An exploratory study on emotion regulation strategy use in individuals with Williams syndrome, autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability

BACKGROUND: Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders often have atypical emotion profiles, but little is known about how they regulate their emotions. While several studies have examined emotion regulation strategy use in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), only a few have included individuals with intellectual disability (ID) or focused on specific syndromes such as Williams syndrome (WS). METHODS: A parent-reported survey launched during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed to exploratorily study emotion regulation strategy use and its link to anxiety in individuals with ASD with (N=785) and without ID (N=596), WS (N=261), and Intellectual Disability not otherwise specified (N=649). RESULTS: Using multilevel analyses, besides revealing specific group differences in emotion regulation strategy use, a variety of strategies (e.g., rumination, avoiding information, repetitive behaviors) were found to be linked to elevated levels of anxiety, while focusing on the positive was linked to lower anxiety levels in all groups. Moreover, only autistic people without ID used humor more frequently while experiencing lower anxiety levels. CONCLUSION: This study sheds light on an underexplored area of emotion regulation strategy use in different neurodevelopmental disorders. It also paves the way to further examine emotion regulation in more rigorous ways to better understand emotion regulation in different neurodevelopmental disorders as well as the impact on outcome measures such as anxiety. This exploratory study may help to develop and validate adequate measures to study a broad array of ER strategies used by individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders

“Not in the mood”: The fear of being laughed at is better predicted by humor temperament traits than diagnosis in neurodevelopmental conditions

BACKGROUND: Research has shown that autistic individuals seem to be more prone to develop gelotophobia (i.e., the fear of being laughed at) than typically developing individuals. The goals of the present study were to discover whether the high levels of gelotophobia found in autism in previous studies were replicated here, to expand the research to Down syndrome (DS) and Williams syndrome (WS), and to assess the relation between individual differences and social impairments, affective predispositions, and humor temperament. METHODS: Questionnaires were distributed to parents of autistic individuals (N = 48), individuals with DS (N = 139), and individuals with WS (N = 43) aged between 5 and 25 years old. RESULTS: Autistic individuals were shown to frequently experience at least a slight level of gelotophobia (45%), compared to only 6% of individuals with DS and 7% of individuals with WS. Interestingly, humorless temperament traits (i.e., seriousness and bad mood) manifested as the strongest predictors of gelotophobia. This relation even transcended group differences. CONCLUSION: The results confirm that gelotophobia seems to be particularly concerning for autistic individuals, whereas individuals with DS and WS seem to be more protected from developing such a fear. Moreover, it appears that gelotophobia seems to be more linked to high seriousness and irritability than diagnosis

Brief Report: A Cross-Sectional Study of Anxiety Levels and Concerns of Chinese Families of Children With Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Post-first-wave of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has a multifaceted impact on mental health due to ill health, restrictions and lockdowns, and loss of employment and institutional support. COVID-19 may disproportionally impact families with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) due to the already higher prevalence of mental health conditions in children with SEND and their parents. Therefore, it is essential to determine the short-term impact of the pandemic on the mental health of families with SEND in order to identify their ongoing health support needs. The current study aims to examine the anxiety level and concerns of children with SEND and their parents living in China. The sample consisted of 271 parents of children with SEND aged between 6 and 17 years (M age = 8.37; SD age = 2.76). Parents completed an online survey between 10 April to 8 June 2020. Both child and parental anxiety levels and various concerns increased after the initial wave of COVID-19 when compared with retrospective pre-COVID-19 levels. Parental anxiety and concern levels were significantly higher for those living in rural areas compared to urban areas. In addition, parental and child anxiety and concern levels were significantly correlated with each other. Parental anxiety at the lowest level made a unique and significant statistical contribution to children's anxiety levels. The implications of the study findings are discussed

The impact of COVID-19 on anxiety and wellbeing for families of individuals with Special Education Needs and Disabilities in the UK

COVID-19 has affected people across the world. However, it has been suggested that individuals with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and their families might have been particularly impacted by the first national lockdown in the UK. In contrast to previous studies, the current study examined wellbeing and anxiety at different time points and included a control group matched for family situation. Parents of 402 individuals with SEND reported on their own anxiety and wellbeing as well as that of their son/daughter at three time points (before COVID-19, when COVID-19 pandemic started, and during the national lockdown). In addition, data from 186 typically developing (TD) siblings was obtained. Repeated measures ANOVAs and regression analyses showed that, although both individuals with SEND and their TD siblings showed increased anxiety across the three time points, levels of anxiety were not predicted by age, gender or health. Instead, levels of anxiety in the SEND group, but not the TD siblings, were predicted by awareness about COVID-19, diagnosis of an existing anxiety disorder as well as parental anxiety. In addition, whilst TD individuals were reported to increasingly worry about social related issues as well as family related issues, those with SEND were reported to worry about issues related to school closures. These findings show that COVID-19 impacts the wellbeing of those with SEND differently to that of their TD siblings and that school closures have a particular effect on this group. Further implications for policy impact and interventions are discussed

