical, behaviourist perspective instead of a theoretical one, in the sense that I conducted three different experiments in which I observed the behaviours of children with autism participating in controlled play sessions both with and without robots. To this end, I designed simple, effective control architectures which allowed LEGO NXT robots and KASPAR the humanoid robot to autonomously interact with people while playing with them. Additionally, I designed many collaborative video games such as arena games, “Tilt & roll”, and “Copycat”, that served as environments in which children with autism could play with the autonomous robots. The experiments in this thesis attempted to show that not only would children with autism improve their social behaviours while playing collaborative video games with autonomous robots, but these improvements would also transfer into similar settings in which the children would only interact with other people. By recording videos of the children’s interactions and performing observational analyses on the children’s behaviours, the data from my first exploratory experiment indi- cated that the amount of enjoyment the children showed in an after-school robotics was more positively correlated with their social behaviour than the number of play sessions in which they interacted. Using similar means, the results from my more streamlined second experiment suggested that children with autism displayed more social behaviours while playing with a typically developed adult after playing with KASPAR than they did beforehand, and the findings from my more rigorous third experiment strongly indicated that different pairs of children with autism showed improved social behaviours in playing with each other after they all played as groups with KASPAR compared to before they did so.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how teachers and parents collaborate regarding children with autism in preschool. The questions that are asked are, what collaboration means for both parties, what factors the parent and the teacher believe ease and obstacles the collaboration as well as which approach both parties have when it comes to children with autism. The hermeneutic research approach forms the bases for the research where we have used a qualitative method in the form of semi-structured interviews. The selection of the study consists of four preschool teachers and three parents from three different preschools in medium-sized municipalities in the Stockholm area. The theoretical frame of reference of the study is based on the ecological systems theory and the interactionist perspective. The results of the study demonstrate three important aspects. The first shows that an open communication between the teacher and parent is very important in the collaboration. The communication must build on a continuous, daily contact for the mutual exchange of information, through the verbal and written means that the parties use, to work. The other aspect shows that teachers need to have knowledge and be competent in terms of children with autism. It is important in the collaboration so that teachers are able to cater to the child's special needs and background. The knowledge becomes a support as to how they can work with and relate to the child, the teachers become more confident in their roles when they have the right knowledge to lean on. The third aspect shows that the parties' equal involvement and the parents participation is of big importance in the collaboration. The parents need to be updated regarding the child's weekday, development as well as around the preschool activities. The parents get an insight into the activities and they can also follow the child in their development.

Background. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Given the heterogeneity of ASD it is important to understand individual differences within the disorder that are related to cognitive and language development, and how such differences may be related to differences in caregiver behavior or aspects of the social environment. Joint attention is an important component of early social communication and is considered to be a “core deficit” of ASD (Kasari, Freeman, Paparella, Wong, Kwon, & Gulsrud, 2005). Individual differences in joint attention during infancy have been shown to relate to language and cognitive development (Mundy, Block, Delgado, Pomares, Van Hecke, & Parlade, 2007; Nichols, Martin, & Fox, 2005). Therefore, joint attention serves an essential role in the study of child behavior within ASD across development. The present study consists of two manuscripts that explored how joint attention in children with ASD related to sensory responsiveness and social competence (Study 1), and how child joint attention related to mother attention and contextual factors (Study 2). Specifically, Study 1 investigated relations among children's sensory responses, dyadic orienting, joint attention, and their subsequent social competence with peers. Participants were 38 children (18 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 20 developmentally matched children with typical development) between the ages of 2.75 and 6.5 years. Observational coding was conducted to assess children's joint attention and dyadic orienting in a structured social communication task. Children's sensory responses and social competence were measured with parent report. Group differences were observed in children's joint attention, sensory responses, multisensory dyadic orienting, and social competence, with the ASD group showing significantly greater social impairment and sensory responses compared with their typical peers. Atypical sensory responses were negatively