Living with ASD: how do children and their parents assess their difficulties with social interaction and understanding?

Social interaction and understanding in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are key areas of concern to practitioners and researchers alike. However, there is a relative lack of information about the skills and competencies of children and young people with ASD who access ordinary community facilities including mainstream education. In particular, contributions by parents and their children have been under-utilized. Using two structured questionnaires, 19 children with ASD reported difficulties with social skills including social engagement and temper management and also reported difficulties with social competence, affecting both friendships and peer relationships. Parents rated the children's social skill and competence as significantly worse than did the children themselves, but there was considerable agreement about the areas that were problematic. Using an informal measure to highlight their children's difficulties, parents raised issues relating to conversation skills, social emotional reciprocity and peer relationships. The implications for assessment and intervention are discussed.

An Exploration of the Data Collection Methods Utilised with Children, Teenagers and Young People (CTYPs)

Background: The impact of cancer upon children, teenagers and young people can be profound. Research has been undertaken to explore the impacts upon children, teenagers and young people with cancer, but little is known about how researchers can ‘best’ engage with this group to explore their experiences. This review paper provides an overview of the utility of data collection methods employed when undertaking research with children, teenagers and young people. A systematic review of relevant databases was undertaken utilising the search terms ‘young people’, ‘young adult’, ‘adolescent’ and ‘data collection methods’. The full-text of the papers that were deemed eligible from the title and abstract were accessed and following discussion within the research team, thirty papers were included. Findings: Due to the heterogeneity in terms of the scope of the papers identified the following data collections methods were included in the results section. Three of the papers identified provided an overview of data collection methods utilised with this population and the remaining twenty seven papers covered the following data collection methods: Digital technologies; art based research; comparing the use of ‘paper and pencil’ research with web-based technologies, the use of games; the use of a specific communication tool; questionnaires and interviews; focus groups and telephone interviews/questionnaires. The strengths and limitations of the range of data collection methods included are discussed drawing upon such issues as of the appropriateness of particular methods for particular age groups, or the most appropriate method to employ when exploring a particularly sensitive topic area. Conclusions: There are a number of data collection methods utilised to undertaken research with children, teenagers and young adults. This review provides a summary of the current available evidence and an overview of the strengths and limitations of data collection methods employed.

Young people and the struggle for public space in Australia

Public Space is important to the overall health and wellbeing of children and young people in allowing them to explore their local and wider community, meet up with friends, get some exercise and feel included in the society in which they live. A problem exists in the capacity of modern, urban public space to genuinely accommodate children and young people’s need to experience excitement and fun in what has been termed “unprogrammed space” (Lynch 1977:71), or simply to ‘hang out’ in unstructured social space, with control by civic authorities a key concern. For many children and young people, their experiences of attempting to use public space are sometimes marred by the denial of everyday rights and courtesies, in youth ‘unfriendly’ spaces and this is often the case in shopping centres in Australia as expolored in this paper.

Young people, citizenship and public space : a work in progress on issues and consequences

Tensions frequently occur when children and young people seek to make use of a multitude of public spaces (Loader 1996; White 1999).In Australia over a number of years, various strategies have been adopted by local councils, police and other stakeholders such as business groups, to respond to such tensions and disputes. However, rarely are children and young people involved in meaningful ways in the design and control of public space that reflects their needs and aspirations (White 1999; Freeman and Riordan 2002). This paper argues for a broader conceptualisation of the rights of citizenhip to include rights to use public space by children and young people.

‘Appreciate A Mate’ Helping others to feel good about themselves. Safe and Well Online: A report on the development and evaluation of a positive messaging social marketing campaign for young people.

This report describes the Year Two/Campaign Two processes, and articulates findings from the major project components designed to address the challenges noted above (see Figure 1). Three major components comprise the Safe and Well Online project: 1) A participatory design (PD) process involving young people and sector partners (UWS) for; 2) campaign development (Zuni & Digital Arts Network); and 3) a cohort study (University of South Australia) to evaluate campaign effectiveness and attitude and behaviour change. Each sub-study comprehensively considered the ethical requirements of conducting online research with minors. The theoretical and methodological framework for measuring campaign engagement and efficacy (Sub-studies 3, 4 and 5) drew on the Model of Goal Directed Behaviour (MGB) (Perugini & Bagozzi 2001) and Nudge Theory (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). This report extends the findings and conclusions of the Year One Pilot Study ‘‘Keep it Tame’’ (Spears et.al, 2015), and details the development and evaluation of the second of four Safe and Well Online Campaigns—‘‘Appreciate A Mate’: Helping others feel good about themselves’.

Young people and urban public space in Australia-creating pathways to community, belonging and inclusion

Cities and urban spaces around the world are changing rapidly from their origins in the industrialising world to a post-industrial, hard wired surveillance landscape. This kind of monitoring and surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to rebrand urban public spaces into governable and predictable arenas of consumption. In this context of control, a number of groups are excluded from public space, such as some children and young people. This article discusses the surveillance, governance and control of public space environments used by children and young people in particular, and the capacity for their ongoing displacement and marginality, as well as possible greater inclusion.

