DOCSLIB.ORG

Assessing Text and Web Accessibility for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Assessing Text and Web Accessibility for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessing Text and Web Accessibility for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Victoria Yaneva A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of as- sessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless otherwise indicated). Save for any express acknowledgements, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Victoria Yaneva to be identified as author of this work is as- serted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. Signature: . Date: . Abstract People with Autism Spectrum Disorder experience difficulties with reading comprehension and information processing, which affect their school perfor- mance, employability and social inclusion. The main goal of this work is to investigate new ways to evaluate and improve text and web accessibility for adults with autism. The first stage of this research involved using eye-tracking technology and comprehension testing to collect data from a group of participants with autism and a control group of participants without autism. This series of studies resulted in the development of the ASD corpus, which is the first multimodal corpus of text and gaze data obtained from participants with and without autism. We modelled text complexity and sentence complexity using sets of fea- tures matched to the reading difficulties people with autism experience. For document-level classification we trained a readability classifier on a generic corpus with known readability levels (easy, medium and difficult) and then used the ASD corpus to evaluate with unseen user-assessed data. For sentence- level classification, we used for the first time gaze data and comprehension testing to define a gold standard of easy and difficult sentences, which we then used as training and evaluation sets for sentence-level classification. The ii results showed that both classifiers outperformed other measures of complex- ity and were more accurate predictors of the comprehension of people with autism. We conducted a series of experiments evaluating easy-to-read documents for people with cognitive disabilities. Easy-to-read documents are written in an accessible way, following specific writing guidelines and containing both text and images. We focused mainly on the image component of these doc- uments, a topic which has been significantly under-studied compared to the text component; we were also motivated by the fact that people with autism are very strong visual thinkers and that therefore image insertion could be a way to use their strengths in visual thinking to compensate for their difficul- ties in reading. We investigated the effects images in text have on attention, comprehension, memorisation and user preferences in people with autism (all of these phenomena were investigated both objectively and subjectively). The results of these experiments were synthesised in a set of guidelines for improving text accessibility for people with autism. Finally, we evaluated the accessibility of web pages with different levels of visual complexity. We provide evidence of existing barriers to finding relevant information on web pages that people with autism face and we explore their subjective experiences with searching the web through survey questions. iii Acknowledgements Four years ago I came to the University of Wolverhampton to spend a month working on a project related to text simplification for people with autism. Little did I know that this one-month placement would be the start of a journey in academia and that today I would be writing the acknowledgments section of a PhD thesis. That placement did something even more important for me: it introduced me to the world of autism, which I am now so fascinated with. There are so many people I have to thank: Professor Ruslan Mitkov, for encouraging me to start this PhD in the first place and for believing in me. Thank you for your faith in me, for giving me the academic freedom to follow my own ideas and for all your support; Professor Kenneth Manktelow, for always being there for me and for showing me that statistics can actually be interesting. After each meeting with you I have felt more relaxed and confident that any problem could be solved; and Dr. Irina Temnikova for being available in times of crises via all forms of social media in almost all hours of the day and night. You have provided me with very valuable support and advice (and occasionally with a drink, in case the first two did not work out, for which I am grateful, too!). iv A huge thank you goes to Dr. Miguel Angel Rios Gaona: Miguel, I have learnt so much from you that I simply cannot imagine finishing this PhD without you by my side. Thank you for all your valuable ideas, your criticism, your code for the randomised presentation of the texts and questions, and last but far from least, for all the cooking and all the “fiestas locas", which made Wolverhampton a warmer place. I deeply regret that, because of confidentiality, I am not able to name the dozens of participants who took part in this research. Working with you and getting to know the everyday battle some of you face coping with autism has been a transformative experience for me. It has turned this work