Social Skills Group for Adults Living with Intellectual Disabilities

This work presents the results obtained with a therapeutic social skills group for adults living with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric co-morbidities. The concept of social skill is used in cognitive behavioral therapy approaches. For the last four years in the community psychiatry unit within the department of psychiatry of mental development, we have organized social skills groups. These groups are meant for ambulatory patients with intellectual impairments and psychiatric co-morbidities in conjunction with a lack of social skills. Each patient is under individual cognitive behavioral therapy treatment, which makes it possible to precisely evaluate the issues and the patient's expectations. In addition to the individual sessions, the patients participate in a monthly semi-open selfaffirmation group. Each patient completes a variety of questionnaires and scales which serve as a baseline, as well as questionnaires at the end of each session to provide information about the dynamic of the group and its progressio

Social Skills Group For Adults Living With Asperger's Syndrome

This work presents the results obtained in a therapeutic social skills group of adults living with Asperger's Syndrome (ASD). The treatment consists in a regular participation in specifically designed groups. Patients meeting the criteria for ASD have been selected with no psychiatric comorbidity and were thus able to optimal group interaction. They were suffering significant anxiety symptoms supposed to lead to inadequate social skills as well as to result from them. Requisite participation included ten sessions in group discussions of topics propose by the patients themselves. Special attention was accord to train the patients in detecting possible functional analysis processes leading to increasing anxiety and in training social skills. The paper concentrates in three assessments by the patient themselves of four different scales (anxiety, depression, self-esteem and social skills in daily life) allowing to the comparison of baseline level (before session 1) with short term (immediately after the last session) and long term benefits of training (3 months later). These different measures revealed significant long term improvement in the patients. These results are important because they consist in training the patients in self-help. They might also contribute to better understanding of the ASD by the scientific community as well as by the patients themselves. Finally, long term treatments such as proposed here are more likely to extend the improvement of the patients' well-being to their social environment, family and professional one. It is thus both a clinical and a theoretically relevant research effort

CBT of a Person Living in a Situation of Mental Handicap and Presenting an Anxiety Disorder Coupled with a Specific Phobia

The prevalence of anxiety disorders within a population presenting an intellectual deficiency is 43%. The integrated multimodal approach highlights different predisposing risk factors: vulnerability and its consequences on adaptive behaviors and deficits in the learning process; interactions with the environment. Negative experiences and a weak perception of control lead to a higher failure expectation, resulting in an increase in anxiety for the handicapped person. On the other hand, environment, family and professionals may induce responses of dependency, fear and avoidance, and consequently, a decrease of opportunities to develop social and emotional skills. The cognitive-behavioral therapy was adapted to the patient. The therapeutic alliance with the patient, as well as with his family and professionals, was the keystone and the required condition for the therapy procedure. The functional analysis underlined three therapeutic axes: 1) a work on the physiological reactions of anxiety and the train phobia, using the reaction management techniques 2) A work on cognitive restructuration. 3) A work on the behavior during exposure to the anxiety-inducing situation. Simultaneously, the patient received an antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication. Other skills and techniques were used: eye tracking (ASL mobile) to point out the patient resources; the psycho-educative approach using the "heart mat" (cardiac coherence) as a mediator to share the understanding of the situation; a motivational approach for the exposure planning; and the PEUR model, used in group therapies to divide the therapy into sequences, thus fostering self-control. Measurements at frequent and regular intervals have shown the rapid evolution of the patient and the pertinence of the cognitive-behavioral approach during therapies for persons living in a situation of mental handicap and presenting concomitant mental disorders

Psychotherapy for Adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Objective: This is an unconventional manuscript that attempts to outline a theory of caetextia for adults with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), based on hemispheric dominance due to impaired parallel processing. To take context into consideration, a person must be able to concentrate on and separate out his attention across different elements of a given situation. This is a process of dynamic sensory integration. Yet the deficits and strategies developed by these patients differ according to whether their dominant hemisphere is the right or the left one. Method: By looking at two case studies for didactical purposes, we will attempt to interpret these differences and construct a specific therapeutic approach. Conclusions: The detection of this disability as well as the therapeutic approaches must thus be adapted to this dimension of the disorder. We shall attempt to interpret the differences and design a specific therapeutic plan

Is Storytelling Therapy Useful for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Severe Mental Retardation?

Numerous studies highlight the importance of therapeutic context when learning social skills for young ASD patients. Therapy approaches become more complex when the situation involves young ASD patients with a severe mental disability. Indeed, when working with this population, it is difficult to get their attention and have them mimic actions (through video modeling, for example) or interact with peers on a playground. Nevertheless, our study tried to demonstrate the possibility of working on the social skills of young ASD patients with a severe mental disability using a therapeutic storytelling approach. The study involved 10 children (average age of 10.6 +/- 2 years). All study participants were diagnosed with ASD and severe mental retardation. 62 sessions divided across two years and twenty repeated assessments were taken during this study, and the results obtained show that the children learned, in a significant way, to imitate the story's actions. They also significantly reduced their behavioral issues. A physiological assessment (eye-tracking) was taken both pre and post-test during the storytelling workshop. The results obtained confirmed a significant increase in attention given to the storytelling scene

