Issues of Gender & Sexuality in Special Needs Children: Keeping Students with Autism & Learning Disability Safe at School

The following paper addresses some of the issues presented by students with Special Needs, (especially autism) at school. It particularly focusses upon sexuality and gender. For example, autism and gender dysphoria appear to co-occur more often than in typically developing students. However, these young people may not understand how their reality translates to living within the public arena. This is also true of sexuality. Acceptance, understanding and accommodation of these students needs to inform our measures for keeping safe at school; this is of utmost priority

Women & Girls on the Autism Spectrum: A Profile

Being female and autistic is poorly understood, but is autism really 'rare' in females? Historically, autism has been associated with traditionally masculine features and stereotypes of behaviour, with some believing autism only occurred in males [1]. This leads scientific enquiry to the critical question of whether there are more males living with autism or, conversely, do females on the autistic spectrum present differently to males and, therefore, are at risk of remaining undiagnosed

Adaptive Morphing and Coping with Social Threat in Autism: An Autistic Perspective

This paper highlights the role of terminology, such as camouflage and masking, commonly used in autism research. The author suggests researchers question assumptions around language commonly used to check it is fully representative of the autistic position. Being autistic often means being very literal. This literality means it is very important for researchers - particularly non-autistic researchers - to design research questions in a way that will gather accurate information often underlying autistic understanding. Words are powerful tools and lead to beliefs and positions held. Adaptive morphing in autism (currently referred to as camouflage or masking) infers a response, not of deceit, but one that is biological and not necessarily chosen. The author of this paper suggests masking, as a choice to deceive, is quite different from adaptive morphing for safety

Problems with Object Permanence: Rethinking Traditional Beliefs Associated with Poor Theory of Mind in Autism

Poor Theory of Mind (ToM) (or difficulties imputing mental states to self and others) [1], (See also [2-5]) is often blamed for certain responses and behaviour in autism. However, the Theory of Mind Task Battery requires an understanding of language, the use of cognitive skills, as well as the child’s motivation and attention to complete. All of these factors are either weak or under-developed in individuals with autism suggesting that this is not the best means to measure one’s understanding that other people have their own thoughts, plans, beliefs, or point of view. Behaviours like strong defiance, insistence on sameness, fear associated with sudden change and severe anxiety may be related to difficulties seeing beyond the ‘now’ [6]. This paper suggests that some of the stress and anxiety in the autism population may actually be due to delayed object permanence (OP) (knowing something may still exist even if it is out of sight), which can appear as poor ToM. This delay in establishing OP is governed by single focused attention. For more information on this concept see: Lawson, W. (2011) The passionate mind, JKP:London. Although ToM and OP are defined differently, this paper aims to show the relationship between them and how one concept can influence the other using examples in everyday life to illustrate how poor OP is associated with single focused attention, which detracts from the bigger picture

Might we be Calling Problems Seen in Autism Spectrum Conditions: ‘Poor Theory of Mind,’ when Actually they are Related to Non-Generalised ‘Object Permanence’?

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and the delayed development of object permanence is often not questioned, and is rarely understood. The following paper attempts to explore this idea and suggests reasons for why such development is delayed and the possibility that certain difficult behaviours seen in children with ASC are less likely to be connected to having poor theory of mind and more connected to lacking generalized concepts of object permanence

Mobilise-D insights to estimate real-world walking speed in multiple conditions with a wearable device

This study aimed to validate a wearable device’s walking speed estimation pipeline, considering complexity, speed, and walking bout duration. The goal was to provide recommendations on the use of wearable devices for real-world mobility analysis. Participants with Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Proximal Femoral Fracture, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, and healthy older adults (n = 97) were monitored in the laboratory and the real-world (2.5 h), using a lower back wearable device. Two walking speed estimation pipelines were validated across 4408/1298 (2.5 h/laboratory) detected walking bouts, compared to 4620/1365 bouts detected by a multi-sensor reference system. In the laboratory, the mean absolute error (MAE) and mean relative error (MRE) for walking speed estimation ranged from 0.06 to 0.12 m/s and − 2.1 to 14.4%, with ICCs (Intraclass correlation coefficients) between good (0.79) and excellent (0.91). Real-world MAE ranged from 0.09 to 0.13, MARE from 1.3 to 22.7%, with ICCs indicating moderate (0.57) to good (0.88) agreement. Lower errors were observed for cohorts without major gait impairments, less complex tasks, and longer walking bouts. The analytical pipelines demonstrated moderate to good accuracy in estimating walking speed. Accuracy depended on confounding factors, emphasizing the need for robust technical validation before clinical application. Trial registration: ISRCTN – 12246987