'It Is Not as Easy as ABC': Examining Practitioners' Views on Using Behavioural Contracts to Encourage Young People to Accept Responsibility for their Anti-Social Behaviour

This article examines the use of acceptable behavioural contracts as a tool for engendering the voluntary acceptance of responsibility in children and young people perceived to be engaging in anti-social behaviour and low-level criminality. Based on the results of a qualitative empirical analysis with local government and social housing anti-social behaviour teams, the article explores the attitudes of practitioners to the use of this unregulated but commonly utilised intervention. Practitioners' views are contrasted with the ideals of voluntary responsibilisation upon which the contracts are supposedly based. It is argued that there is a spectrum of differing approaches among practitioners, with some using the contracts more to encourage the voluntary acceptance of responsibility, whilst others use them more coercively to hold individuals responsible for their behaviour. The implications of these differing approaches are examined.

Young people, crime and justice in Northern Ireland

Many children and young people in conflict with the law in Northern Ireland have experienced living in poverty, truancy or exclusion from school, limited educational attainment, neglect or abuse within their families, placement in alternative care, drug or alcohol misuse, physical and mental ill-health. However, their lives are also affected by the legacy and particular circumstances of a society in transition from conflict. In addition to historical under-investment in services for children and their families, this includes discriminatory policing alongside informal regulation by ‘paramilitaries’ or members of ‘the community’ and community-based restorative justice schemes as an alternative way of dealing with low-level crime and ‘anti-social’ behaviour.

Following a Criminal Justice Review, the 2002 Justice (Northern Ireland) Act affirmed that the principal aim of the youth justice system is to protect the public by preventing offending by children’. Youth justice initiatives therefore encompass a range of responses: early intervention to prevent offending and the application of civil Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, diversionary measures (including community-based restorative justice schemes), non-custodial disposals for those found guilty of offences, and custodial sentences. While ‘policy transfer’ prevailed during periods of ‘direct rule’ from Westminster, the punitive responses to ‘sub-criminal’ and ‘anti-social’ behaviour introduced by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act in England and Wales were resisted or not implemented in the same way in Northern Ireland.

This Chapter will critically analyse the debates informing recent developments, noting key issues raised by the 2011 review of youth justice initiated as a priority following the devolution of justice and policing to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It will focus on promotion and protection of the rights of children and young people in conflict with the law.

Keeping connected: the lives of young people with ongoing health conditions in Australia

This chapter draws from a three year longitudinal Australian Research Council (ARC) project conducted in Victoria, Australia with 31 young people who were living with ongoing health conditions. The aim of the Keeping Connected project was to elicit the young people’s views of schooling, their relationships with peers and teachers, and their altered educational opportunities, given their ongoing and widely varying health conditions. Elsewhere in the literature these young people are often described as living with chronic illness (Hopkins et al., 2013; Moss, 2012). Victoria, Australia, is home to more than 1.2 million children and young people, representing just under 25% of the national child population. The Royal Children’s Hospital Education Institute (RCHEI), one of the sponsoring research partners for this study is located in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria. The study makes a unique contribution to our knowledge of chronic illness, or what we prefer to refer to as ongoing health conditions, which affect 12% of school age students in Australia. One of my ongoing observations is that not all research that is produced in the name of social justice or analysing exclusions in schooling is approached through the repositioning of the qualitative research which has occurred over the past two decades. Throughout this chapter I aim to demonstrate how a post qualitative approach can produce a secondary analysis of data once a large scale project is completed. Data can be reworked and represented through networks of the social world, in this case the networks of living with an ongoing health condition as a young person in Australia at the end of the first decade of the twentieth first century.

What young people say about physical activity: the children's sport and physical activity study

The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity (CSPPA) study is a unique multi-centre/ discipline study undertaken by three Irish institutions, Dublin City University, University of Limerick and University College Cork. The study sought to assess participation in physical activity, physical education and sport (PAPES) among 10-18 year olds in Ireland. This paper shares what Irish children and young people convey, using their own voices, about their sport and physical activity (PA) experiences and how such experiences may result in their feeling included or excluded in PAPES. Eighteen focus groups (FG) with 124 boys and girls elicited descriptive data from students and were conducted with homogeneous groups of 6-8 boys and girls aged 12-18 years (selected for convenience) identified as male/female, primary/post-primary and generally active/ inactive. Five themes (‘being with friends’, ‘variety in activity content’, ‘experiencing fun’, ‘time constraints’ and ‘opportunity to be outside’) ran across the three PAPES opportunities for young people. Overall data revealed that these young people have a positive attitude towards PA which does not diminish as they age despite activity levels decreasing. Other choices of activity participation (e.g. debate, music), or more focused activities took the place of previous choices as young people came to realise what they most enjoyed. If we are to encourage and provide opportunities for young people to choose active lifestyles, it is important that we address what these young people report affects their involvement in PA across a number of contexts. Two such developments within Irish school and community contexts are discussed: Active School Flag initiative and Senior Cycle Physical Education framework.

