Harnessing Repetitive Behaviours to Engage Attention and Learning in a Novel Therapy for Autism: An Exploratory Analysis

Rigorous, quantitative examination of therapeutic techniques anecdotally reported to have been successful in people with autism who lack communicative speech will help guide basic science toward a more complete characterisation of the cognitive profile in this underserved subpopulation, and show the extent to which theories and results developed with the high-functioning subpopulation may apply. This study examines a novel therapy, the “Rapid Prompting Method” (RPM). RPM is a parent-developed communicative and educational therapy for persons with autism who do not speak or who have difficulty using speech communicatively. The technique aims to develop a means of interactive learning by pointing amongst multiple-choice options presented at different locations in space, with the aid of sensory “prompts” which evoke a response without cueing any specific response option. The prompts are meant to draw and to maintain attention to the communicative task – making the communicative and educational content coincident with the most physically salient, attention-capturing stimulus – and to extinguish the sensory–motor preoccupations with which the prompts compete. Video-recorded RPM sessions with nine autistic children ages 8–14 years who lacked functional communicative speech were coded for behaviours of interest. An analysis controlled for age indicates that exposure to the claimed therapy appears to support a decrease in repetitive behaviours and an increase in the number of multiple-choice response options without any decrease in successful responding. Direct gaze is not related to successful responding, suggesting that direct gaze might not be any advantage for this population and need not in all cases be a precondition to communication therapies

“At ‘Amen Meals’ It’s Me and God” Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Women’s Ritual

New ritual practices performed by Jewish women can serve as test cases for an examination of the phenomenon of the creation of religious rituals by women. These food-related rituals, which have been termed ‘‘amen meals’’ were developed in Israel beginning in the year 2000 and subsequently spread to Jewish women in Europe and the United States. This study employs a qualitative-ethnographic methodology grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews to describe these nonobligatory, extra-halakhic rituals. What makes these rituals stand out is the women’s sense that through these rituals they experience a direct con- nection to God and, thus, can change reality, i.e., bring about jobs, marriages, children, health, and salvation for friends and loved ones. The ‘‘amen’’ rituals also create an open, inclusive woman’s space imbued with strong spiritual–emotional energies that counter the women’s religious marginality. Finally, the purposes and functions of these rituals, including identity building and displays of cultural capital, are considered within a theoretical framework that views ‘‘doing gender’’ and ‘‘doing religion’’ as an integrated experience

Biography: Barbara Ganzel

2011 Biograph

Trauma-Informed Hospice and Palliative Care

This review highlights the need to integrate trauma-informed practices into hospice and palliative care. The pervasiveness of psychological trauma exposure has been established in the general population and among the elderly adults. Moreover, there is emerging evidence for multiple additional opportunities for exposure to psychological trauma at or near the end of life. For example, many people experience intensive medical interventions prior to their admission to hospice and/or palliative care, and there is increasing recognition that these interventions may be traumatic. These and related opportunities for trauma exposure may combine synergistically at the end of life, particularly in the presence of pain, anxiety, delirium, dementia, or ordinary old age. This, in turn, can negatively affect patient mental health, well-being, behavior, and reported experience of pain. This review closes with suggestions for future research and a call for universal assessment of psychological trauma history and symptoms in hospice and palliative care patients, along with the development of palliative trauma intervention strategies appropriate to these populations