The Importance Of Transition Activities For Individuals With ASD

Children with ASD develop differently from other children. They must overcome challenges in interacting and communicating with others. These challenges can affect their development, learning and future trajectories of their lives. This diagnosis is particularly difficult on low income families and minority groups as well as for parents with low educational attainment and those living in rural areas who may not have the financial means, suitable knowledge or access to resources to care for their children’s needs.

The literature review explores the issues and challenges of parents of children diagnosed with autism, challenges such as accepting the diagnosis, lack of social and family support, guilt, judgment, and coping with the child’s autistic behavior. The studies indicate that there is a connection between the parent’s psychological distress, such as depression and stress, and parenting a child with autism. A big part of the battle parents are facing depends on their self-acceptance, feeling of judgment by society, and the child’s level of behavioral problems. Many of the studies also explore different types of coping mechanisms of parents of children with autism and suggest different solutions and interventions to assist the parents.

The article entitled “Smooth Transitions: Helping Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder Navigate the School Day” written by Kara Hume, Melissa Sreckovic, Kate Snyder, and Christina R. Carnahan discusses an intervention plan for a fifth grader named Sara, who has autism spectrum disorder, in a general education classroom. In this classroom, there are two teachers that use the co-teaching model in order to reach the needs of the students with and without disabilities. Sara, who is on grade level academically, was showing several behavioral issues. She was not actively involving herself in the lessons, or talking to other students in the classroom. It was also noted that she would end up crying very frequently at different times throughout the day. Other behaviors included putting her head down on her desk and not responding what being asked a question or addressed in general. They observed the times of day that she displayed these behaviors and noticed that it was during the times of the day when transitions occurred. Her behaviors began to disrupt her learning due to time that it took to redirect her and get her back on task.

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.

There is an ample amount of positive outcomes supporting the use of SI interventions in documented case studies, single subject experiments, and other less rigorous research, but there is still a lack of rigorous research that supports the efficacy of SI interventions. This lack of supporting evidence could be attributed to the diverse symptomatology of ASD, which makes it is extremely difficult to design a rigorous research proposal that is generalizable with strong psychometric data supporting the proposal. Filling this gap in research around the use of SI interventions in practice could facilitate the growth of the occupational therapy field by validating the SI interventions, which occupational therapists are most qualified to implement,

Another method that is commonly used as an intervention for students with ASD is the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM). ESDM is an inclusive behavioral intervention for infants to preschool-aged children (Dawson et al., 2009; Vivanti et al., 2014). The learning objectives are based on individual strengths and weaknesses, with a focus on developmental fields that are foundational to social and social-cognitive learning and development (Vivanti et al., 2014). The students with ASD work to enhance their verbal and nonverbal communication, emotion sharing, imitation, joint attention, play, social orienting, and attention (Rogers et al., 2012).

Not only can the interventions improve the frequency with which ASD children initiate interactions, but the duration of their interactions increases as well. Hochman (2015) observed four high school students with a baseline of 13.5 percent average engagement time during their thirty minute lunch periods. Once the team introduced trained classmates to the group, the participation increased to an average of fifty-five percent (Hochman, 2015). That is over half the lunch period spent socially engaged with their schoolmates! Furthermore, Battaglia and Radley (2014) observed Todd, an ASD child who was struggling to join in activities and

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication, and behavior challenges and was first described by Dr. Leo Kanner in 1943 (Brown & Percy, 2007). Individuals with ASD can range from high functioning to low functioning in their ability to learn, think, and problem solve (Brown & Percy, 2007). Behavior problems are common among individuals with ASD (Hill at el, 2014). Kogan (2009) estimates that approximately 637,000 children in the U.S. alone have ASD and within those 637,000 children, Hagopian (2007) suggests that half of those children, who are diagnosed with ASD, also display problem behavior. According to Hagopian & Hardesty (2014), Applied Behavior