Discovery of an albite gneiss from the Ile de Groix (Armorican Massif, France): geochemistry and LA-ICP-MS U-Pb geochronology of its Ordovician protolith

For the first time, an albite orthogneiss has been recognised and dated within the HP-LT blueschist facies metabasites and metapelites of the Ile de Groix. It is characterised by a peraluminous composition, high LILE, Th and U contents, MORB-like HREE abundances and moderate Nb and Y values. A U-Pb age of 480.8±4.8Ma was obtained by LA-ICP-MS dating of zircon and titanite. It is interpreted as the age of the magmatic emplacement during the Early Ordovician. Morphologically different zircon grains yield late Neoproterozoic ages of 546.6-647.4Ma. Zircon and titanite U-Pb ages indicate that the felsic magmatism from the Ile de Groix is contemporaneous with the acid, pre-orogenic magmatism widely recognised in the internal zones of the Variscan belt, related to the Cambro-Ordovician continental rifting. The magmatic protolith probably inherited a specific chemical composition from a combination of orogenic, back-arc and anorogenic signatures because of partial melting of the Cadomian basement during magma emplacement. Besides, the late Devonian U-Pb age of 366±33Ma obtained for titanite from a blueschist facies metapelite corresponds to the age of the HP-LT peak metamorphis

Trace Element Partitioning in HP-LT Metamorphic Assemblages during Subduction-related Metamorphism, Ile de Groix, France: a Detailed LA-ICPMS Study

Devolatilization reactions and subsequent transfer of fluid from subducted oceanic crust into the overlying mantle wedge are important processes, which are responsible for the specific geochemical characteristics of subduction-related metamorphic rocks, as well as those of arc magmatism. To better understand the geochemical fingerprint induced by fluid mobilization during dehydration and rehydration processes related to subduction zone metamorphism, the trace element and rare earth element (REE) distribution patterns in HP-LT metamorphic assemblages in eclogite-, blueschist- and greenschist-facies rocks of the Ile de Groix were obtained by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) analysis. This study focuses on 10 massive basic rocks representing former hydrothermally altered mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB), four banded basic rocks of volcano-sedimentary origin and one micaschist. The main hosts for incompatible trace elements are epidote (REE, Th, U, Pb, Sr), garnet [Y, heavy REE (HREE)], phengite (Cs, Rb, Ba, B), titanite [Ti, Nb, Ta, REE; HREE > LREE (light REE)], rutile (Ti, Nb, Ta) and apatite (REE, Sr). The trace element contents of omphacite, amphibole, albite and chlorite are low. The incompatible trace element contents of minerals are controlled by the stable metamorphic mineral assemblage and directly related to the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of minerals, especially epidote, garnet, titanite, rutile and phengite, during subduction zone metamorphism. Epidote is a key mineral in the trace element exchange process because of its large stability field, ranging from lower greenschist- to blueschist- and eclogite-facies conditions. Different generations of epidote are generally observed and related to the coexisting phases at different stages of the metamorphic cycle (e.g. lawsonite, garnet, titanite). Epidote thus controls most of the REE budget during the changing P-T conditions along the prograde and retrograde path. Phengite also plays an important role in determining the large ion lithophile element (LILE) budget, as it is stable to high P-T conditions. The breakdown of phengite causes the release of LILE during retrogression. A comparison of trace element abundances in whole-rocks and minerals shows that the HP-LT metamorphic rocks largely retain the geochemical characteristics of their basic, volcano-sedimentary and pelitic protoliths, including a hydrothermal alteration overprint before the subduction process. A large part of the incompatible trace elements remained trapped in the rocks and was recycled within the various metamorphic assemblages stable under changing metamorphic conditions during the subduction process, indicating that devolatilization reactions in massive basic rocks do not necessarily imply significant simultaneous trace element and REE releas

Permian magmatism and metamorphism in the Dent Blanche nappe: constraints from field observations and geochronology

In the Dent Blanche Tectonic System, the Mont Morion biotite-bearing granite is a km- scale intrusion preserved in a low-strain volume. Zircon saturation thermometry suggests that it crystallised from a melt that reached about 800 °C. U–Pb zircon and allanite geochronology indicates crystallization of the magma in the Permian (290 ± 3 Ma; 280 ± 8 Ma, respectively). Migmatitic biotite-gneiss and amphibolite are found as xenoliths within the Mont Morion granite and constitute its country-rocks. In two samples of migmatitic biotite-gneiss zircon has metamorphic overgrowths that yield U–Pb ages of 285 ± 3 Ma and 281 ± 4 Ma, and are thus contemporaneous with the intrusion of the granite. The Mont Morion granite with its country-rocks of migmatitic biotite-bearing gneiss and amphibolite was thus emplaced at middle crustal levels while amphibolite facies metamorphism affected its country rocks. The magmatic and metamorphic record in the Mont Morion area reflects the high-temperature regime and lithospheric thinning of the Adriatic continental margin during Permian