21st century brought along a considerable decrease in social interactions, due to the newly emerged lifestyle around the world, which became more noticeable recently of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, children with autism spectrum disorder have further complications regarding their social interactions with other humans. In this paper, a fully Robotic Social Environment (RSE), designed to simulate the needed social environment for children, especially those with autism is described. An RSE can be used to simulate many social situations, such as affective interpersonal interactions, in which observational learning can take place. In order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed RSE, it has been tested on a group of children with autism, who had difficulties in emotion recognition, which in turn, can influence social interaction. An A-B-A single case study was designed to show how RSE can help children with autism recognize four basic facial expressions, i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, and fear, through observing the social interactions of two robots speaking about these facial expressions. The results showed that the emotion recognition skills of the participating children were improved. Furthermore, the results showed that the children could maintain and generalize their emotion recognition skills after the intervention period. In conclusion, the study shows that the proposed RSE, along with other rehabilitation methods, can be effective in improving the emotion recognition skills of children with autism and preparing them to enter human social environments.
Objective: The parent-child relationship and the daily blood sugar control by adolescents can affect family functioning. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of unified trans-diagnostic treatment protocols on parent-child interaction and blood sugar levels in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
Materials and Methods: The present study was quasi-experimental with a pretest and posttest design and a control group. The statistical population of the study included all adolescents aged 12-15 years with type 1 diabetes referred to the Iranian Diabetes Society and their parents in 2020. Out of this population, 44 were selected using the convenience judgmental sampling method and randomly divided into two groups (n= 22). The Child-Parent Relationship Scale (CPRS) was used to investigate the parent-child interaction, and hemoglobin pre-and post-program tests were used to assess blood sugar. Adolescents and parents in the experimental group received the program during 17 sessions. Data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance. Statistical analyses were performed by SPSS software version 22.
Results: The means of corrected post-test scores of the Child-Parent Relationship Scale and hemoglobin A1c tests were significantly different in the experimental and control groups (P= 0.001).
Conclusion: The unified trans-diagnostic treatment protocols affect parent-child interaction and blood sugar levels in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. It is possible to use this program to educate adolescents with diabetes and their families and preventive interventions.
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