Developing IDEAS: supporting children with autism within a participatory design team

IDEAS (Interface Design Experience for the Autistic Spectrum) is a method for involving children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the technology design process. This paper extends the IDEAS method to enable use with a design team, providing specific added support for communication and collaboration difficulties that may arise. A study to trial this extended method was conducted with two design teams, each involving three children with ASD, in a series of six, weekly design sessions focused on designing a math game. The findings from this study reveal that the children were able to successfully participate in the sessions and collaborate with other children. The findings also highlight the positive experience that involvement in such a process can offer this population

A preliminary investigation into modelling the impact of measures to reduce child poverty in Scotland

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act provides targets for child poverty that must be reached by 2030/31. The next Child Poverty Delivery Plan, setting out the next tranche of policies to move towards the targets is due in Spring 2022. One crucial element of the success of this plan will be the extent to which it can demonstrate progress towards the targets. To do this requires a modelling approach that takes account of a range of factors across a range of policies related to social security, housing and work. In addition, the cost and implications across the wider economy are also critical pieces of information that will ensure a credible plan is in place to meet the targets. This modelling capacity was not available for the last Child Poverty Delivery Plan in 2018, meaning that it was not possible to judge the extent to which progress towards the targets would be met. With the devolution of new powers over the course of the last parliament, there is an urgent need for the development of modelling capacity to fulfil the requirements of policy makers and stakeholders in this area. Building the modelling capacity which adequately takes into account the specifics of the devolution settlement and Scottish context is a significant undertaking. The Poverty and Inequality Commission, in funding this work, have allowed the Fraser of Allander Institute (FAI) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) to build a modelling framework that can start to answer key policy questions with regards to how the child poverty targets can be met, along with the wider impact on the economy of the type of policies that will be required. This report provides an overview of the development of modelling capacity to date. It includes a linkage to a macrosimulation model to help understand the wider impact on the economy. This work is a significant step towards consolidating the knowledge and skills required for credible modelling for policy development and scrutiny ahead of the next Child Poverty Delivery Plan. However, the results, although based on robust data and modelling, are based on hypothetical policy scenarios. Therefore, this report on its own does to provide a credible route map for meeting the targets. With the development of this preliminary stage of model development complete, we now have a firm basis for future, more complex, modelling work that can provide helpful solutions to the question of how the targets could be reached. Although modelling cannot provide all the answers, and indeed some evidence gaps remain, it is a crucial tool in the development of evidence-based policy. This report provides a large amount of technical information to help provide sufficient detail required for those interested in the modelling approach. For others, the first three sections should provide enough of an overview for anyone who wishes to gain a basic understanding of how the work has been approached and the key (hypothetical) results based on this preliminary development work

Enhanced olfactory sensitivity in autism spectrum conditions

BACKGROUND: People with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) report heightened olfaction. Previous sensory experiments in people with ASC have reported hypersensitivity across visual, tactile, and auditory domains, but not olfaction. The aims of the present study were to investigate olfactory sensitivity in ASC, and to test the association of sensitivity to autistic traits. METHODS: We recruited 17 adult males diagnosed with ASC and 17 typical adult male controls and tested their olfactory sensitivity using the Alcohol Sniff Test (AST), a standardised clinical evaluation of olfactory detection. The AST involves varying the distance between subject and stimulus until an odour is barely detected. Participants with ASC also completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) as a measure of autism traits. RESULTS: The ASC group detected the odour at a mean distance of 24.1 cm (SD =11.5) from the nose, compared to the control group, who detected it at a significantly shorter mean distance of 14.4 cm (SD =5.9). Detection distance was independent of age and IQ for both groups, but showed a significant positive correlation with autistic traits in the ASC group (r =0.522). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first experimental demonstration, as far as the authors are aware, of superior olfactory perception in ASC and showing that greater olfactory sensitivity is correlated with a higher number of autistic traits. This is consistent with results from previous findings showing hypersensitivity in other sensory domains and may help explain anecdotal and questionnaire accounts of heightened olfactory sensitivity in ASC. Results are discussed in terms of possible underlying neurophysiology

The impact of using an income supplement to meet child poverty targets : evidence from Scotland

In 2017 the Scottish Government passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act with the commitment to significantly reduce the relative child poverty rate from the current prevailing level of around 25% to 10% by 2030/31. In response, the government introduced the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) that provides a direct transfer to households at a fixed rate per eligible child – currently £25 per week. In this paper we explore, using a micro to macro modelling approach, the effectiveness of using the SCP to achieve the Scottish child poverty targets. While we find that the ambitious child poverty targets can technically be met solely using the SCP, the necessary payment of £165 per week amounting to a total government cost of £3 billion per year, makes the political and economy-wide barriers significant. A key issue with only using the SCP is the non-linearity in the response to the payment; as the payment increase the marginal gain in the reduction of child poverty decreases – this is particularly evident after payments of £80 per week. A ‘policy-mix’ option combining the SCP, targeted cash transfers and other policy levels (such as childcare provision) seems the most promising approach to reaching the child poverty targets

