0000000000786077
AUTHOR
Patricia Pérez-fuster
Designing motion-based activities to engage students with autism in classroom settings
We report on a nine-month-long observational study with teachers and students with autism in a classroom setting. We explore the impact of motion-based activities on students' behavior. In particular, we examine how the playful gaming activity impacted students' engagement, peer-directed social behaviors, and motor skills. We document the effectiveness of a collaborative game in supporting initiation of social activities between peers, and in eliciting novel body movements that students were not observed to produce outside of game play. We further identify the positive impact of game play on overall classroom engagement. This includes an "audience effect" whereby non-playing peers direct in…
Anaphor Processing During Reading Comprehension in Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder
With the purpose of promoting academic inclusion, it is essential for educators to understand the nature underlying poor reading comprehension in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In th...
Enhancing daily living skills in four adults with autism spectrum disorder through an embodied digital technology-mediated intervention
Abstract Background The acquisition of daily living skills is fundamental in the education of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), especially of those with Intellectual Disability (ID), because this can significantly contribute to their autonomy, self-confidence and overall life satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of an embodied Digital Technology (DT)-mediated intervention, compared to a Treatment-As-Usual (TAU) intervention, for enhancing two daily living skills: washing dishes and doing laundry. Method Four males of between 25 and 37 years old with ASD and ID participated in the study. The two interventions were based on audio and picture prompting ins…
Information and Communication Technologies to Support Early Screening of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review
The aim of this systematic review is to identify recent digital technologies used to detect early signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in preschool children (i.e., up to six years of age). A systematic literature search was performed for English language articles and conference papers indexed in Pubmed, PsycInfo, ERIC, CINAHL, WoS, IEEE, and ACM digital libraries up until January 2020. A follow-up search was conducted to cover the literature published until December 2020 for the usefulness and interest in this area of research during the Covid-19 emergency. In total, 2427 articles were initially retrieved from databases search. Additional 481 articles were retrieved from follow-up searc…
What is science without replication?
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AUT898331_Supplemental_material_Appendix_II – Supplemental material for A framework of evidence-based practice for digital support, co-developed with and for the autism community
Supplemental material, AUT898331_Supplemental_material_Appendix_II for A framework of evidence-based practice for digital support, co-developed with and for the autism community by Vanessa Zervogianni, Sue Fletcher-Watson, Gerardo Herrera, Matthew Goodwin, Patricia Pérez-Fuster, Mark Brosnan and Ouriel Grynszpan in Autism
Social Networks as an Approach to Systematic review
Whether we are in the process of designing a new empirical study or our interest lies in conducting a review study, a solid literature review is needed to acquire an accurate idea of the current state of affairs with regard to a phenomenon of interest. Even if we can find contributions to the literature by entering keywords in search engines, we need tools that can help us to structure all the contributions encountered in terms of their interrelations and impact. This article presents social network analysis as such a tool. Although social network analysis is commonly thought of as a method in a particular empirical study, where individuals and groups of participants are studied, we can vie…
We need more replication research – A case for test-retest reliability
Following debates in psychology on the importance of replication research, we have also started to see pleas for a more prominent role for replication research in medical education. To enable replication research, it is of paramount importance to carefully study the reliability of the instruments we use. Cronbach’s alpha has been the most widely used estimator of reliability in the field of medical education, notably as some kind of quality label of test or questionnaire scores based on multiple items or of the reliability of assessment across exam stations. However, as this narrative review outlines, Cronbach’s alpha or alternative reliability statistics may complement but not replace psyc…
A framework of evidence-based practice for digital support, co-developed with and for the autism community
A wide array of digital supports (such as apps) have been developed for the autism community, many of which have little or no evidence to support their effectiveness. A Delphi study methodology was used to develop a consensus on what constitutes good evidence for digital supports among the broader autism community, including autistic people and their families, as well as autism-related professionals and researchers. A four-phase Delphi study consultation with 27 panel members resulted in agreement on three categories for which evidence is required: reliability, engagement and effectiveness of the technology. Consensus was also reached on four key sources of evidence for these three categor…
Modeling offenses among motorcyclists involved in crashes in Spain.
In relative terms, Spanish motorcyclists are more likely to be involved in crashes than other drivers and this tendency is constantly increasing. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that are related to being an offender in motorcycle accidents. A binary logit model is used to differentiate between offender and non-offender motorcyclists. A motorcyclist was considered to be offender when s/he had committed at least one traffic offense at the moment previous to the crash. The analysis is based on the official accident database of the Spanish general directorate of traffic (DGT) for the 2003–2008 time period. A number of explanatory variables including motorcyclist character…