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.

The Challenges of Vocational Training for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Employment is considered to have a great impact on people's quality of life. However, it is thought to be one of the major problems adolescents and young adults have to face during their transition to the adulthood. Given their impairments, individuals with ASD face several barriers to their vocational rehabilitation. Yet many of them are capable of being independent and working effectively when they are well supported. Since they deal with several challenges due to their condition, high rates of unemployment or underemployment are very common among them. This chapter provides a view of the barriers that can affect the employment outcomes of this population and strategies (e.g., supported employment programs and technology-based interventions) for overcoming those barriers. In particular, the social deficits that characterize ASD may result in difficulty in developing and maintaining high-quality social skills and competence in communication, which are important for finding employment and staying in a work position.

Collaborative Learning Environments for Autistic Children in the Inclusive School

One of the major challenges facing inclusive education for children with ASD is the identification and the removal of barriers of learning, ranging from attitudinal barriers to those related to how we organize workspaces and the conception of educational resources. The collaborative approach is one of the most effective ways of learning, and it has the benefit to develop the culture of inclusion in schools. In fact, the major challenge of the system is to personalize the educational therapeutic approach, respectively to create learning environments that generate meaningful learning experiences for each beneficiary. When the authors refer to the personalization of inclusive learning environments during pandemic period, they think both of indoor environments, but also of outdoor environments, as well as virtual environments, models of innovative practices regarding the preparation and organization of personalized collaborative spaces both in classrooms and also in learning spaces from the community, having a multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approach in order to develop life skills.

Review on Contributing Factors to Anxiety in High-Functioning Autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are characterised by difficulties in social communication, by restricted, repetitive behaviour and interests. Autism is a highly heterogeneous disorder; high-functioning individuals with autism have average or higher intelligence and superficially normal language skills. The lack of intellectual disability does not mean that they can overcome inherent difficulties in social communication and interaction. They struggle to negotiate social interactions and manage daily tasks in a neurotypical world. They are at risk of experiencing mental health difficulties compared to general population. One of the most common mental health difficulties co-occurring with high-functioning autism is anxiety, which is associated with poor individual, family, and social outcomes. The chapter reviews studies on the contributing factors to anxiety in high-functioning autism. Psychological, cognitive, and social factors seem to be important, while there are indications for the existence of some neurobiological basis. It also considers ideas as to how to tackle anxiety.

A Thorough Presentation of Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2)

ADOS-2 is considered the gold standard observational instrument for use in the diagnosis and/or classification of autism and ASD. In this chapter, the process of assessment will be described, which involves direct observation and engagement of children and adults for whom an ASD is suspected. Specifically, an emphasis will be put on ADOS structure, namely the five different modules for the assessment. Then, the advantages of ADOS-2 will be elaborated as a diagnostic tool and a brief review of studies concerning its psychometric properties will be reported.

Mental Disorders in Children and Adolescents With Autism

Children and adolescents with autism frequently have symptoms of various mental disorders along with the features that define autism. Problems with anxiety, depression, emotion regulation, cognitive problems, and associated behavioural problems occur in children with autism of all ages. Overall, high rates of several psychiatric disorders have been reported in individuals with autism. Several authors have suggested cognitive and behaviour therapy (CBT) as a very useful intervention therapy, which can apply in schools, in order to help these children with autism and mental health disorders. It is also important the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and other computer programs to support students with autism in education. Therefore, with a coordinated effort to use this intervention program, schools have an opportunity to address the goals of improving social, emotional, and behavioural competence for these students and minimising the impact of established emotional, behavioural, or educational disorders.

Improving Communication in Children With ASD

Raising a child with ASD is generally considered a challenging experience for families due to the pervasive difficulties in communication, social skills, and other adaptive behaviors encountered in these children. The family system restructures and adapts to accommodate the needs of the child with ASD. In this chapter, the author highlights the importance of communication skills for the development of children with ASD and summarizes the evidence-based individual interventions for improving them. Although there is robust evidence for the family's beneficial contribution to developing adaptive communication skills in children with ASD, there is still room for uplifting the existing programs in terms of accessibility, efficacy, and culture-based elements. In the final part of the chapter, the author provides recommendations for designing future family interventions addressed to communication skills in children with ASD and argues that culture-specific and systemic factors (such as support policies for children with disabilities) enhance program success.

Approaches of Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Due to the heterogeneity of ASD population, many difficulties emerge when it comes to diagnosis of the disorder and even more difficulties regarding early detection. Specifically, early detection enables diagnosis to be made before the span of 24-30 months, the age where the official diagnosis is usually made. As it is known, earlier diagnosis is very crucial as children with ASD can benefit more from programs of early intervention. Taking all these into account, a brief review of the most popular approaches for early detection of ASD would be elaborated in order to raise awareness to health care professionals, clinicians, and parents. Moreover, in this chapter, the pros and the cons of each approach would be elaborated, and in the final part, some recommendations would be made concerning the process of early detection.

Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Paradigm of Neurodiversity

The new approaches for disability are characterized through respect towards the beneficiary. In practice, this means empowering the person with a disability or an association that fights for the rights to make choices about their personal life. Empowering a person with disabilities, trusting their potential, and encouraging them to look with optimism towards the future are just a few of the aspects of change. Involving the person in making decisions for themselves and promoting those changes that have an impact on the quality of life also has a pragmatic side in the sense that it requires considerable expenses. Several debates for child's rights and people's with disabilities rights proposed the definition of “rights for a future” (Crețu, 2006). The freedom of choice does not only represent a topic from the individualized intervention plan, but additionally refers to taking responsibility, taking ownership for what the person with a disability agreed with.

Technology-Aided Interventions to Reduce Challenging Behaviors for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display a variety of challenging behaviors, such as tantrums, aggression, stereotypy, and disruption. Challenging behaviors can have a serious negative impact on the development of social relations, in the learning process, and education. To this aim, there is a need for appropriate interventions in order to improve the quality of life of individuals with ASD. This chapter aims to provide data with regard to different types of interventions and technological tools used for the reduction of challenging behaviors of students with ASD. Functional communication training with the use of speech-generating devices, video self-modeling, self-monitoring with the use of technological devices, and social stories presented in electronic form reflect types of interventions used for challenging behavior reduction. Research data indicate that technology-aided interventions are generally effective in reducing challenging behaviors of students with ASD.