The impact of using an income supplement to meet child poverty targets

In 2017 the Scottish Government passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act with the commitment to significantly reduce the relative child poverty rate from the current prevailing level of around 25% to 10% by 2030/31. In response, the government introduced the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) that provides a direct transfer to households at a fixed rate per eligible child – currently £25 per week. In this paper we explore, using a micro to macro modelling approach, the effectiveness of using the SCP to achieve the Scottish child poverty targets. While we find that the ambitious child poverty targets can technically be met solely using the SCP, the necessary payment of £165 per week amounting to a total government cost of £3 billion per year, makes the political and economy-wide barriers significant. A key issue with only using the SCP is the non-linearity in the response to the payment; as the payment increase the marginal gain in the reduction of child poverty decreases – this is particularly evident after payments of £80 per week. A ‘policy-mix’ option combining the SCP, targeted cash transfers and other policy levels (such as childcare provision) seems the most promising approach to reaching the child poverty targets

A pilot study of ADRA2A genotype association with doses of dexmedetomidine for sedation in pediatric patients.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Dexmedetomidine is titrated to achieve sedation in the pediatric and cardiovascular intensive care units (PICU and CVICU). In adults, dexmedetomidine response has been associated with an ADRA2A polymorphism (rs1800544); CC genotype is associated with an increased sedative response compared with GC and GG. To date, this has not been studied in children. DESIGN: We conducted a pilot study to determine whether ADRA2A genotype is associated with dexmedetomidine dose in children. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Forty intubated PICU or CVICU patients who received dexmedetomidine as a continuous infusion for at least 2 days were genotyped for ADRA2A with a custom-designed TaqMan® Assay. Ten (25%) subjects were wildtype (GG), 15 (37.5%) were heterozygous (GC), and 15 (37.5%) were homozygous (CC) variant. The maximum dexmedetomidine doses (mCg/kg/h) were not different between genotype groups CC (1, 0.3-1.2), GC (1, 0.3-1.3), and GG (0.8, 0.3-1.2), (p = 0.37); neither were mean dexmedetomidine doses for these respective genotype groups 0.68 (0.24-1.07), 0.72 (0.22-0.98), 0.58 (0.3-0.94), (p = 0.67). CONCLUSIONS: These findings did not confirm the results from adult studies where ADRA2A polymorphisms correlate with dexmedetomidine response, therefore highlighting the need for pediatric studies to validate PGx findings in adults prior to implementation in pediatrics

Modelling Packages to Meet Scotland's Child Poverty Targets : Scenarios, Benefits and Trade-offs

Around 1 in 4 children in Scotland live in relative poverty. This means they live in a household with an income 60% below the UK median income after housing costs have been deducted. Child poverty can have serious and lifelong impacts across a range of outcomes, and the Scottish Government have stated their aim to reduce significantly the incidence of child poverty. The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 includes a target to reduce relative child poverty to 10% by 2030/31. The baseline child poverty level is estimated to be 25% in 2020 compared to 24% in the most recent period (2017- 20). Meeting the target would represent an unprecedented reduction in child poverty to levels not seen in Scotland certainly since the early 1990s when the current statistical series began. Our latest report looks at some of the large, national level, devolved policy levers that the Scottish Government could use to meet the targets. We have focussed on childcare, employability programmes and social security. These are not the only options that the Scottish Government could take forward but are examples of structural policies that are capable of having a significant impact on household incomes and are Scotland wide in their reach

Fetal Testosterone Predicts Sexually Differentiated Childhood Behavior in Girls and in Boys

ABSTRACT—Mammals, including humans, show sex differences in juvenile play behavior. In rodents and nonhuman primates, these behavioral sex differences result, in part, from sex differences in androgens during early development. Girls exposed to high levels of androgen prenatally, because of the genetic disorder congenital adrenal hyperplasia, show increased male-typical play, suggesting similar hormonal influences on human development, at least in females. Here, we report that fetal testosterone measured from amniotic fluid relates positively to male-typical scores on a standardized questionnaire measure of sextypical play in both boys and girls. These results show, for the first time, a link between fetal testosterone and the development of sex-typical play in children from the general population, and are the first data linking high levels of prenatal testosterone to increased male-typical play behavior in boys. Sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain occurs under the control of gonadal hormones, particularly androgens, during early development (De Vries & Simerly, 2002; Ehrhardt &amp