WHEN DOES THE TROUBLE START? OBESITY, DIABETES RISKS AND METABOLIC DISTURBANCES IN YOUNG PEOPLE WITH PSYCHOSIS

People with psychotic disorders have higher mortality rates compared to the general population. Most deaths are due to cardiovascular (CV) disease, reflecting high rates of CV risk factors such as obesity and diabetes. Treatment with antipsychotic drugs is associated with weight gain in clinical trials. However, there is little information about how these drugs affect children and young people, and how early in the course of treatment the elevation in CV risk factors begins. This information is essential in understanding the costs and benefits of these treatments in young people, and establishing preventive and early intervention services to address physical health comorbidities. This symposium reports both prospective and naturalistic data from children and adolescents treated with antipsychotic drugs. These studies demonstrate that adverse effects on cardiometabolic measures, notably BMI and insulin resistance, become apparent very soon after treatment is initiated. Further, children and adolescents appear to be even more sensitive to these effects than adults. Population-wide studies are also informative. Danish data showing that young people exposed to antipsychotics have a higher risk of diabetes, compared with young people who had a psychiatric diagnosis but were not exposed to antipsychotic drugs, will be presented. In addition, an Australian comparison between a large, nationally representative sample of people with psychosis and a general population sample shows that higher rates of obesity and other cardiometabolic abnormalities are already evident in people with psychosis by the age of 25 years. Young people living with psychosis are already disadvantaged by the demands of living with mental illness, stigma, and social factors such as unemployment and low income. The addition of obesity, diabetes and other comorbidities adds a further burden. The data presented highlights the need for careful selection of antipsychotic drugs, regular monitoring of physical health and early intervention when weight gain, glucose dysregulation, or other cardiometabolic abnormalities are detected.

Multicultural literature for children and young adults : a selected listing of books, 1980-1990, by and about people of color /

Includes index.

School-community engagement : a critical approach to involving young people in an urban planning project

This study examines the participation of a group of high school students in designing a Heritage Journey as part of an urban redevelopment project in their community. School-community engagement offers young people an opportunity to engage in community life and influence decisions that affect them. Forging links between community and school is becoming more important for teachers as they attempt to create new authentic learning opportunities for young people within a changing world. Increasingly, researchers and urban planners are including children and young people as active decision makers and participants in community engagement projects. However, models of participation tend to be adult-focussed, conceive participation in terms of low to high graduated levels and lack a clearly articulated theoretical basis. The research problem in this study focuses on investigating whether the inclusion of young people in school-community engagement results in value adding to urban planning and is an example of genuine participation. The aim of the study is to provide a theoretically informed, empirically rich understanding of the inclusion of young people in a community engagement strategy for an urban planning project. Theories of space developed by Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja are drawn upon for understanding how space is understood, used, and redeveloped by the students and other stakeholders. The study also draws on David Harvey’s notion of utopia and space to consider the imaginative possibilities of the students’ designs and ideas. The study uses a participatory research approach and documents the opportunities and challenges of this methodology. The thesis argues that school-community engagement within a "Thirdspace" offers many new opportunities for the emergence of authentic learning situations. Key findings from the study show young people’s participation in an urban planning project can achieve successful results when young people are given opportunities for full participation in decision-making processes; multiple pathways for active engagement are incorporated into the research design; opportunities for mentoring are provided; realistic timelines are communicated to all stakeholders and the needs and social practices of the local community are acknowledged. A new spatial model of community engagement is proposed as an outcome of the study. Unlike previous models of participation, this model demonstrates how exclusion and inclusion can be conceived visually, and may prove effective for conceptualising future community engagement projects that involve young people.

Planning to Learn : Creating and Using a Personal Planner with Young People on the Autism Spectrum

Late intervention often means that young people on the autism spectrum appear to act on impulse, seem disorganized, or fail to learn from past experiences. In this practical, effective resource, the authors share tried and tested techniques for creating and using a personal planner to help individuals on the autism spectrum to develop independence. "Planning to Learn" is split into three parts. The first part guides adults in helping young people to make sense of the world and to develop and practise coping strategies for any given situation. The authors also explain how simple visual and verbal cues can help people to cope successfully in stressful situations. The second part provides worksheets for the young person to complete to learn how to use plans in different situations, for example staying calm when waiting for a doctor, or coping with a change in the school timetable. Each individual makes a unique planner with procedures to refer to, such as responding to pressure, calming down, being organised, and being around people. The third part includes useful cards, schedules and plans for photocopying and including in the planner. This illustrated photocopiable workbook is packed with guidance, support and helpful notes for those new to, or experienced in, working with children and young people with ASD. It can be used within educational and community settings or at home.