The Joint Attention Movement And Parents Jamp Program For Children With Autism

Autism is a life-long neurological and developmental disorder of unknown etiology, with a current prevalence rate of approximately 10 to 16 cases per 10,000 people (Volker & Lopata, 2008). According to the DSM-IV, even the highest functioning adults with Autistic Disorder typically continue to display disturbances in social interaction and communication, along with markedly restricted interests and activities (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Restricted activities frequently involve engaging in repetitive and rhythmic movements such as rocking and arm flapping. Furthermore, children with autism (CWA) demonstrate grossly impaired functioning in non-verbal communicative behaviors such as eye gaze, facial expressions, body postures, and gestures and tend not to engage in the simple imitation games or routines of infancy and early childhood. The above-mentioned skills, which are prefaced and shaped by the ability to imitate, are now identified as joint attention. By definition, joint attention is the ability to coordinate between an object and a person in a social context through the use of pre-verbal language, such as pointing, showing, body positioning and coordinated looks in order to engage in a shared experience with another. Joint attention has been the subject of much investigation because of its hypothesized functional relation to the deficits in language, social development, play and emotional reciprocity. These non-verbal, movement based abilities, which initially develop with primary caregivers during the first years of life, are necessary for learning about one's self, others and the environment and function as the building blocks to higher order cognitive and social abilities. Because of its early recognizable onset occurring prior to verbal language acquisition, joint attention has become an increasingly important diagnostic and treatment tool with regard to autism. It is speculated that parents of CWA spend an alarming $72, 000 a year in treatment and therapy. Intensive one-on-one applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, speech therapy, music therapy occupational and/or physical therapy, medical treatment, special diets and educational tutoring are just a few of the many services and interventions that children with autism may receive on a weekly basis along side of the education and services provided during their school day. As a result of numerous therapy sessions, children with autism experience very intensive schedules with little room for recuperation and socialization with primary caregivers and learning in their natural environment. Recent information provided by The National Research Council (NRC), after a thorough investigation of several state-of-the-art intervention programs for children with ASD, revealed that parent training was a critical part of high-quality intervention programs for children with ASD (NRC, 2001). In addition to it being a critical component to interventions for CWA, it is also cost effective for parents. The current program has been designed to address and treat the language, communication and socialization deficits found in autism in children 18 months to 30 months of age. The primary goal of the program is to train parents of children with autism to establish joint attention skills as well as provide the dyad with the opportunity to share appropriate developmental bonding and interactions. A second component of the program is to provide child participants with the opportunity to practice and generalize joint attention skills across environments and people during group dance/movement therapy sessions. Following a naturalistic approach to teaching, the program will utilize the techniques and interventions found within a dance/movement therapy framework. As defined by the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA), Dance/movement therapy (DMT) is the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process, which furthers the emotional, cognitive, social and physical integration of the individual. A main component of DMT that will be employed in the program is the use of rhythm. Rhythm is utilized as a co-operative imitation in the development of language, social awareness, empathy and theory of mind. Throughout the course of 11 consecutive months, treatment will consist of intensive individual sessions with the parent, child and clinician, small and large group dance/movement therapy sessions with other peers and caregivers in the program and ongoing training workshops for caregivers. It is hypothesized that CWA will develop increased levels of communication, social engagement, language, and empathy as a result of parent training. Additionally, it is expected that parent's stress levels will subsequently decrease.

Includes bibliographical references

Generalization of social behaviors is a vital component of human behavior. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder often show symptomology that includes impairment in social behavior and failure to generalize behavior on the whole. Initiation of joint attention is a social behavior that can be understood as a behavior cusp and worthy of intervention to promote development. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy has been studied in recent years for its efficacy in treating some dimensions of Autism Spectrum Disorder in children and adolescence. The current study sought to explore the efficacy of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy in promoting the generalization of initiation of joint attention in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder across adult/child dyads. Data showed that PCIT was both effective in producing initiation of joint attention and in producing generalization of joint attention.

Attention Intervention (JAI) conducted by graduate researcher, parent, and caregiver, would change the use of joint attention (JA) by a three-year-old suspected of having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The participant was a threeyearold child suspected of having ASD. Intervention was conducted twice per week for 30-45 minute duration by the student graduate researcher at a university clinic under the supervisor of Dr. Bonnie Berg, CCCSLP. The parent and child's caregiver were trained in JAI and implemented the intervention daily in the home environment. The author's research question was, "Will the use of a JAI parentmediated intervention model increase the JA of a three-year-old suspected of having ASD over a bi-weekly 5 week intervention period?" Following JAI, JA use to respond to JA was inconsistent, but the child increased her ability to initiate JA acts. The child's expressive language also increased throughout the study.

