Using Sensory Interventions to Promote Skill Acquisition for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have documented sensory processing difficulties across the lifespan; however there is limited empirical support for the sensory-based interventions that have become ubiquitous with the population. This study was conducted to address this need and examine the effect of sensory-based interventions on skill acquisition for five elementary-age students with ASD. Proponents suggest that sensory-based interventions can be used to facilitate optimal levels of arousal so that children are available for learning. A single-case alternating treatments design was used to evaluate functional relations between the two sensory-based antecedent interventions and correct responding on expressive identification tasks. Upon visual analysis of the graphed data, functional relations were apparent for two participants. A positive relation between one sensory activity and correct responses was evident for a third student, but his rate of skill acquisition was too slow to verify a functional relation during the study. Results were undifferentiated for two students; one reached mastery criteria with both sensory-based interventions, while one made only modest improvement in expressive identification. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to identify predictors of growth. Scrutiny of the results of the level-1 analysis revealed that there were significant differences among the participants at the start of the study (00 = 388.46, ²(4) = 45.97, p \u3c .001) and that all of the students made significant gains during the study (10 = 2.35, t(4) = 3.43, p \u3c .05). Using treatment as a predictor in Model 2 resulted in the finding of no significance for the sensory-based interventions in predicting growth. The two biggest level-2 predictors of student growth were age (11 = 0.055, t(2) = 6.403, p \u3c .001) and IQ (22 = 0.21, t(2) = 13.41, p \u3c .001). Although not clinically significant, Childhood Autism Rating Scale scores as a level-2 predictor of growth may have practical significance. Implications for mixed-modality research and applied practice are discussed

Student Leaders: Are There Differences with Institutional Satisfaction?

This quantitative study investigates differences in student leaders satisfaction with their institution. An adapted form of the ACT Student Opinion Survey (four-year-form) is administered to 103 student leaders representing two types of leadership positions, those selected or hired by the institution and those elected by their peers. Descriptive statistics and independent t-tests indicate only 2 significant differences in the satisfaction areas assessed. Both groups of student leaders tend to have moderate to high levels of satisfaction with their institution. However, selected/hired student leaders have more homogeneous satisfaction scores than the student leaders elected by their peers. Hired student leaders indicate moderate to high levels of satisfaction with student affairs professionals. This study aids in understanding of how student leader satisfaction varies based on different aspects of the institution which is beneficial when working with student leaders

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead