Autism Therapy: sadness

definition of sadness: not yet defined.

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Supporting Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Questions Parents Ask and What Nurses Need to Know
Pediatric Nursing, by Elder, JH, and D’Alessandro T., published in 2009, summarized Nov 23, 2009

Nurses may be able to help families as they go through a process of accepting the diagnosis and seeking care for their children with autism.

Parents can go through emotional phases that are similar to phases of grieving someone’s death. Parents may go through shock, sadness, anger, disorganization, despair, and eventually reorganization and acceptance. Nurses can learn about therapy and treatment options to help support parents as they make decisions about care of their children with autism. Medication is often part of the treatment plan, and nurses can help parents by giving information and support to them.


Teaching Empathy Skills to Children with Autism
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, by Schrandt, JA, Townsend DB, and Poulson CL, published in 2009, summarized Jul 21, 2009

Empathy may be taught to children with autism using applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to other people's feelings. Four children with autism who rarely or never showed empathy skills received ABA therapy 5 days a week for 5½ hours per day at home and at a therapy center. Special ABA sessions to focus on empathy lasted 20-30 minutes, 4-5 days per week, for up to 10 weeks. The children were 4-8 years old. Therapists used puppets to pair actions with words about feelings during these special therapy sessions. They focused on sadness/pain, happiness/excitement, and frustration. All 4 children learned empathy skills with the puppets. For example, a child would say, "Are you okay?" if the puppet was "hurt." Generalization of empathy skills from puppets to people happened with two children, so that when a person demonstrated emotions they responded appropriately. For two other children, generalization from puppets to people was limited. The authors think it may be more effective to teach empathy skills with people instead of puppets.


The Effect of Background Music and Song Texts on the Emotional Understanding of Children with Autism
Journal of Music Therapy, by Katagiri, J., published in 2009, summarized Apr 7, 2009

Background music may help children with autism to learn emotions.

Children with autism need an understanding of emotions to help them with social skills. The purpose of this study was to test whether or not background music and song texts can help to teach emotions to children with autism. All 12 students showed an improved understanding of the four emotions that were taught. Children who had background music and song texts learned better than children who had no music. The children understood sadness, fear, and anger better than they understood happiness.


Safety and Usage of Atypical Antipsychotic Medicines in Children: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
Drug Safety, by Harrison-Woolrych, M., Garcia-Quiroga J., Ashton J., and Herbison P., published in 2007, summarized Jul 11, 2008

Risperidone use in children with autism may result in sadness.

This New Zealand study looked at the use of a type of drug therapy (atypical
antipsychotics) in children. In 94% of the cases the drug therapy was for risperidone. Risperidone is prescribed for many reasons such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders. A total of 131 of the 420 children in the study (31%) had one or more adverse events. The study described one 13-year-old girl with autism who was given risperidone therapy and became sad. An 11-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome received risperidone therapy and became depressed. Another 11-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome had suicidal thoughts after starting risperidone.


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Robot Made from Wood May Help Kids with Autism Learn Emotions

Feb 16, 2012

Build-A-Robot from Plan Toys is a wooden toy that may help children with autism learn different emotions. We have written about children with autism and the help they may receive from robots before, but those robots often appeared to look like "special needs" toys. This wooden robot looks much more like block sets that children would relate to. Laura Chun Urquiaga, a former photojournalist, worked with ASD specialists to design the toy. The robot figure, which appeals to boys and girls, has different heads expressing anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness. The heads are changeable and promote sensory awareness and fine motor skills along with teaching emotions. The best part? Build-A-Robot is only $35.

Read original article: A Wooden Robot that Teaches Autistic Kids to Recognize Emotions


Toys with Human Faces Help Teach Emotions to Children with Autism

Dec 1, 2008

The Transporters DVD series was created by scientists and filmmakers at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge to help teach emotions to children with autism. The researchers discovered that attaching real faces to toys like trains and cars - toys many children with autism are attracted to - might help children make eye contact and learn to read emotions. These same children might be less likely to want to interact with human beings. The faces provide increased awareness among children of emotions like fear, happiness, and sadness.

Read original article.


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An hour of sunshine....

Jun 26, 2009 by Anonymous

 For me this has been a week of discovery, decisions and disbelief.    Discovery came in the form of the realization and finalization that my son’s autism support group had indeed fallen pray to budget cuts and that no 11th hour call for restoration would be forthcoming.   I admit that while I have become a very strong advocate for my son, I took comfort in knowing that reinforcements were always just a phone call away, and that his support person would always be there for me to help me  find the right program, piece of information or just sit quietly on the other end of the phone while I vented.   Although she was often quick to remark that I was as much a support system for her as she was for me (she herself a mother of a child with special needs) it was the knowledge that she would be there when I needed  her  that had gotten me through many emotionally difficult and overwhelming times.  I knew that in times of crisis all I had to do was break glass!  People so often take for granted the importance of emotional support from those who get truly get it, so today I feel a void and a profound loss that I had not anticipated even though I had been forewarned.

Perhaps borne out of a frenzied grasp at trying to make sense of my world and indeed to genuinely make a contribution to my community, and the ASD community at large I have decided to return to school and complete my degree.   Whoaaa, easy with the applause...do not read Masters, Ph. D. or anything so lofty just yet. Read Bachelors of Science (Human Services).   Many, many…(ok , to be blunt I left school mid-junior year…my son is now a junior in college, you do the math) years ago I fell on financial hard times and left school saying I would return in a semester, maybe two.   Life happens.   At least now I know what I want to do when I grow up.

Disbelief has come for me as it has for the world that we have lost two pop icons in one day.   While you may or may not have been a fan of one or both, their contributions to music and cinema, as well as to humanity were monumental and should not be diminished.   So maybe it’s just the unrelenting rain, or the overall feeling of sadness at this loss that has cast a dark pall over my day.   Suffice it to say that I can only sum up this weeks blog with these thoughts…Time is too precious to wallow in negativity, regret, superiority complexes, inferiority complexes, grief, despair and pain.    This week Joshua shaved almost 7 seconds off of his 50 meter freestyle meet time.   Not quite Michael Phelps and no, he did not come in first place, but in my eyes he is a winner.  Today the sun came out for an hour where I live (it has been raining almost nonstop all month).   That’s what I want to remember about this week, the little wins and  that brief moment of light and warmth.    God bless you all!


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