Early intervention is a critical component of efforts to optimize outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their families. One promising target for early intervention is joint attention, an early developing social-cognitive competency that is foundational to many other social, communicative, and cognitive skills; and a core deficit in children with ASD. While joint attention interventions are gaining interest among researchers, many are limited by their failure to situate joint attention development within the caregiver-child relationship and to adequately examine child and caregiver outcomes and transactional processes. The purpose of this study was to examine changes in child and caregiver joint attention actions and transactions across the course of a parent-mediated joint attention intervention. The Child-Caregiver Joint Attention coding system was developed and applied to videotaped caregiver-child interaction sessions from all phases of the Joint Attention Mediated Learning intervention. Participants included five mothers and their toddler aged sons. Joint attention actions examined included gaze alternations, pointing, showing, joint attention responding, and joint attention initiating for both children and caregivers. Four of five children demonstrated increases in gaze alternations, joint attention responding, and joint attention initiating by the end of the intervention. Three caregivers demonstrated increases in gaze alternations and joint attention responding, and four displayed increases in joint attention initiating. There was no clear pattern of change across children or caregivers in pointing or showing. All participants, with the exception of one caregiver, responded to a higher percentage of opportunities for joint attention in the final intervention phase than in Baseline, suggesting that most participants became more responsive to their social partners by the end of the intervention. The findings of this study suggest that parent-mediated joint attention interventions have the potential to promote changes in both child and caregiver joint attention actions and transactional relationships. Future research should continue to examine outcomes for both children and primary caregivers and changes in child-caregiver transactions over the course of different types of joint attention interventions in order to inform intervention development and selection, and explore mechanisms for change.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of a joint attention intervention program on improving joint attention and communication skills in children with autism disorder. Participants were ten children between the ages of five and seven who attended a school for children with developmental disabilities (Tarbya Fekrya ). A pre-post design was used to examine the joint attention intervention program on on improving joint attention and communication skills of the target students. Findings from this study indicated the effectiveness of the joint attention intervention program on joint attention and communication skills in children with autism disorder. On the basis of the findings, the study advocated for the effectiveness of the joint attention intervention program on joint attention and communication skills in children with autism disorder.

There are millions of people who experience issues related to brain health—depression, attention issues, anxiety, forgetfulness, fatigue, and even chronic pain—yet can’t figure out what’s causing their problems and can’t find any relief. They may have seen a myriad of doctors, many of whom do not take their complaints seriously, or worse, turn to the easy, often inappropriate fix of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications. Traditional medications, supplements, or other therapies haven’t worked. No matter what their age—from children to teens or seniors—people and their loved ones are frustrated, scared, and confused by their continued poor health. Countless others display severe psychiatric symptoms that seem to come out of nowhere, ranging from tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviors and anxiety, to depression, bipolar-like mood swings, and even borderline personality disorder and suicidal ideas. Sometimes, the people affected are the only ones that notices a change to the way they think or feel, and they suffer in silence. Or, they reach out to try to get help, and are all too frequently misdiagnosed. David Younger, a world-renowned physician, provides relief to these patients and their families. His diagnostic techniques and treatment protocols will help readers identify the true cause of their symptoms and put them on a clear path to healing so they no longer feel unbalanced, out of control, forgetful, and exhausted. The Autoimmune Brain connects common brain health symptoms to the changes in the immune system, and particularly bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections. Younger explains his groundbreaking research and adds a new component: how traumatic stress (whether physical or emotional) and genetics affects this same triad as inextricable factors in initiating disease and brain health symptoms. In fact, a change in personality, behavior, coping style, and one’s emotional state may be the first clue that there is a health problem brewing somewhere else in the body. Readers will find new answers to troubling conditions, including: Alzheimer’s disease; Anxiety; Arthritis; Autism; Autonomic disturbances; Bacterial and viral infections; Bipolar Disorder; Cancer; Celiac disease and gluten intolerances; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now referred to as Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease); Chronic Pain; Dementia; Depression; Endocrine Disorders; Immune modulatory therapy using IVIg; Lyme disease and co-infections; Mast cell activation syndrome; Medical cannabis; Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Orthostatic hypotension; Peripheral Neuropathy; Porphyria; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; and Postural orthostatic tachycardia.

The aim of the book is to serve for clinical, practical, basic and scholarly practices. In twentyfive chapters it covers the most important topics related to Autism Spectrum Disorders in the efficient way and aims to be useful for health professionals in training or clinicians seeking an update. Different people with autism can have very different symptoms. Autism is considered to be a "spectrum" disorder, a group of disorders with similar features. Some people may experience merely mild disturbances, while the others have very serious symptoms. This book is aimed to be used as a textbook for child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship training and will serve as a reference for practicing psychologists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, general psychiatrists, pediatricians, child neurologists, nurses, social workers and family physicians. A free access to the full-text electronic version of the book via Intech reading platform at http://www.intechweb.org is a great bonus.

This book is a product of the Third International Conference on Computing, Mathematics and Statistics (iCMS2017) to be held in Langkawi in November 2017. It is divided into four sections according to the thrust areas: Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and Multidisciplinary Applications. All sections sought to confront current issues that society faces today. The book brings collectively quantitative, as well as qualitative, research methods that are also suitable for future research undertakings. Researchers in Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics can use this book as a sourcebook to enrich their research works.