The psychosocial pathways underlying associations between benefit finding and quality of life (QoL) are poorly understood. Here we examined associations between benefit finding, social support, optimism and QoL in a sample of 84 caregivers. Results revealed that QoL was predicted by benefit finding, optimism and social support. Moreover, the association between benefit finding and QoL was explained by social support, but not optimism; caregivers who reported greater benefit finding perceived their social support be higher and this, in turn, had a positive effect on their overall QoL. These results underscore the importance of harnessing benefit finding to enhance caregiver QoL.
Social skill interventions have become increasingly popular in recent times, as well as the use of technology to deliver and aid interventions for the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. Little research exists on the use of apps to teach social skills to individuals with ASD, in particular the behaviour change procedures that exist within apps. The current review examines the behaviour change procedures that exist within apps according to the Behavior Analyst Certification Board Task List, 5th Edition. A total of 15 apps were included within this review. Results indicate that a variety of behaviour change procedures exist within apps. However, the quality of apps and the number of behaviour change procedures vary across app developers.
Communication deficits in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can manifest in a myriad of lifelong social and educational challenges. Many children with ASD fail to learn vocal verbal behavior and may require intensive individualized intervention to learn early verbal operants. The current research aimed to evaluate the effects of a parent delivered stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) procedure on target vocalizations of two young children with ASD who did not present with vocal verbal behavior. Results indicated the intervention was successful in increasing the frequency of the target vocalizations for both participants. Social validity results indicated that parents were satisfied with the intervention and their own implementation of these procedures. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for parent delivered interventions. Keywords stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP). verbal behavior. vocalizations. autism spectrum disorder (ASD). parent training Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with a myriad of social communication deficits which vary across individuals. Such deficits are complex, and can range from insufficient speech and language skills (Charlop-Christy, Carpenter, Le, LeBlanc, & Kellet, 2002) to difficulties with more complex social communication skills, such as conversational reciprocity (Watkins et al., 2015). For children with ASD, development of vocal communication is often delayed and may never occur for some children (Kelley, Shillingsburg, Castro, Addison, & LaRue, 2007). In a longitudinal study of 206 children, researchers found that 30% of children did not acquire vocal language by the age of 9 (Anderson et al., 2007). Deficits in vocal communication are often associated with challenges across all stages of development
This research was conducted with mainstream school teachers in the Republic of Ireland to examine their use and knowledge of EBPs for students with autism.
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