Browsing by Subject "Autism Spectrum Disorder"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Relationship between Early Childhood Special Education Participation and Child Welfare Involvement
    (2018-12) DeZelar, Sharyn
    Numerous studies have highlighted the increased risk for child welfare involvement of children with disabilities, including those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Despite awareness of the increased prevalence of maltreatment risk of these children, few prevention programs have been developed that specifically target children with disabilities for maltreatment prevention. However, many children with ASD and other disabilities participate in early interventions for children with disabilities, including Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE). ECSE services provide children with ASD and their families with multiple supports and services, which are aimed at improving child, parent and family functioning, reducing developmental delays, and connecting families with needed resources and services. As these services and aims mirror evidence regarding successful maltreatment prevention programs and models, there is potential for children who receive ECSE services to have less involvement with child welfare. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore if participation in ECSE impacts child welfare involvement for children with ASD. Using merged administrative records from the Department of Education and the Social Service Information Systems data on child welfare involvement, a sample of all second and third grade children (during the 2015/2016 school year) in Minnesota with a school-designation of ASD was identified. A retrospective and longitudinal analysis of prior special education service involvement and child welfare involvement was conducted, using descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, ANOVA, and linear and logistic regression analyses. Results show that there are demographic differences in children with ASD who receive special education services as compared to children with ASD who did not receive services. Further, there were demographic differences in children with ASD who participated in child welfare, as compared to children with ASD who did not participate in child welfare. While overall, involvement in special education services was not correlated with reduced child welfare involvement, there were some correlations among children from specific racial/ethnic and income groups. These findings have implications for social work practice, policy and research.
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    Collaboration of ASD Services for Young Children and Families Presentation
    (University of Minnesota Extension, Center for Family Development, 2009)
    This presentation was part of the Lessons from the Field event on early identification and intervention for autism. It was presented on February 12, 2009. This particular presentation allows participants to explore different approaches for early identification and intervention and ways to ensure needed ASD services collaborate together.
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    Communicative Repair Requests Produced by Typically-Developing Preschoolers and Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder
    (2018-02) Julien, Hannah
    Purpose: Communicative repair requests are a critical social communication skill. Communicative repair requests are important because they provide evidence that the listener (a) is attending the speaker's communicative bids, (b) is monitoring her own comprehension, (c) has strategies for repairing communicative breakdowns, and (d) has skills to successfully repair (Dollaghan, 1987). There were two primary aims of the current project, addressed through two studies. The first aim was to examine 4-year-old children's productions of communicative repair requests as a function of type of insufficient communicative opportunity, either obligatory or non-obligatory, and to examine the relationship between repair requests and performance on a theory of mind (ToM) task. The second aim of the project was to pilot the experimental task (i.e., shared book reading task) among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to collect preliminary, descriptive data on repair requests among this population. Method: Study One: Twenty-five typically-developing (TD) 4-year-old children participated. Participants completed two standardized, norm-referenced assessments of their expressive and receptive communication skills and IQ. Participants also completed a criterion-referenced measure of their theory of mind development (ToM task) and a shared book reading task. The shared book reading task served as the experimental medium in which different insufficient communicative opportunities (i.e., obligatory and non-obligatory) were presented. Participants' responses were coded according to a pre-established coding scheme. Study Two: Six children with ASD and with expressive and receptive communication skills and IQ within an average range participated and completed the protocol implemented in Study One. Results: Study One: Participants produced a greater number of repair requests following obligatory compared to non-obligatory communicative opportunities. There were no differences in total repair requests between participants who passed or failed the ToM task. Study Two: The shared book reading task was a feasible method for examining repair requests among 4-year-old children with ASD whose expressive and receptive communication abilities and IQ were within an average range. Descriptive results suggest that participants with ASD who passed the ToM task produced a greater number of repair requests compared to those who failed the ToM task. Conclusion: The function of the adult's utterance (i.e., the insufficient utterance that creates an opportunity for a child to repair) is an influential variable in the production of repair requests. One potential explanation is that the obligatory communicative opportunities may have carried a stronger social expectation to respond in a particular way (i.e., requests for information carry the expectation that the responder will provide information); thus, these types of opportunities may have been more likely to be repaired compared to non-obligatory opportunities. Non-obligatory opportunities allowed more degrees of freedom to whether and how the child responded. Among preschool-age children, the shared book reading task is a naturalistic medium that facilitates the examination of repair requests with a high degree of external and ecological validity. The shared book reading task was a feasible method for examining repair requests among preschool-age children with ASD.