associated with individual differences on social competence subscales. Interaction effects were observed between diagnostic group and sensory responses with diagnostic group moderating the relation between sensory responses and both joint attention and social competence abilities. Study 2 investigated relations between child joint attention and mother attention during three social contexts (competing demands, teaching, and free play) among 44 children with ASD between the ages of 2.5 and 5.6 years, and their mothers. Observational coding was conducted to assess children’s joint attention and mother’s dyadic orienting. Children’s expressive and receptive language was measured by teacher report. The rate of children’s joint attention, and mothers’ dyadic orienting differed depending on the context of their interaction. Children’s joint attention, expressive and receptive language, age, and ASD severity, and mother dyadic orienting were related, and these relations differed by context. Child initiating joint attention (IJA) was also related to mother attention, and this relation was moderated by the child’s expressive and receptive language. A temporal contingency was revealed for the association between child IJA and mother attention with a bi-directional association such that child IJA predicted subsequent mother attention, and mother attention predicted subsequent child IJA. When the sample was split by children’s language ability (i.e., minimally-verbal and verbal groups) there was a group by receptive language, and a group by expressive language interaction on the contingency between child IJA and subsequent mother attention. Conclusion. The results from study 1 and study 2 suggest that individual differences in children with ASD, including their sensory responses and social competence, as well as mother attention and contextual factors are related to children’s joint attention. When addressing theory and interventions for children with ASD, it is important to consider children’s language and sensory sensitivities, the demands of the interactive context, and factors related to mother attention and approach to her child.

Peer aggression can take the form of physical hostility, adverse peer pressure, teasing, shunning, and social rejection (Little, 2002). Repeated acts of peer aggression are considered peer victimization and affect children with disabilities more often than children with no reported disabilities or psychiatric disorders (Baumeister, Storch, & Geffken, 2008; Pittet, Berchtold, Akre, Michaud & Suris, 2011). Personal characteristics and contextual factors have been linked to higher rates of peer aggression and the presence of peer victimization (Baumeister, et al., 2008; Bejerot & Morthberg, 2009; Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999; Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999; Mishna, 2003). Youth who have experienced peer victimization have been found to suffer consequent loneliness, depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and suicidal ideation (Bond, Carlin, Thomas, Rubin, & Patton, 2001; Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Hunter, Boyle & Warden, 2007; Siegal, La Greca, & Harrison, 2009). The present study used a caregiver survey to investigate experiences of peer aggression and peer victimization, as well as factors linked to such victimization among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with other disabilities (OD), and without disabilities (WD). The main analyses addressed five sets of research questions. The first three research questions pertained to all three groups of participants and (1) compared rates of peer aggression and the proportion of children who experienced peer victimization between the ASD, OD and WD groups, (2) asked which personal factors were associated with peer aggression and peer victimization, and (3) asked which personal factors best predicted peer aggression and peer victimization. The last two research questions pertained to the ASD and OD groups only (disability group) and asked (1) which personal factors and contextual factors were associated with peer aggression and peer victimization, and (2) which personal factors and contextual factors best predicted peer aggression and peer victimization. The main analyses indicated that children with ASD and OD experienced significantly greater rates of peer aggression than peers in the WD group. Additionally, the ASD and OD groups of children were more likely to experience peer victimization than the WD group.Peer aggression was correlated with autistic traits, anxious/depressed, withdrawn/depressed, thought problems, and attention problems. A multiple regression analysis indicated that the variable of anxious/depressed was the only variable that significantly contributed to the model and it accounted for approximately one-third of the variance. Caregivers whose children experienced peer victimization reported significantly higher scores in autistic characteristics, anxious/depressed, withdrawn/depressed, thought problems, and attention problems. A forward logistic regression analysis indicated that anxious/depressed was the only variable that predicted peer victimization. The multiple regression and forward logistic regression models produced for the combined ASD and OD group were similar to the models produced during the prior analyses for all three groups. Anxious/depressed was the only variable that significantly contributed to the multiple linear regression and forward logistic regression models. Contextual variables were not correlated with peer aggression or associated with peer victimization and they did not significantly contribute to the regression models.