Megan Critchlow - Psychology
level tested the participant’s emotional vocabulary and the other 3 tested the participant’s
ability to match socio-emotional situations to the appropriate facial expression. At the start of
the 4 weeks the autistic participants were shown to have significantly lower scores compared
to the normal children. However after 4 weeks the two control groups remained the same, and
the autistic group who had been watching the transporters scores improved to the same level
and to a more advanced level as the normal children. These improvements indicate the
successful nature of the intervention, developing the autistic children’s ability to read others
expressions and therefore improving their Theory of Mind. Although the study could easily
be replicated, the small sample size and low ecological validity makes the study difficult to
generalise from.
Mindful parenting
By email a member of the autism expert alliance (S. Wilcox, pers. comm. 23 rd August 2013)
informed me of what she has discovered from her personal findings and experiences with her
son. Contrasting to previous studies she believes that vision therapy, counselling and other
interventions do not always impact an autistic child in the intended way. However working
upon the attitudes of family, relatives, teachers and therapists is what makes the largest
difference. Autistic children are often viewed as unresponsive, however usually they are
merely overwhelmed “from over stimulation, chemicals and other environmental input to be
reachable” (ibid). She informed me that autistic children are especially sensitive to the energy
that someone brings to a situation, therefore ways are being found to manage their energy.
Accordingly a residential school in New Hampshire for autistic children has created the new
curriculum “Energetic mindfulness”(ibid).
A study by Singh, N. et al, 2006 demonstrates the effectiveness of mindful parenting upon
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