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    Establishing Early Communicative Skills: Augmentative Communication Practices with Learners Experiencing ASD Presentation
    (University of Minnesota Extension, Center for Family Development, 2011) Reichle, Joe
    This presentation was delivered at the joint University of Minnesota Extension Children, Youth & Family Consortium (CYFC) and Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health (MACMH) Research to Practice series. The series was focused on bridging research to practice in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): diagnosis and assessment, interventions, and levels of evidence. It was delivered May 3, 2011.
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    Evaluation of an explicit instructional approach to teach novel grammatical forms to children with autism spectrum disorders
    (2014-06) Miller, Danneka Joy
    Purpose: Limited or unusual syntax may reduce the functional use of language for children with ASD and exacerbate difficulties with academic and social skill development. The current study evaluated an explicit instructional approach to teach novel grammatical forms to children with ASD.Method: Eleven children with ASD between the ages of 4:4 and 9:9 years who demonstrated weaknesses in expressive grammatical language were randomly assigned to complete two space-themed computer games. In each game participants attempted to learn a novel grammatical form after receiving explicit or implicit instruction. During explicit instruction, the examiner presented a rule guiding the novel form to be learned as well as models of the form. During implicit instruction, only models of the grammatical form were presented. Learning was assessed during each of four treatment sessions and after a 1-week delay in two contexts.Results: Nonparametric analyses revealed a trending advantage for learning novel grammatical morphemes with an explicit instructional approach. Successful learners tended to have stronger expressive language skills then unsuccessful learners. Successful and unsuccessful learners did not differ in nonverbal intelligence or severity of autism- related behaviors.Conclusions: Explicit instruction may lead to more robust learning of targeted grammatical forms for children with ASD. Future research should continue to examine this effect using true grammatical forms.
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    Exploration and Evaluation of Core Circadian Rhythm Components in Relation to Autism Spectrum Disorders
    (2022-08) Lorsung, Ethan
    Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, as well as stereotyped and repetitive behaviors. ASDs affect nearly 2% of the United States child population and the worldwide prevalence has dramatically increased in recent years. The etiology is not clear but ASD is thought to be caused by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Circadian rhythms are the ∼24 h rhythms driven by the endogenous biological clock, and they are found in a variety of physiological processes. Growing evidence from basic and clinical studies suggest that the dysfunction of the circadian timing system may be associated with ASD and its pathogenesis. Here I review the findings that link circadian dysfunctions to ASD in both experimental and clinical studies, then I report novel research furthering the relationship between the core circadian gene Bmal1 and ASD. I first introduce the organization of the circadian system and ASD. Next, I review physiological indicators of circadian rhythms that are found disrupted in ASD individuals, including sleep–wake cycles, melatonin, cortisol, and serotonin. I then review evidence in epidemiology, human genetics, and biochemistry that indicates underlying associations between circadian regulation and the pathogenesis of ASD. Finally, I design and report findings of my original basic research, including pervasive abnormalities in the developing mouse cerebellum and social deficits as a result of deletion of the core circadian component Bmal1. In conclusion, I propose that understanding the functional importance of the circadian clock in normal and aberrant neurodevelopmental processes may provide a novel perspective to tackle ASD, and clinical treatments for ASD individuals should comprise an integrative approach considering the dynamics of daily rhythms in physical, mental, and social processes.
