ASD Case Studies

In my personal story, I reviewed my own experience of being a parent to a child with an ASD diagnosis. As it was demonstrated both from the literature review and though my personal story, it is clear that facing an ASD diagnosis is a big crisis. Part of the crisis relates to the stigma of ASD. Parents face judgment and resentments toward their children from the general public as well as judgment on their parenting style. This judgment comes as a result of the typical appearance of most children with

Research has found that on average 33% of youths in the juvenile justice system are identified as disabled and eligible for special services. However, there has been little research studying the characteristics or prevalence rates of youth with ASD in the criminal justice system. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly have impairments in communication, social skills, deficits in abstract thoughts and specific interests that could prevent individuals with ASD from understanding legal and illegal behaviors. It is also suspected that the high rates of psychiatric comorbidity associated with ASD, for example ADHD, may increase the risk of delinquency in youth with ASD.

Roger Evans is a 5-year-old enrolled in general education kindergarten classes. Roger has been identified as having ASD during a routine check-up at the age of three. Roger’s parents had been unemployed and receiving government aid. Roger’s parents have not been taking advantage of supportive resources. Mr. and Mrs. Evans have not informed the school that Roger has been identified as having ASD. During the first week, Roger’s teacher Ms. Moore observed Roger sporadically sitting by himself during lunch and recess rocking back and forth and hitting himself in the face. Ms. Moore also noticed that Roger was anti-social with his peers. Ms. Moore recorded her observations for two weeks. Roger’s behavior became a daily occurrence. Ms. Moore met with the principal, counselor, special education, and Roger’s parents to discuss her concerns. Roger’s parents admitted that Roger had been identified with ASD and has been fine at home.

Autism is a development disorder. It affects mostly brain function and social skills. There any many names for autism but the medical term for it is autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Occupational therapy focuses on practicing the activities of everyday living, education, play and etc. There are also ways to determined on what more to focus on for the person’s needs and goals. When providing services to someone with ASD occupational therapist have to do an evaluation, an intervention, and measure the outcomes of sessions to see if they are succeeding.

According to the 2014 estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 68 children have been identified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD); a rate that has been steadily growing over the past 20 years (National Autism Association, 2015). Increases in reported frequencies for ASD are most likely due to a combination of factors including broader diagnostic criteria and increased awareness as well as a true increase in the number of people with ASD (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Autism it self does not effect life expectancy and, in general, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) can expect to live as long as the non-cognitively impaired population (National Autism Association,

Each year, more than 200,000 people are diagnosed with the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the U.S. ASD or Autism can be characterized as a brain development disorder that directly affects the nervous system. As noted on AutismSpeaks.org, ASD can be deemed as an intellectual disability. Symptoms of Autism can include difficulty with communication, difficulty in social interactions, obsessive interests, and repetitive behaviors. The severity of these symptoms vary with all ASD patients. Some patients with ASD thrive in non-interactive subjects such as math, art, and music.

As research into autism spectrum disorders has increased over recent years and this has resulted in changes to the way that American psychiatry diagnoses autism spectrum disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) is used by clinicians as a guide to diagnoses of mental health illnesses and since its first publication in 1930’s it has been updated every 20 years, and these updates reflect on new research and discoveries.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder, which is characterized and diagnosed by social interaction and communication impairment and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and language.1 It is a debilitating and life-long disorder that affects health, relationships, and learning of affected children.2 It describes a continuum of mixed characteristics on main impairments in social and communicative abilities together with the presence of repetitive behaviors.3 It affects an estimated 1 in 110 children with an increasing incidence.1 Treatments vary in their effectiveness for treating children with ASD. Studies on the gluten-free and/or casein-free (GFCF) dietary intervention, which eliminates all

Acute Stress Disorder (also known as ASD) is a trauma or stressor related disorder that is diagnosed in an individual within 2 days to one month after a traumatic event has occurred. This disorder can be a sign for posttraumatic stress disorder (also known as PTSD), but PTSD cannot be claimed in a patient until four weeks after an event has happened.

For many adults diagnosed with ASD, taking the risk of leaving the security of a parent’s or relative’s home is driven by the desire for independence and involvement in community life. In 2011, the Autistic Self Advancement Network (ASAN), Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), and the National Youth Leadership conducted 72 one-on-one interviews to ask persons diagnosed with ASD what they sought in a community. Most interviewees expressed they desired a community that:

Children with ASDs have many listening and attention deficits. Thirty to fifty percent of individuals diagnosed with ASDs are also diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), a disorder associated with difficulty sustaining attention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behavior (Leitner 1). Children diagnosed with ASDs, especially if they are diagnosed with ADHD too, are often hyperactive and can run without ever tiring (Furneaux 29). To help children with these deficits, variable-speed tape recorders and personal FM listening systems may be used (Stanberry 2-3). Variable-speed (VSC) tape recorders allow a user to listen to pre-recorded text or to capture spoken language and play it back later (Stanberry 5). The user can than speed

The 2-year pilot project will expand and extend peer-mediated treatment to adolescents with ASD and their general education peers. A novel aspect of this program is that training will be facilitated by the peers (“mentors”) of students with ASD to promote generalization of skills learned. Findings will be used to leverage external funding for further expansion and replication of the treatment.

Drama therapy is defined as an intentional and systematic application of drama/ theatre processes, products, and associations towards achieving therapeutic goals of symptom relief, emotional and physical integration and individual/personal growth. Therefore, the goals of drama therapy are established from psychotherapy and the tools to achieve these goals are derived from theatre

This paper will suggest drama therapy as improving social and emotional skills for children that are high functioning ASD. The paper will be focus on the Enact method, as well as Stop-Gap which are drama therapy approaches. Those approaches where selected since Examples of studies that use the Enact method with children with Autism will be given. Enact method designed to incorporate theater and drama therapy in order to enquire social and emotional skills to the participants (Feldman, Sussman Jones, & Ward, 2009. p. 284).

A.4. Impact. There is a critical need to design a novel strategy targeting ASD risk genes involved in the convergent pathways. Intriguingly, many of the genes implicated in ASD converge onto a few major signaling pathways: the synaptic function, chromatin remodeling, transcription, MAPK and Wnt pathways(6, 20, 21). Although it would be unlikely to have one treatment for all causes of ASD, genetic results present a possibility to target the convergent pathways or circuits thereby limiting the number of interventions. Among ASD risk genes, β-cat not only is a well-known essential component of the canonical Wnt signaling (81, 82), but also plays roles in other convergent pathways: synaptic function(83, 84) and epigenetic/ transcriptional