Children on the Autism Spectrum and the Use of Virtual Reality for Supporting Social Skills.

BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by differences in socio-pragmatic communication. These conditions are allocated within a "spectrum" of phenotypic variability. Virtual reality (VR) is a useful tool for healthcare intervention and particularly safely advancing social abilities in children with ASD. METHODS: In our study two types of intervention for improving social skills were compared: (i) emotional training obtained by the use of virtual reality (Gr1), (ii) traditional emotional training performed individually with a therapist (Gr2). We aimed to identify the intervention with the shortest acquisition time for the proposed social tasks. RESULTS: Our findings show that both types of intervention had the same acquisition time for the recognition of primary emotions. However, for the use of primary and secondary emotions, the group using VR showed shorter acquisition times. CONCLUSIONS: These findings together with previous preliminary datasuggest that VR can be a promising, dynamic and effective practice for the support of basic and complex social skills of these individuals.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Cognitive Development and Executive Functioning in Adolescents: A First Exploratory Investigation.

BACKGROUND: The rapid expansion and severity of the COVID-19 contagion has had negative physical and psychological health implications for millions of people around the world, but even more so among children and adolescents. Given the severity of the situation and the small number of studies on the direct influence of viral infection on the cognitive development within adolescents, the present study aims at understanding the consequences of contracting the virus and being hospitalized in relation to cognitive functioning, in particular, for executive functioning, among adolescents. METHODS: To all subjects included in the sample, divided into four groups based on the severity of the COVID-19 infection, were administered the WISC-IV in order to evaluate the global cognitive functioning, and subsequently, the subtests Courses and Tower of London (ToL), both part of the BVN 12-18, were administered for the evaluation of executive operation. RESULTS: Our analyses showed that between subjects who did not contract the viral infection and those who contracted it in an asymptomatic form, there are no significant differences in cognitive functioning, but only in executive functioning. Furthermore, in both hospitalized and non-hospitalized subjects, we found lower scores especially for WM skills, while IQ scores are in a medium range. CONCLUSION: the present study shows that contracting the viral infection and, thus, being hospitalized, caused greater problems and difficulties as compared to those who were not hospitalized, impacting global cognitive (and executive) functioning, especially the WM. We believe that these results could allow an early detection of alterations in cognitive and executive functioning, a fundamental aspect of the interventions that occur in evolutionary phases such as those related to pre-adolescence, allowing, therefore, the activation of functional recovery pathways in a short time.

Parent Training and Therapy in Children with Autism.

With the introduction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5th ed. (DSM-5) autism spectrum disorders (ASD) fall into the category of neurodevelopmental disorders. ASD is characterized by the inhibitory mechanisms responsible for social adaptation and emotional expression being underdeveloped, causing a child's recognition and understanding of emotions to be impaired. Our study hypothesizes that early intervention using behavioral interventions such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and reflexive functions (RF) training on parents can improve the development of joint attention (JA), a cognitive precursor to the theory of mind (ToM) and mentalization processes. We considered a sample of 84 children aged between 20 and 30 months who had received a diagnosis of risk of autism spectrum disorder (level 1). The sample was divided into two groups of 42 subjects, in the first group we carried out a weekly behavioral parent training (PT) based only on ABA principles, while in the second group we carried out a weekly PT aimed at improving reflective functions and parental awareness according to a model inspired by the model based on emotional mirroring and mentalization of Fonagy. Our study shows that parents who are able to make sense of both their own mental state and that of their child can serve as a protective factor for the child's development even in atypical developmental situations such as in ASD.

Cognitive Development and Cannabis Use in Adolescents.

Heavy exposure to cannabis during adolescence can cause significant neurocognitive changes. It can alter emotional responsiveness and social behavior, and cause impairments in sustained attention, learning, working memory (WM), cognitive flexibility, and the speed of information processing. It also has a significant impact on executive functions. In this study we investigated how global cognitive functions can be affected by the frequency of cannabinoid consumption in different categories of consumers (chronic, occasional, and non-users), through the evaluation of executive functions. Statistical analysis showed a significant decrease in performance in working memory tasks and processing speed by subjects using cannabis chronically (group 1) as compared to non-consumers (group 3), and occasional consumers (group 2). Future studies could verify the extent of neurocognitive alterations through re-evaluations with controlled follow-up and the addition of neuro-functional data.

Video Modeling and Social Skills Learning in ASD-HF.

Autism spectrum disorders represent a heterogeneous group of clinical situations, and are mainly represented by a deficit of social communication. In this study, we compare two strategies to enhance communicative/social skills, namely self-video modeling and peer video modeling. The subjects were divided into two groups treated via the method of self-video modeling (group 1) or peer video modeling (group 2). For both groups of subjects affected by ASD-HF (Autism Spectrum Disorder-high-functioning), three different activities were proposed: (a) interacting with a salesperson while making a purchase, (b) initiating and maintaining a conversation with peers, and (c) starting and maintaining an enjoyable activity with a peer. The ability to rapidly accomplish the task was used as the main criteria to appraise the groups' responses to the proposed activities. In group 1, the use of self-video modeling procedures demonstrated a faster and correct execution of the three proposed tasks (especially task 3) when compared to group 2. In group 2, the use of peer video modeling has instead led to a slower acquisition of abilities to process and perform the tasks. The use of self-video modeling speeds up the acquisition of skills to perform communicative/social tasks, compared to peer video modeling's slower performance in subjects with ASD-HF. Results could be related to either the amount of time the subject is exposed to the task or to the capacity of ASD-HF subjects to self-value one's own actions more than others. In our work, we have tried to reset the differences in exposure time. Therefore, self-video modeling is demonstrated to be more effective, as it produces a response to the signification/mirroring characteristic of ASD-HF.