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    Finding A Way: Aids To Support Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
    (2017-05) WILLIAMS, JULIE
    Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder affecting around 1:68 children. Among other characteristics, children with ASD can be unduly sensitive to the elements in the environment, such as noise or light. Those affected have also described childhood difficulties finding their way around school. Despite the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with ASD, to date there has been little evidence-based research investigating how the environment affects them. The purpose of this exploratory experimental study was to determine whether wayfinding aids, (colored doors, colored shapes on the floor, and signage), applied in an elementary school corridor could help children with ASD find their way to a given destination with minimal assistance. This could improve their wayfinding skills and promote independence. Person-environment Fit Theory guided the research. This states that if a person is well-matched to their environment it can have a positive effect on them. A convenience sample of participants with ASD aged 8-11 (n=9) were randomly assigned to control or treatment groups. A study route was set up along part of the school corridor unfamiliar to participants. Each participant was given wayfinding instruction and shown the way to a destination before being asked to find the way on his/her own. Participants in the control group used existing cues in the environment. Participants in the treatment group used wayfinding aids applied along the route. A mixed methods approach to data collection included observation, behavioral mapping, and a post-study interview/questionnaire to find out what participants felt about their wayfinding experience and what they remembered about the route. The study found that all participants were able to find their way to the destination. This suggests that wayfinding could be used as an educational intervention to teach children with ASD how to find their way around school. Participants in the treatment group remembered more colors, shapes, and signs along the route compared to the control group. Some participants demonstrated a hypersensitivity to the environment, adversely affected by noise, light, and smell. Some participants demonstrated Weak Central Coherence, focusing on small details to help them find their way around rather than perceiving the larger environment. With further testing, it may be possible for clinicians who treat children with ASD to use wayfinding as a diagnostic tool to help them find out how children with ASD perceive their environment and what they are sensitive to in it. This is believed to be the first research study to test children with ASD in wayfinding. By documenting an evidence-based research process with children with ASD as participants, this study could act as a model for other designers and researchers to follow. It could also be replicated to determine whether the results are applicable to wayfinding in other school corridors, or other environments, used by children with ASD.
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    Sensory Features in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review of Measurement Quality and Empirical Investigation of Sensory Responsivity in Children at High and Low Familial Risk for Autism
    (2021-12) Gunderson, Jaclyn
    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder with heterogenous presentation and varying outcomes for children impacted by the condition. The etiology and bio-mechanisms of autism are not well understood. For decades research has focused on the social, communication, and cognitive symptoms associated with ASD. However, sensory symptoms were added to the diagnostic criteria for ASD in 2013 and continue to gain research attention. Historically, sensory symptoms were thought to emerge as secondary consequences of social-cognitive deficits. However, recent empirical work suggests that sensory symptoms manifest early in development and may contribute to the heterogeneity of ASD. For this dissertation, I systematically reviewed the literature to appraise the quality of proxy report sensory measurement tools used to assess sensory features in ASD. Furthermore, in a sample of children with a high and low familial likelihood for developing ASD, I characterized sensory responsivity in social and non-social contexts early in life and investigated the development of sensory responsivity throughout childhood with considerations for variables that may relate to developmental changes and their association with later adaptive behavior. Results from the current studies indicate that proxy report sensory questionnaires attempt to quantify sensory features in ASD via vastly different dimensions with little attention given to either construct or structural validity. Moreover, results show that sensory responsivity behaviors emerged across social and non-social contextual domains early in life and relate to restricted and repetitive behavior and adaptive behavior later in toddlerhood. Compared to children without ASD, children with ASD tend to demonstrate more early sensory responsivity behaviors that increase in a curvilinear relation to chronological age with specific trajectory differences across responsivity behavior patterns (hyperresponsivity, hyporesponsivity, sensory seeking). Additionally, heightened hyporesponsivity in the first year of life predicts lower adaptive behavior later in childhood. Specifically, results suggest that sensory features emerge prior to the consolidation of broad ASD symptoms and relate to adaptive outcomes. However, construct dimensions including the un-agreed upon multidimensionality of sensory features has important implications for future understanding and clinical practice.
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    Social Communication Across Language Environments in Nonverbal Children with ASD from English and non-English Speaking Families
    (2015-10) Monn, Emily
    The purpose of this study was to examine the use of social communication acts exhibited by non-verbal preschool-aged children across different language environments. Children from English and non-English speaking backgrounds were exposed to social interactions with a bilingual interventionist who interacted with the children in a home and world language. Results of this study indicated that there were differences in social communication acts across participants, but not within participants across language environments. In this study, the children did not appear to discriminate between language environments, which supports previous research suggesting that there are no harmful effects in exposing children to more than one language. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.