Koegel Researchers Claim to have successfully treat Autism in infants

Most infants respond to a game of peek-a-boo with smiles at the very least, and, for those who find the activity particularly entertaining, gales of laughter.

For infants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however, the game can be distressing rather than pleasant, and they'll do their best to tune out all aspects of it—and that includes the people playing with them.

That disengagement is a hallmark of ASD, and one of the characteristics that amplifies the disorder as infants develop into children and then adults.

A study conducted by researchers at the Koegel Autism Center at UC Santa Barbara has found that replacing such games in favour of those the infant prefers can actually lessen the severity of the infants' ASD symptoms, and, perhaps, alleviate the condition altogether.

Their work is highlighted the current issue of the Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions. Lynn Koegel, clinical director of the center and the study's lead author, described the game-playing protocol as a modified Pivotal Response Treatment (PVT).

Developed at UCSB, PRT is based on principles of positive motivation. The researchers identified the activities that seemed to be more enjoyable to the infants and taught the respective parents to focus on those rather than on the typical games they might otherwise choose.

"We had them play with their infants for short periods, and then give them some kind of social reward," Koegel said.

"Over time, we conditioned the infants to enjoy all the activities that were presented by pairing the less desired activities with the highly desired ones."

The social reward is preferable to, say, a toy, Koegel noted, because it maintains the ever-crucial personal interaction.

"The idea is to get them more interested in people," she continued, "to focus on their socialisation. If they're avoiding people and avoiding interacting, that creates a whole host of other issues.

They don't form friendships, and then they don't get the social feedback that comes from interacting with friends."

According to Koegel, by the end of the relatively short one- to three-month intervention period, which included teaching the parents how to implement the procedures, all the infants in the study had normal reactions to stimuli.

"Two of the three have no disabilities at all, and the third is very social," she said. "The third does have a language delay, but that's more manageable than some of the other issues."

On a large scale, Koegel hopes to establish some benchmark for identifying social deficits in infants so parents and health care providers can intervene sooner rather than later.

"We have a grant from the Autism Science Foundation to look at lots of babies and try to really figure out which signs are red flags, and which aren't," she said.

"A number of the infants who show signs of autism will turn out to be perfectly fine; but we're saying, let's not take the risk if we can put an intervention in play that really works. Then we don't have to worry about whether or not these kids would develop the full-blown symptoms of autism."

Historically, ASD is diagnosed in children 18 months or older, and treatment generally begins around 4 years. "You can pretty reliably diagnose kids at 18 months, especially the more severe cases," said Koegel.

"The mild cases might be a little harder, especially if the child has some verbal communication. There are a few measures –– like the ones we used in our study –– that can diagnose kids pre-language, even as young as six months.

But ours was the first that worked with children under 12 months and found an effective intervention." Given the increasing number of children being diagnosed with ASD, Koegel's findings could be life altering.

"When you consider that the recommended intervention for preschoolers with autism is 30 to 40 hours per week of one-on-one therapy, this is a fairly easy fix," she said.

"We did a single one-hour session per week for four to 12 weeks until the symptoms improved, and some of these infants were only a few months old. We saw a lot of positive change."

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Autism: Autistic Children omit inefficient actions

When a child with autism copies the actions of an adult, he or she is likely to omit anything 'inefficient' or "silly" about what they've just seen.

In contrast, typically developing children will go out of their way to repeat each and every element of the behaviour even as they may realise that parts of it don't make any sense.

The findings, reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 8, are the first to show that the social nature of imitation is very important and challenging for children with autism, the researchers say.

They also emphasise just how important it is for most children to be like other people.

Antonia Hamilton

"The data suggest that children with autism do things efficiently rather than socially, whereas typical children do things socially rather than efficiently," says Antonia Hamilton of the University of Nottingham.

"We find that typical children copy everything an adult does, whereas autistic children only do the actions they really need to do."

The researchers made the discovery after testing 31 children with autism spectrum conditions and 30 typically developing children who were matched for verbal mental age.

On each of five trials, each child was asked to watch carefully as a demonstrator showed how to retrieve a toy from a box or build a simple object.

Importantly, each demonstration included two necessary actions (e.g. unclipping and removing the box lid) and one unnecessary action (e.g. tapping the top of the box twice).

The box was then reset behind a screen and handed to the child, who was instructed to "get or make the toy as fast as you can." They were not specifically told to copy the behaviour they'd just seen.

Almost all of the children successfully reached the goal of getting or making the toy, but typically developing children were much more likely to include the unnecessary step as they did so, a behaviour known as over-imitation.

Those children copied 43 to 57 percent of the unnecessary actions, compared to 22 percent in the children with autism.

That's despite the fact that the children correctly identified the tapping action as "inefficient", "silly," or simply not "sensible."

