Advances in Autism : 2020 – Issue 3
1. Chaplin E, McCarthy J. Editorial. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):177-178.
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2. Mills Caroline J, Chapparo C, Hinitt J. The impact of sensory activity schedule (SAS) intervention on classroom task performance in students with autism – a pilot randomised controlled trial. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):179-193.
Purpose Sensory processing difficulties can negatively affect children with autism at school. There is limited evidence to guide practice in this area. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a sensory activity schedule (SAS) used in a school setting on task mastery and occupational performance in the classroom.Design/methodology/approach A randomised control trial (RCT) was conducted with 30 children to evaluate the efficacy of a school-based SAS. Children in the intervention group received SAS intervention and usual teaching. Children in the control group received only usual teaching. Outcome measures were the perceive, recall, plan and perform stage one procedural task analysis and goal attainment scaling.Findings Children in the intervention group demonstrated statistically significant improvements in school performance when compared with the control group in both outcome measures.Research limitations/implications This was a pilot study with small sample size, so results should be interpreted with caution. Further research is needed to replicate these findings.Practical implications A classroom-based SAS may have a positive effect on classroom performance for children with autism. This has implications for professionals who support children with autism and sensory processing difficulties in a school setting.Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first of its kind in evaluating SAS intervention in a school setting using RCT methodology.
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3. Fabio Rosa A, Esposito S, Carrozza C, Pino G, Caprì T. Correlations between facial emotion recognition and cognitive flexibility in autism spectrum disorder. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):195-204.
Purpose Various studies have examined the role of executive functions in autism, but there is a lack of research in the current literature on cognitive flexibility in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether cognitive flexibility deficits could be related to facial emotion recognition deficits in ASD.Design/methodology/approach In total, 20 children with ASD and 20 typically developing children, matched for intelligence quotient and gender, were examined both in facial emotion recognition tasks and in cognitive flexibility tasks through the dimensional change card sorting task.Findings Despite cognitive flexibility not being a core deficit in ASD, impaired cognitive flexibility is evident in the present research. Results show that cognitive flexibility is related to facial emotion recognition and support the hypothesis of an executive specific deficit in children with autism.Research limitations/implications One of the limit is the use of just one cognitive test to measure cognitive flexibility and facial recognition. This could be important to be taken into account in the new research. By increasing the number of common variables assessing cognitive flexibility, this will allow for a better comparison between studies to characterize impairment in cognitive flexibility in ASD.Practical implications Investigating impairment in cognitive flexibility may help to plan training intervention based on the induction of flexibility.Social implications If the authors implement cognitive flexibility people with ASD can have also an effect on their social behavior and overcome the typical and repetitive behaviors that are the hallmark of ASD.Originality/value The originality is to relate cognitive flexibility deficits to facial emotion.
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4. Nah Y-H. Pre-school teachers’ perceptions of challenging behaviours of students with autism spectrum disorder within inclusive settings. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):205-214.
Purpose Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have challenging behaviours that can create significant teaching challenges in group settings such as in mainstream pre-school inclusive settings. This study aims to identify and understand, from the perspectives of mainstream pre-school teachers in Singapore, the type of common challenging behaviours observed in pre-schoolers (mean age = 4.5 years, SD = 1.1, range = 3-6) with ASD.Design/methodology/approach Participants consisted of 62 teachers (mean age = 35.8 years ; SD = 10.8) teaching in mainstream pre-school centres located in Singapore completed an open-ended survey. Twelve codes were generated and served as guidelines for coding the qualitative data. Codes with similar themes were then grouped to form four construct categories : social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours, attention and learning and others.Findings Results indicated that difficulty with change/transition and social/peer interaction were the most concerning issues across all settings, whereas “lesson time” and “circle time” were the two most common activities/settings in which the concerns were reported by teachers.Originality/value Findings from this paper may add to the limited research looking at the challenging behaviours exhibited by children with ASD in mainstream pre-school settings in Singapore. Understanding the type of challenging behaviours presented in pre-schoolers with ASD and the activities/settings in which these behaviours occur may help the teachers to link the difficulties to specific interventions to further support their inclusion in a mainstream pre-school setting.
