Nursing Center - Journal Article

You're not the cause, but you can be the solution. - Greenspan, 1995, p. 1

Stanley I. Greenspan, pediatric psychiatrist, directed this chapter title to parents in his book, The Challenging Child

In this issue of Topics in Language Disorders, the issue editor, Patricia Prelock, has invited articles on the topic of "Supporting social communication, perspective taking, and participation in children with autism spectrum disorders." This topic is timely and important for researchers and clinicians across a number of disciplines, who collaborate with families to improve the quality of family life, as well as to meet the communication development needs of individual children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Prelock, whose broader body of work represents a model of interdisciplinary collaboration and contextual relevance, has lived up to the standards she has set by incorporating the perspectives of researcher-clinicians from nursing, occupational therapy, and psychology, as well as from speech-language pathology. Appropriately, readers of this issue will benefit also from the voices of parents and clinicians-in-training, working with professionals to grapple with the tough issues of how to improve the genuine participation of children and adolescents with ASD in the social and recreational world of play and interaction with their families and peers.

Autism is remarkable, both in its prevalence, which seems to have been increasing, and in the pervasiveness of its effects on children and families. Current epidemiological estimates suggest that 1 out of every 150 children born may have a risk of ASD and approximately 1.5 million Americans and their families now are affected (Autism Society of America, 2007). Autism is found in all countries and all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups (Fombonne, 2007). Autism spectrum disorders differ widely in expression and severity but are grouped together on the basis of involvement of the triad of symptoms involving difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Wetherby & Prizant, 2000). Wing (1988) called this the triad of social interaction, communication, and "imagination."

At one end of the spectrum are children and adolescents with Asperger's syndrome, for whom delays in language development must be specifically excluded, but that does not mean that their social communication skills are unaffected. A particular challenge for the diverse group of children across the full range of the autism spectrum is the ability to imagine what others are thinking and how to enter imaginative play exchanges to make friends. Prelock and the interdisciplinary group of authors in this issue take on this challenge. They describe their clinical efforts to address these challenges for children and families. This issue also details the research challenges inherent in conducting research to gather the evidence on the effectiveness of family-centered practices in naturalistic settings. The collected articles within these pages are thoughtprovoking on a number of levels. We are pleased to offer them to the interdisciplinary audience of readers of Topics in Language Disorders, for their deep implications for research and practice.

Nickola Wolf Nelson, PhD

Editor

Katharine G. Butler, PhD

Editor Emerita

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed; text revision). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc. [Context Link]

Autism Society of America. (2007). Improving the lives of all affected by autism. Retrieved October 10, 2008, from http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_home [Context Link]

Fombonne, E. (2007). Epidemiology of pervasive developmental disorders. In J. M. Perez, P. M. Gonzales, M. L. Comi, & C. Nieto (Eds.), New developments in autism: The future is today (pp. 14-32). London, UK: Jessica Kingsley. [Context Link]

Greenspan, S. I. (1995). The challenging child. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. [Context Link]

Wetherby, A. M., & Prizant, B. M. (2000). Introduction to autism spectrum disorders. In A. M. Wetherby & B. M. Prizant (Eds.), Autism spectrum disorders: A transactional developmental perspective (pp. 1-7). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. [Context Link]

Wing, L. (1988). The continuum of autistic characteristics. In E. Schopler & G. B. Mesibov (Eds.), Diagnosis and assessment in autism (pp. 91-110). New York: Plenum Press. [Context Link]

REFERENCES

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