Acceptability and effects of acquiring an assistance or companion dog for families of children on the autism spectrum.

PURPOSE: Assistance and companion dogs have numerous positive effects for family of autistic children, such as supporting their rehabilitation and improving their quality of life. To date, very few studies have compared the effects of both types of dogs. This comparison, considering the limited access to assistance dogs, could be helpful for families wanting to adopt a dog. METHODS: An explanatory sequential design with a mixed-method approach was used. First, 85 parents (nassistance dogs = 57; ncompanion dogs = 28) of children aged between 3 and 17 years old (M = 10.73, SD = 3.67) completed an online questionnaire including sociodemographic questions and the Treatment Acceptability Rating Form-Revised (TARF-R). Then, 17 of these participants (nassistance dogs = 14; ncompanion dogs = 3) completed a semi-structured interview. RESULTS: The quantitative data analyses showed that parents with assistance dogs were significantly more satisfied: t (83) = -2.12, p = .037, d = 0.49. Significant associations between some sociodemographic variables (e.g., number of children, comorbid condition, reasons for acquiring a dog) and acceptability/satisfaction (TARF-R total scores) were found. The qualitative analysis revealed that families with both dog types observed positive effects. CONCLUSIONS: In brief, having an assistance dog constitutes a significant added value; nevertheless, both types of dogs are appreciated.

Parents of children on the autism spectrum show significantly higher levels of satisfaction with having an assistance dog to assist the rehabilitation of their child on the autism spectrum when compared to a companion dog.Assistance and companion dogs are both perceived as beneficial by parents and as an important source of support for the rehabilitation of children on the autism spectrum and other members of their family.Companion dogs trained specifically to assist the rehabilitation of children on the autism spectrum should be offered to families in the context of limited access to assistance dogs.

Family physicians' sick-listing practices in relation to mental disorders: A descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders are among the leading causes of disability for which family physicians are often required to complete sickness certificates. Yet, little is known about family physicians' sick-listing practices in Quebec. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe their practices, difficulties and needs. METHODS: Twenty-three family physicians completed a comprehensive questionnaire on sickness certification practices. Descriptive statistics were used. RESULTS: Despite being completed on a weekly basis, sickness certifications were deemed problematic by all participants. While they rarely refused to sick-list a patient, 43.5% reported suggesting accommodations as an alternative to sick leave. Waiting-time to access psychotherapy and delays to set-up workplace accommodations are responsible for many unnecessary sick-leave prolongations. Lack of time, long duration absences, situations where the physician held a different opinion than the patient/healthcare provider and assessing an individual's capacity to work are the most common reported problems. More than half of participants indicated medical schools do not greatly prepare them to carry out these tasks. CONCLUSION: Sickness certifications are deemed problematic, and more training might be key. Our results can be used by medical schools or bodies responsible for continuous education to improve training.

Using Prevent Teach Reinforce for Young Children to Manage Challenging Behaviors in Public Specialized Early Intervention Services for Autism.

This proof-of-concept study assessed the feasibility of implementing Prevent-Teach-Reinforce-for-Young-Children (PTR-YC) program to address challenging behaviors in children with autism within the context of public, specialized early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) services offered in community settings. Following a 2-day training and with brief weekly supervision meetings, children's EIBI educators acted as facilitators in 35 families' home environments. Small and moderate effect sizes were observed for children's behavioral outcomes and parenting stress. Recruitment and retention rates, implementation fidelity, as well as treatment acceptability from the perspective of participating parents and the organization attested to the feasibility and relevance of implementing and evaluating this program on a larger scale as part of a multi-center randomized controlled trial.

Temporal regulation of children with autism spectrum disorder exposed to a differential-reinforcement-of low-rates schedule.

This study investigated temporal adjustment of children with autism spectrum disorder under a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rates (DRL) schedule. Sixteen participants, aged 3.2 to 7 years, were exposed to two conditions, DRL 5 s and DRL 20 s. Children participated in 7 sessions in each condition, except for 1 participant who attained the adjustment criteria in the DRL 5-s schedule. Temporal adjustment was measured with the proportion of reinforced interresponse times (IRTs) and the mean IRT. The operant response was a press on a touch screen and the reinforcers were cartoons. IQ and receptive language were measured prior to the DRL sessions. Results showed that the mean proportion of reinforced IRTs was slightly higher in the DRL 5-s schedule. The mean IRT was above the IRT requirement in both conditions. However, substantial individual variability was observed. Children with higher IQ and receptive language scores presented a greater proportion of reinforced IRTs in both conditions. Moreover, participants who adjusted their responses to the DRL 5-s schedule were more likely to adjust responding to the DRL 20-s schedule. This suggests that some children might be more sensitive to reinforcement contingencies than others. This study points at future research in the field of timing in children.

Temporal control of behaviour in children with differential reinforcement of low rates schedule: the role of age, language and cognitive functioning on temporal regulation.

Research on temporal regulation in children has been prolific until early 1990s and has received a very limited attention since then. However, the studies focussed mainly on very short durations, and many questions raised at that time remain unanswered (Clément et al., 2007). The scope of this study was to evaluate temporal control in children with differential reinforcement of low-rates (DRL) schedule. Objectives were (a) to evaluate the performance in DRL with two distinct durations; (b) to evaluate the relationship between performance, IQ and language; and (c) to observe children's response patterns across the sessions. Eleven children aged from 2.6 to 7 years old were exposed to a DRL 5s and a DRL 20s schedule. No significant correlation was observed between language, IQ and the performance in DRL. In DRL 5s, seven children adjusted their responses and six in DRL 20s. Age was positively correlated to performance in DRL 5s, while the response patterns in DRL 20s were hardly predictable. In both conditions, children aged from 4.6 years old showed a lower proportion of bursting responses, a lower rate of response, a larger proportion of reinforced responses and a higher optimisation coefficient.