The Effect of Egg Embryonation on Field-Use of a Hookworm Benzimidazole-Sensitivity Egg Hatch Assay in Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China

With the implementation of mass drug administration programmes for the control of human soil transmitted helminths there is a need to develop drug sensitivity monitoring tools to detect the emergence of resistance. The present study aimed to use an egg hatch assay to measure benzimidazole sensitivity in human hookworms in a field setting in Yunnan province, People's Republic of China, in order to assess whether the assay offered a practical means of monitoring drug sensitivity in human hookworms in such a location. The assay proved able to generate dose response data, which allowed for the drug sensitivity of the hookworms in the local children to be described; the mean IC50 was 0.10 ug/ml thiabendazole. The study also found that practical issues associated with stool collection procedures, specifically the embryonation of some eggs during the time elapsing between stool deposition and egg recovery, can have an impact on the drug sensitivity data. We suggest means for data analysis that overcome the impact of egg embryonation on drug dose response data, which should allow for the use of such assays at different field sites worldwide

Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism

The COVID-19 pandemic’s alterations to daily life have been especially challenging for families with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), worsening the core features of ASD and overall mental health. With the increased need for effective coping, the current retrospective study used data from a survey regarding parent reports of how often their child with ASD used certain coping strategies (frequency), as well as the extent to which they felt their child benefitted from their use (efficacy) in mitigating stress during the pandemic. This retrospective study Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate whether there were significant differences in both frequency and efficacy ratings for each coping strategy, for the entire sample as well as for three children’s age groups. Using Spearman’s rank-order correlations, correlation coefficients between the frequency and efficacy of each coping strategy were explored. Results revealed that maladaptive strategies were used more frequently than adaptive strategies, while parent routine as the most frequently used and efficacious for all age groups. Additionally, for adaptive strategies, humor and focusing on the positive had the strongest correlations between frequency and efficacy ratings amongst all age groups. Of the maladaptive strategies, repetitive behaviors, rumination, and isolation had the strongest correlations for the youngest, middle, and oldest age groups, respectively. Further, for each age group, the adaptive coping strategies had stronger correlations between frequency and efficacy than the maladaptive ones. It is our hope that the results of this study will lay the foundation for developing adaptive coping strategies to alleviate stress in children with ASD. Further investigations using a larger cohort are warranted to determine effective coping strategies for individuals with ASD across a range of situations, including acute stressors (such as future public health emergencies and natural disasters), as well as common daily stressors

A Novel High Throughput Assay for Anthelmintic Drug Screening and Resistance Diagnosis by Real-Time Monitoring of Parasite Motility

Parasitic worms cause untold morbidity and mortality on billions of people and livestock. Drugs are available but resistance is problematic in livestock parasites and is a looming threat for human helminths. Currently, new drug discovery and resistance monitoring is hindered as drug efficacy is assessed by observing motility or development of parasites using laborious, subjective, low-throughput methods evaluated by eye using microscopy. Here we describe a novel application for a cell monitoring device (xCELLigence) that can simply and objectively assess real time anti-parasite efficacy of drugs on eggs, larvae and adults in a fully automated, label-free, high-throughput fashion. This technique overcomes the current low-throughput bottleneck in anthelmintic drug development and resistance detection pipelines. The widespread use of this device to screen for new therapeutics or emerging drug resistance will be an invaluable asset in the fight against human, animal and plant parasitic helminths and other pathogens that plague our planet

Nutritional management of children with cerebral palsy: a practical guide

Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Design and feasibility testing of a novel group intervention for young women who binge drink in groups

BackgroundYoung women frequently drink alcohol in groups and binge drinking within these natural drinking groups is common. This study describes the design of a theoretically and empirically based group intervention to reduce binge drinking among young women. It also evaluates their engagement with the intervention and the acceptability of the study methods.MethodsFriendship groups of women aged 18–35 years, who had two or more episodes of binge drinking (>6 UK units on one occasion; 48g of alcohol) in the previous 30 days, were recruited from the community. A face-to-face group intervention, based on the Health Action Process Approach, was delivered over three sessions. Components of the intervention were woven around fun activities, such as making alcohol free cocktails. Women were followed up four months after the intervention was delivered. Results The target of 24 groups (comprising 97 women) was recruited. The common pattern of drinking was infrequent, heavy drinking (mean consumption on the heaviest drinking day was UK 18.1 units). Process evaluation revealed that the intervention was delivered with high fidelity and acceptability of the study methods was high. The women engaged positively with intervention components and made group decisions about cutting down. Twenty two groups set goals to reduce their drinking, and these were translated into action plans. Retention of individuals at follow up was 87%.ConclusionsThis study successfully recruited groups of young women whose patterns of drinking place them at high risk of acute harm. This novel approach to delivering an alcohol intervention has potential to reduce binge drinking among young women. The high levels of engagement with key steps in the behavior change process suggests that the group intervention should be tested in a full randomised controlled trial