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

Perhaps as a result of social isolation or awareness of one’s disadvantage, anxiety-related concerns are the most common presented problems for adolescents with ASD. High rates of diagnosed comorbid anxiety-related pathologies have been found in people diagnosed with ASD: 55% in a 2006 study, and 42% in a 2008 study (de Bruin et al., 2006); (Simonoff et al., 2008). Both physiological concerns, such as hyperarousal, and social deficits may influence the high prevalence of social anxiety in children with ASD (White et al., 2010). Nonetheless, many Axis I anxiety disorders, social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorders, are often undiagnosed in people with ASD since the symptoms can be explained by ASD itself. Other disorders, such as ADHD, cannot explicitly be diagnosed in children and teens with autism, since it is difficult to differentiate between inattention and/or overactivity as a symptom of ASD or another comorbid pathology (White et al., 2009). In general, however, there is a high

Children with high-functioning ASD (HFASD) demonstrate difficulty initiating and maintaining conversations, deciphering how others feel from nonverbal cues, interpreting the intentions of others, asking/responding to questions, and interacting in games or other activities (Bray et al., 2010). Children with HFASD may appear insensitive, and self-centered, or socially disinterested (Waugh & Peskin, 2015); and typically demonstrate average cognitive abilities, yet have significant social deficits (DeRosier et al, 2010). Social skills interventions aim to teach children the social pragmatics necessary to interact and build relationships. There are many different treatment options to improve social skills in children with HFASD such as social skills groups, social skills training with parent implemented intervention, and social stories/social narratives (Cappadocia & Weiss, 2011). This literature review will discuss these three different interventions used for improving the social skills of children with HFASD. All of the articles that were looked at were peer-reviewed.

As a child creates and develops, motor skills play a prominent part in how the children will connected and socialize within the future. A figure that must be taken into thought is person contrasts of ASD. Everyone is unique in their learning, so distinctive strategies of instructing got to be suited for each child. The reply to figuring out how to assist the child is to undertake and understand where the child is coming from (Antoanela 2014). Set informational, and strategies cannot specifically be constrained upon children with ASD since their way of learning isn’t typical developing a child. For children diagnosed with ASD early on, it is critical to instruct motor learning skills through adapted physical therapy, so they can be more capable to communicate and interact (Bo 2016). Point by point arranged programs alongside deliverance of information at various levels need to be considered to allocate to their method of learning (Antoanela 2016). To introduce a task that is to the child comfort or preferred learning ability can be more motivating. When the child begins feeling more comfortable and secure, they will be more willing to experience and grow. At extent of how severe, a child's ASD is affecting how they act. By knowing where the child lies on the spectrum from mild to serve allows physical therapists to target the area they

According to a meta-analytic review of behavioural interventions in a school environment for students with ASD, the contextual fit is a critical component of an effective intervention (Machalicek, O’Reilly, Beretvas, Sigafoos, & Lancioni, 2007). This means that an intervention that suits the teacher’s classroom program and viewed to be socially acceptable will have greater success in implementation. The current intervention was designed to suit the classroom context (eg. the use of visual activity schedule) and to be socially accepted by the teachers and Parker’s mother, and Parker (eg. the use of iPad as a token).

Autism disorder is one of a group of disorders that arise due to an abnormality in the development of the brain of a child. The growth of the brain of a child with autism is abnormal while still in the mother’s womb. That is why early in childhood, their brains grow abnormally faster and larger as compared with brains of normal children. However, the reverse happens later in life. At this time, the brains of normal children grow bigger and better organized whereas the growth of the brains of children with autism slows down. The group name is autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The word “spectrum” is included because each child affected suffers from the disorder in a different manner. Research has shown that the different types of autism include: autistic disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and Asperger syndrome. Autism can be recognised from the difficulty the child experiences in developing social skills like forming relationships, in talking skills and in non verbal communications skills as well as in doing things in a repetitive manner. Autism can also be linked with intellectual disability as well as difficulties in motor coordination or reflexes. It is also possible to link autism disorder with attention and physical health issues such as sleep and gastrointestinal disturbances, such as stomach pain, heartburn, diarrhea, constipation. Some people with a specific type of ASD called

Although the transition from childhood to adulthood is an exciting period for most teenagers as they venture out in search of new experiences and adventures, it can be challenging to for teens with ASD, Parsi, et al, (2015). ASD individuals do not fit into the eligibility criteria operated by