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5. Altakhaineh Abdel Rahman M, Mahmoud H, Abukhater Alaa Y. The effectiveness of using colors in L1 and L2 vocabulary development of autistic children. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):215-226.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using colors and learner’s intelligence quotient (IQ) in teaching new vocabulary in Arabic (L1) and English (L2) to children with autism spectrum disorder (henceforth, ASD).Design/methodology/approach To this end, 12 autistic children whose ages ranged between 7 and 12 were observed while they were being taught ten new words. The children were divided into two groups based on their IQ : Low (70–74) and High (76–79). The children were also divided into two groups : Group 1 studied the words written in a black font, whereas Group 2 studied the same words, but written in colors (each letter in the word in a different color), and an illustrative picture was provided with each word for both groups. The pictures were also different in color in the former group, while the picture was in black and white in the latter. The children involved in the study have a relatively slight ability to read letters based on an annual language assessment conducted by the center, and they learn a new word by learning its shape and by repetition. The experiment took place over a two-week period that involved teaching, revising and testing.Findings The results of the study showed that the children’s IQ played a crucial role in learning L1 and L2 vocabulary. The results also demonstrated that using colors had no significant impact on the children’s performance in the test. Finally, the results showed that teaching new words to children with ASD through repetition and drilling could be regarded as a useful technique. The study concludes with some recommendations for further studies.Originality/value The study shows that using pictures is a very useful tool in teaching L1 and L2 vocabulary to children with ASD.
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6. Forti S, Colombo B, Clark J, Bonfanti A, Molteni S, Crippa A, Antonietti A, Molteni M. Soundbeam imitation intervention : Training children with autism to imitate meaningless body gestures through music. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):227-240.
Purpose This paper aims to present the application and critical reflection on the effects of a intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) : the Soundbeam Imitation Intervention (SII). The intervention is based on the imitation of meaningless body gestures supported by a musical feedback. The rationale underlying SII is that mirror neurons deficit may represent the cause for the incomplete development of social and motor functioning in children with ASD. Following this assumption, it is possible to hypothesise that a systematic activation of this a system through the simultaneous observation-execution of meaningless body gestures may affect functional changes of mirror-related functions.Design/methodology/approach A sample of 14 children, who were between 5 and 9 years of age, with a diagnosis of ASD were involved in a six weeks’ SII programme. The programme is designed as a three-step progression, where each step includes exercises that focus on an activity : synchronous/one arm imitation, synchronous/two arms imitation and delayed imitation. Exercises are based on repeated movements-melodies associations of increasing difficulty. Motor imitation and social attention were assessed using a synchronous video-modelling task pre and post intervention.Findings Data highlight significant improvements in imitation accuracy and duration of social sustained attention were achieved.Originality/value Data reported in this paper provide preliminary and promising evidence that imitation and social attention skills acquired through SII can be generalised to a video-modelling imitation setting. The SII ordinal execution has included meaningless gestures, usually excluded from previous interventions, and this adds further validity to the training.
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7. Baker D, McCabe H, Kelly M, Jiang T. 100 years from now : comparing parental perspectives about supports for adults with autism in the USA and China. Advances in Autism ;2020 ;6(3):241-254.
Purpose Findings from a comparative qualitative study with parents in the USA and China increase the understanding of experiences of adults with autism in both countries.Design/methodology/approach Semi-Structured interviews were conducted with families in the USA and in China. In total, 18 families participated in the study – 7 in the USA, 11 in China.Findings Analysis of the comparative data led to the emergence of three overarching themes, expressing both similarities and differences in experiences : 1) transition to adult services plays out differently in the two nations, 2) parent advocacy and efforts in supporting and securing services for their children are strong in both countries but are also defined by the variability in access to services and 3) due to the scarcity of adult services in their country, Chinese parents express significantly more worries about their own aging and mortality as compared with USA parents.Research limitations/implications Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.Originality/value By examining the experiences of families of adults with autism in the USA and China, the research reveals themes that would not be visible in a single-nation study.
