Connections Between Parental Involvement and Treatment of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)


Book Description

This Special Issue is about connections between Parental Involvement and the Treatment of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Scholars from different parts of the world and with different professional backgrounds contributed to this book.




Interprofessional Care Coordination for Pediatric Autism Spectrum Disorder


Book Description

This book addresses the importance and relevance of interprofessional care coordination for children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It covers the role of interprofessional collaborations across various settings for multiple service provision purposes. The volume examines interprofessional collaboration among professionals across such broad issues as screening, evaluation, intervention, and overall care management of ASD. In addition, the book explores more narrowly focused issues, such as providing transition services during early childhood and young adulthood, culturally responsive practice and advocacy issues for individuals with ASD from diverse backgrounds, and providing care for individuals with ASD and co-occurring trauma. Finally, the book concludes with the editors’ recommendations for future directions in interprofessional care for pediatric ASD. Topics featured in this book include: Autism screening tools and interdisciplinary coordination of the processes. Dell Children’s (S)TAAR Model of Early Autism Assessment. The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM). Transition from early schooling for youth with ASD. Postsecondary and vocational opportunities for youth with autism. Transitioning from pediatric to adult medical systems. International perspectives in coordinated care for individuals with ASD. Psychopharmacology of ASD. Interprofessional Care Coordination for Pediatric Autism Spectrum Disorder is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians and professionals, and graduate students in clinical child and school psychology, social work, behavioral therapy and related disciplines, including clinical medicine, clinical nursing, counseling, speech and language pathology, and special education.




Healthcare for Children on the Autism Spectrum


Book Description

Although children with an ASD disorder can be as healthy as other children, keeping them that way can be a challenge. Autism experts offer parents information for dealing with these challenges and understanding on what's most important to their child's medical, nutritional, and behavioural well-being.







Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults


Book Description

In this book a group of international experts guide the reader through the clinical features of adults with autism spectrum disorders, describe the care needs of patients and their families, explain the evolution of the disorders into old age, and highlight what can be done to help. Detailed attention is paid to the medical and psychiatric problems of adults with these disorders and the approach to their education and professional integration. In addition, expert neuroscientists summarize current views on the neurobiology of autism. Autism spectrum disorders are devastating neurodevelopmental disorders. Although diagnosis and therapeutic interventions usually take place in infancy, they are chronic lifelong conditions. Surprisingly, the literature on autism spectrum disorders in adults is scarce. Moreover, most mental health professionals working with adults have little training in autism, and adult mental health services around the world are rarely prepared to address the needs of these patients, which tend to increase with age. This book therefore fills a crucial gap in the literature and will prove useful for all who care for and deal with adults in the Autistic Spectrum.




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




Health Systems Performance Assessment


Book Description

The World Health Report 2000 has generated considerable media attention, controversy in some countries, and debate in academic journals. This volume brings together in one place the substance of many of these key debates and reports, methodological advances, and new empiricism reflecting the evolution of the WHO approach since the year 2000. Specifically, the volume presents many differing regional and technical perspectives on key issues, major new methodological developments, and a quantum increase in the empirical basis for cross-country performance assessment. It also gives the full report of the Scientific Peer Review Group's exhaustive assessment of these new approaches.




Designing and Constructing Instruments for Social Research and Evaluation


Book Description

Written in easy-to-understand language, this important text provides a systematic and commonsense approach to developing instruments for data collection and analysis. This book can be used by both those who are developing instruments for the first time and those who want to hone their skills, including students, agency personnel, program managers, and researchers. This book provides a thorough presentation of instrument construction, from conception to development and pre-testing of items, formatting the instrument, administration, and, finally, data management and presentation of the findings. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize how to create an instrument that will produce trustworthy and accurate data. To that end they have included guidelines for reviewing and revising the questionnaire to enhance validity and reliability. They also show how to work effectively with stakeholders such as instruments designers, decision-makers, agency personnel, clients, and raters or respondents.




Handbook of Life Course Health Development


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.




The Cambridge Handbook of Acculturation Psychology


Book Description

In recent years the topic of acculturation has evolved from a relatively minor research area to one of the most researched subjects in the field of cross-cultural psychology. This edited handbook compiles and systemizes the current state of the art by exploring the broad international scope of acculturation. A collection of the world's leading experts in the field review the various contexts for acculturation, the central theories, the groups and individuals undergoing acculturation (immigrants, refugees, indigenous people, expatriates, students and tourists) and discuss how current knowledge can be applied to make both the process and its outcome more manageable and profitable. Building on the theoretical and methodological framework of cross-cultural psychology, the authors focus specifically on the issues that arise when people from one culture move to another culture and the reciprocal adjustments, tensions and benefits involved.