Hamilton says the researchers now want to know precisely what kind of actions children copy, and how that tendency to copy everything might contribute to human cultural transmission of knowledge.

She says that parents and teachers should be aware of the social value in going beyond the successful completion of such tasks.

Reference
Children with autism do not overimitate. Current Biology, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.036

'Mean Girls' at college - Paying for the Party

You're not done with high school when you go to college, according to a new study of student culture.

An in-depth look at the lives of young women who started college on the same floor of a large dorm at a middle-tier public university shows that the high school peer culture that divides students into homecoming queens, wannabes and nerds thrives in college, to the disadvantage of many.

"Parents and college administrators are naively optimistic about the atmosphere for freshman women in large party dorms," said Elizabeth Armstrong, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who conducted the study with colleague Laura Hamilton of the University of California at Merced.

Laura Hamilton

"The pressures these young women encounter make it very difficult for them to focus on academics.

For many, the experience is not a good one, and we found that it can affect the trajectories of their lives for many years to come."

Armstrong and Hamilton immersed themselves in the lives of 53 women as they moved into their dorm, following them for five years to see how their lives developed.

Although only about a third of the women started their college years as socialites or wannabes, all of their lives were shaped by the dominance of the party pathway at this school.

The party pathway was a set of social and academic arrangements—including a powerful Greek party scene and an array of easy majors—facilitating a primarily social experience.

Even those who entered determined to succeed academically were judged by their success at attracting the attention of high-status men and making it into sororities.

This culture is often referred to as "the college experience," Armstrong says, but in fact it's an experience that many students would do well to avoid—or to participate in only a bit.

In a new book based on the study, "Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality," Armstrong and Hamilton detail the experiences of the women, who had a great deal in common when they entered college but whose situations were dramatically different down the road.

Emotional Quotient (EQ): Good for Leaders and Autism

Experts in the field of leadership believe that truly effective leaders possess a high level of emotional intelligence or emotional quotient (EQ) focusing on self and relationship management. 

It’s about social competence. Raising a child with autism can assist with elevating your own emotional intelligence.

The 5 Components of  EQ
Dr. Daniel Goleman, psychologist, brought EQ to the mainstream public in 1995. His research concluded that EQ is made up of five components:

1. self-awareness,
2. self-regulation,
3. motivation,
4. empathy and
5. social skills.

Those with a high sense of self-awareness understand how their emotions impact others and their job performance; they can regulate their feelings successfully. 

How we manage our emotions or regulate them makes the difference for leadership success. 

Goleman states that without EQ, a person can have the best training, analytical mind and be good technically, but won’t make a great leader. 

Some leaders possess these traits naturally; however, can EQ be learned?

How to Teach EQ
As Lori Ciccarelli started training leaders in the corporate setting with regard to EQ, she realised that there was not much offered on “how” to raise EQ. 

There are countless articles and books that address “what” it is but no real tools offered to improve EQ. 

Lori started thinking about tools used with Social Cognitive Deficit Disorders (SCDD) since it is about social competence. 

Over the decades these tools became ingrained in her as she taught her son, which in turn assisted in raising her own EQ. 

The best way to learn is to teach. Since the components that support EQ equate to social competence, then why couldn’t these tools used for SCDD work to raise EQ? 

Lori Ciccarelli started bringing forward these techniques in her leadership and customer service development trainings which have proven to be very successful. 

Those who attend her classes are, generally, excited to head back to their jobs with new tools for success.

• Empathy: Tools that have shown success include Michelle Garcia Winners’ perspective-taking behavioural map to enhance empathy. This tool helps one visually and concretely map out behaviors by showing “how” it can make others feel and the consequences or outcomes associated with them. Taking it a step further, you can ask your audience to develop a plan in which to better display empathy, the next time.

• Social Skills: Another effective strategy to help develop appropriate social skills was created by Winners; imaginary “friend files” in the brain. This technique helps store information about others to help initiate conversations. This interactive exercise of getting to know someone by interviewing them, writing down three items about that person, and then storing the information in an imaginary file in the brain help to initiate future conversations. Also, one can keep a journal or card index file to help organise “friend” information.

• Self Regulation: The Incredible 5-point Scale developed by Kari Dunn Buron and Mitzi Curtis can help regulate moods recognising and managing emotional responses. This tool focuses on the “how” by rating the mood on a scale according to intensity and matching it to solutions. According to the authors, how we act, react, and interact in difficult situations depends on our ability to quickly and efficiently assess what is happening and consider the consequences of our actions. This tool can be extremely effective.

As we focus on social competence for our kids with Social Cognitive Deficit Disorders, we can also benefit by raising our own emotional intelligence. A key to effective leadership.

