Specific Interventions and the Role of Occupational Therapy on Children With ASD

Occupational therapy focuses on children's sensory processing and modulation. This chapter approaches specific interventions on children with ASD from several perspectives. OT is based on sensory integrative approach when working with children with ASD: helping parents understand their child's behavior, helping children organize responses to sensory input. The sensory integrative approach is a formulated activity plan that helps people who haven't been able to develop their own sensory recognition program. This plan allows a child to integrate all sorts of different sensory activities in their day so they can engage in and begin to work with a wide variety of sensory inputs. This provides a wide number of benefits. Their focus and attention span increases because they won't have meltdowns from trying to process too much information; sensory integrative approach helps to rebuild/reform the child's nervous system. This allows them to physically handle more sensory input. As a result, OT has been proven effective in working with children with ASD.

Unraveling the Role of Dopaminergic and Calretinin Interneurons in the Olfactory Bulb

The perception and discriminating of odors are sensory activities that are an integral part of our daily life. The first brain region where odors are processed is the olfactory bulb (OB). Among the different cell populations that make up this brain area, interneurons play an essential role in this sensory activity. Moreover, probably because of their activity, they represent an exception compared to other parts of the brain, since OB interneurons are continuously generated in the postnatal and adult period. In this review, we will focus on periglomerular (PG) cells which are a class of interneurons found in the glomerular layer of the OB. These interneurons can be classified into distinct subtypes based on their neurochemical nature, based on the neurotransmitter and calcium-binding proteins expressed by these cells. Dopaminergic (DA) periglomerular cells and calretinin (CR) cells are among the newly generated interneurons and play an important role in the physiology of OB. In the OB, DA cells are involved in the processing of odors and the adaptation of the bulbar network to external conditions. The main role of DA cells in OB appears to be the inhibition of glutamate release from olfactory sensory fibers. Calretinin cells are probably the best morphologically characterized interneurons among PG cells in OB, but little is known about their function except for their inhibitory effect on noisy random excitatory signals arriving at the main neurons. In this review, we will mainly describe the electrophysiological properties related to the excitability profiles of DA and CR cells, with a particular view on the differences that characterize DA mature interneurons from cells in different stages of adult neurogenesis.

Teaching "Greek for Ministry" in a Multicultural Classroom

Teaching and learning a biblical language such as Greek can pose a set of pedagogical challenges in a multicultural classroom where the instructor and students have different cultural assumptions about language learning. Reflecting on her encounter with a student’s question regarding why ancient Greek grammar operates the way it does, the author explores how this critical incident helped her recognize the cultural diversity in the classroom and develop a new pedagogical toolkit. In particular, the author employed multi-sensory activities using music and visuals to foster the students’ motivation and bridge the gaps between different cultural assumptions. This experience eventually led the author to another pedagogical insight: Teaching and learning Greek at a seminary are critical to building much-needed intercultural competency for informed ministry in the 21st century. This is one of three essays published together in a special topic section of this journal on critical incidents in the classroom.

Usage events and utterance types

The chapter lays the foundation for the understanding of usage events and utterance types. Usage events consist of several components, all of which can become conventionalized and entrenched: utterances (including the required motor and sensory activities), communicative goals of participants, cognitive and interpersonal activities, and the linguistic, situational, and social context. Utterance types are contingent links between communicative goals and linguistics forms. They are contingent on several dimensions: the onomasiological link between goals and forms, the semasiological link between forms and meanings, combinations on the syntagmatic dimension, and the use of utterance types in cotexts and contexts. Utterance types can be defined as multiply contingent and probabilistic connections between goals and forms. Three classes of utterance types can be distinguished with regard to their function, specificity, and size, i.e. distinctors, units, and patterns. Although the notion of utterance types is similar to that of construction, it is preferred to emphasize the dynamic and contingent nature of form-meaning relations.

O TDAH no Campo da Assistência Social: Possibilidades para uma Clínica Ampliada

This theoretical article aimed to constitute a review of the gestalt literature about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) produced in Brazil and to discuss practical possibilities of intervention based on Gestalt therapy. These proposals were designed in the context of a social welfare service that welcomes children and adolescents, with or without the diagnosis of ADHD. Thus, was necessary to articulate with the concept of extended clinic, supported by the field concept of Kurt Lewin. Was considered the contributions of Luciana Aguiar and Violet Oaklander, two important authors of gestalt psychotherapy with children, in Brasil and in the world, respectively. Among the results, there was the need for interventions at the institutional level (such as working within the institution's introjects and offering greater supervision and monitoring to these children) and individual (performing motor sensory activities aimed at the development of the protagonism through the possibility of to choose).

Sensory playful corners on stimulation of children from one to three years

Despite the growing tendency to create playful corners on the part of the MIES and the MINEDUC, in the CDI there continues to be an urgent need for change in the actions of the educators, with respect to how the subject of sensory activities is being handled in the stimulation of children in their first years of life and thus implement meaningful learning, the problem focuses on the lack of sensory playful corners in perceptual stimulation The study was applied to 20 educators of 5 care units of the modality Child Development Center (CDI) of several rural sectors of the Portoviejo canton, having as objective to determine the use of sensory playful corners in the stimulation of children from 1 to 3 years. The results of this work showed that there are no sensory playful corners and that educators lack knowledge about the importance of creating these spaces and making them available to children for their learning, reaching the conclusion that there is a need to create an innovative guide with content sessions, skills, play materials for the corners of visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and tactile perception.