The Life Project of People with Autism and Intellectual Disability: Investigating Personal Preferences and Values to Enhance Self-Determination.

People with autism and intellectual disabilities, much like individuals with typical development, share a fundamental right and aspiration to realise their own life projects. However, this natural pursuit is uniquely challenging for individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities due to their communication and adaptive hurdles. This growing need has prompted the development of a specific procedure for crafting life projects geared toward enhancing their quality of life. In the present work, we will describe the six key steps and the corresponding assessment, support, and verification tools essential for establishing and actualising the life project for individuals with disabilities, as conceptualised by the Italian Society of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (SIDIN). We will start by delineating diverse preference and value assessment procedures, showcasing an array of tools tailored to accommodate the distinct characteristics of adaptive and communicative functioning in individuals with disabilities. Following this, we will provide a succinct overview of support needs assessment tools. Subsequently, we will introduce the Ecological Life Balance, which serves as an integrative tool for harmonising various assessment systems. We will propose methods for defining existential goals that prioritise quality of life and suggest strategies for implementing support plans. Lastly, we will delve into the methodologies for monitoring and verifying outcomes in the final section.

Stress and wellbeing among professionals working with people with neurodevelopmental disorders. Review and intervention perspectives.

Supporting individuals with NDD is extremely demanding, with significant exposure to critical contexts and events, and painful ongoing experiences. Stress and burnout condition is a main concern with growing interest in research, despite the lack of consensus on theoretical explanatory models and modification standards.The paper provides an up-to-date review of risk factors and involved processes, and presents evidence-based procedures and protocols to implement effective preventive actions addressing both organizational and individual factors. The aim is to offer a global understanding of the subject and offer examples of practical plans to increase the impact on the quality of life of clients and staff members.

Neurodevelopmental disorders and development of project of lifein a lifespan perspective: between habilitation and quality of life.

For some years, the term "project of life" has become widely used in the field of neurodevelopmental disorders, and, at the same time, it has begun to make its way in many social and health planning documents. However, beyond its relatively widespread use, this term does not yet possess an adequate and shared frame of the main underlying decision-making processes. In particular, there is a need to identify the crucial questions for orienting the choice of goals within the adolescent transition, which represents the complex hinge between childhood and adulthood. Moreover, adulthood, which is often completely devoid of culturally and socially shared references, is still critical precisely because of the lack of future direction prompts usually represented by the stages of development. In this case, the themes of quality of life functioning as a guiding compass appear pertinent and much more relevant. The present contribution is, therefore, an attempt to present, in a unitary manner, the decision-making processes and questions at the basis of a construct of "project of life" shared within the scientific and associative communities.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): the foundation of the therapeutic model and an overview of its contribution to the treatment of patients with chronic physical diseases.

Nowadays, treatment of chronic illnesses, such as stroke, cancer, chronic heart and respiratory diseases, osteoarthritis, diabetes, and so forth, account for the largest part of expenses in western countries national health systems. Moreover, these diseases are by far the leading causes of mortality in the world, representing 60% of all deaths. Any treatment aimed at targeting them might engage an individual for a large portion of his/her life so that personal and environmental factors can play a crucial role in modulating the person's quality of life and functioning, on top of any medical cure. Anxiety, depression, and distress for examples are not rare in patients with chronic diseases. Therefore, Cognitive and Behavior Therapy research has largely contributed in the last decades in identifying and programming interventions on such aspects as real and perceived social and family support, coping abilities, locus of control, self-efficacy that might help patients living with their chronic disease. More recently, third generation Cognitive-Behavior-Therapies, such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) and Acceptance, and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focused their attention and research efforts on developing intervention models targeting the needs of patients with a chronic disease. This paper has three aims. First is to briefly introduce ACT epistemological (Functional Contextualism) and theoretical (Relational Frame Theory) foundations as a stand point for understanding the peculiarity of ACT as a modern form of Clinical Behavior Analysis. The second aim is to introduce ACT clinical model and its six core processes (acceptance, defusion, present moment, self as a context, values and committed action) as both accountable, in their continuum, for psychological flexibility and inflexibility. Third, to present a brief overview of studies and outcomes of ACT intervention protocols and assessment tools that have been investigated in patients with chronic physical diseases, and namely: diabetes, obesity, epilepsy, and chronic pain.