BiPolar Disorder: Cannabis increases neuro-cognitive performance

According to a study published online in the journal Psychiatry Research, individuals with bipolar disorder who used cannabis showed higher neuro-cognitive performance than patients who did not use cannabis.

The Researchers; The Zucker Hillside Hospital in Long Island, NY, in collaboration with a team at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

They examined the difference in cognitive performance among 50 individuals with bipolar disorder who had a history of cannabis use, with 150 bipolar patients who had no history of cannabis use.

Both groups of patients were similar in age at bipolar onset. In addition, the groups did not differ in racial background, age, or highest education level achieved.

The team discovered that patients who used cannabis showed superior neuro-cognitive performance than those who did not. However, patients who used cannabis did not differ considerably on estimates of premorbid IQ.

The researchers explained: "Results from our analysis suggest that subjects with bipolar disorder and history of (cannabis use) demonstrate significantly better neurocognitive performance, particularly on measures of attention, processing speed, and working memory.

These findings are consistent with a previous study that demonstrated that bipolar subjects with history of cannabis use had superior verbal fluency performance as compared to bipolar patients without a history of cannabis use.

Similar results have also been found in schizophrenia in several studies."

They concluded, "The data could be interpreted to suggest that cannabis use may have a beneficial effect on cognitive functioning in patients with severe psychiatric disorders.

However, it is also possible that these findings may be due to the requirement for a certain level of cognitive function and related social skills in the acquisition of illicit drugs."

What is Bipolar Disorder?  
Bipolar disorder, more commonly known in the past as manic depression or manic depressive illness, is a mental disorder in which the patient has mood instability, often severe. In severe cases the illness can be very disabling, psychologically and socially.

An individual with bipolar disorder typically has unusual shifts in mood, energy, and the ability to function - these changes can last for weeks and sometimes months.

The fluctuations present in bipolar disorder are much more severe than the "ups-and-downs" we all go through. The changes are much steeper and last longer.

They can damage relationships, destroy job prospects, and undermine school performance. Some patients find their symptoms so unbearable that they attempt to commit suicide.

Teacher Robots may become the future in elementary schools

We’ve been promised for years that robots will soon move from factories into our everyday lives and yet so far, nothing.

In addition to dexterity and the ability to walk, one of the biggest hurdles to personal robotics has been human-machine interaction.

For a machine to enter human space, it has to understand certain niceties and if a robot with social skills can be built, it could have a huge effect on our classrooms.

An ideal social robot responds not just to what you say, but to how you say it, factoring in social cues like intonation, gestures, and facial expressions.

The robot can then respond with appropriate body language. We take this kind of interaction for granted in science fiction.

In reality, it looks like Leonardo, a robot built by MIT’s Cynthia Breazeal that smiles and reaches for a puppet that he’s told is good, or Kismet, who hangs his head in shame when scolded.

We like treating robots as though they are people. Even with today’s simplest robots, researchers have seen study participants give their machines names and carry on one-sided conversations with them.

Compare that to the ambivalence people feel about their computer screens and it’s easy to see the potential for robots to keep people engaged.

Our affinity for robots also appears to affect how we learn from them. Researchers at Yale recently found that people doing cognitive tasks like logic puzzles (in this case nonograms) learn more effectively when guided by a physical robot than they do with the same help from an on-screen avatar.

The study doesn’t draw conclusions as to why the physical robot was a more effective teacher than its on-screen version, but one guess is that the physical presence of a teaching robot lends it a degree of authority that participants didn’t sense from the digital instructors.

The way we divide the world between animate and inanimate objects plays a major role in how we learn, says Yale professor Brian Scassellati, who worked on the study.

We’re used to identifying computers as inanimate and teachers as animate, but social robots don’t fit neatly into either category.

Their physical presence and interactivity make them seem animate without actually being alive, and they can respond to people and social cues, but often only in fixed and superficial ways.

A National Science Foundation project led by Scassellati, Breazeal and USC professor Maja Mataric aims to push these limits.

The team is working to develop robots that can help children with disabilities learn social and cognitive skills.

To carry out meaningful interactions, though, these robots have to be able to learn on their own so they can understand an individual’s personality traits and social cues.

Juyang Weng, co-founder of Michigan State University’s Embodied Intelligence Laboratory, is studying how robotic learning and cognitive development can look more like human learning in order to strengthen the connection between children and robot teachers.

Traditional robots, even ones used in education, aren’t really interactive, he says, but are often just a new interface for familiar computer programs.

Creating artificial intelligence based on learning and social skills, though, will set a new standard for interactive educational technologies.

“Eventually if a robot can develop its mind, then the robot can be a very close friend of a child,” Weng says. “The robot can be a teacher in a very fundamental way.”

Yes, it may still be a long time before children learn their ABC's in the robotic classroom but moving social robots from science fiction to reality promises to be a powerful force for education.