from a mere research topic into a cause. Thank you for getting involved despite not having any incentive other than to help other people with reading difficulties. I promise I will work really, really hard to achieve this with you. The work presented in this thesis was dependent on the involvement of the community and of many charity organisations. Special thanks in partic- ular go to Nick Parry, Pawel Cwik and Emilia-Maria Greenwood for helping me find more and more participants during the most difficult period of my PhD. Autism West Midlands, represented by Dr. Elisabeth Hurley, Joanne Barford and Stephanie Taylor, deserve applause for their commitment, for their support of this project and for teaching me so much about autism. Others who offered me valuable help include Linda Cooper from the Goscote Greenacres Centre and the entire team of the Impact Hub in Birmingham, who helped me reach out to the public and widened the impact of this work. v I am also very grateful to all of the members of our research group. Dis- cussions with Richard Evans and Constantin Orasan have been crucial in shaping the ideas presented in this thesis. Special thanks go to Iain Mansell for his genuine enthusiasm in helping with the outreach of this work and to Emma Franklin and George Mitkov for proofreading hundreds of pages. I met some great people in the group and, as I write these lines, I feel quite nostalgic for times past. There are too many people to mention here and I do not want to single anyone out as I have really learnt a lot from each and every one of you. You all know who you are and I am very happy that we got to share a small part of our lives together in Wolverhampton. Finally, there are a handful of people who are not directly related to this research but who are very dear to me: My friend Sachin Sasikumar, for helping me keep a decent work-life balance and for all his songwriting; and my friends who are so far away and yet so close: Petko, Borislav, Venera, Ani, Jeni, Elena, Polina and Dobrin. Thank you, Simeon Ivanov, for being certain that I could achieve whatever I wanted to. This belief of yours has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy for me and, even though I am not as powerful as that, I could not have done without you and I am very glad to have known you. Thanks, too, to my sister Yana and to my parents: I will not even attempt to put into words what you mean to me. Last but extremely far from least, many special thanks go to Aaron Montgomery for... well, for putting up with me through this entire writing period (I know I am a handful) and for being the wonderful human vi being that I am lucky enough to have by my side. vii List of Publications Parts of this thesis appeared in the following peer-reviewed publications: • Yaneva, V., Mitkov, R., Orasan, C. and Temnikova, I. Can Image In- sertion Aid Reading Comprehension and Memorisation in Adults with Autism? User Studies, A Prototype and Guidelines. Under Review, 2017. • Eraslan, S., Yaneva, V., Yesilada, Y., Harper, S. and Mitkov, R. Web Users with Autism: Eye-tracking evidence of Barriers and Distractors. Under Review, 2017. • Yaneva, V., Temnikova, I. and Mitkov, R. 2016. A Corpus of Text Data and Gaze Fixations from Autistic and Non-autistic Adults. Pro- ceedings of the 10th edition of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC), Portoroz, Slovenia, 25 - 28 May • Yaneva, V., Temnikova, I. and Mitkov, R. 2016. Evaluating the Read- ability of Text Simplication Output for Readers with Cognitive Dis- abilities. Proceedings of the 10th edition of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC), Portoroz, Slovenia, 25 - 28 May • Yaneva, V., Evans, R. and Temnikova, I. 2016. Predicting Read- ing Difculty for Readers with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Proceed- ings of Workshop on Improving Social Inclusion using NLP: Tools and viii Resources (ISI-NLP) held in conjunction with LREC 2016, Portoroz, Slovenia, 23 May • Yaneva, V., Temnikova, I.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • How to Do a Test for Coronavirus at Home
    How to do a test for Coronavirus at home An autism-friendly guide to testing your child or young person 2 Ambitious about Autism How to do a test for Coronavirus at home If your child or young person has symptoms, you should order a home test for Coronavirus. The home testing kit for Coronavirus is a swab test. The test is invasive, and swabs are taken from inside the nose and throat. Some autistic children and young people • Use a now and next visual where the ‘next’ may find the home testing kit distressing. side is an activity that your child enjoys, something that will motivate them to It is important to make adjustments to complete the Coronavirus home testing kit support your child and ensure the test is • Ask them to blow their nose to ensure taken safely and accurately. other bacteria doesn’t interfere with the test To relieve anxiety, you can use our Coronavirus home testing visual stories • To prepare yourself, wash your hands with for children and young people. soap for 20 seconds or use hand sanitiser. • To prepare your environment, clean the There are several ways you can prepare surface before you put the home testing your child for the test: kit down. • If appropriate, allow your child to support their stress or anxiety by playing with their favourite toy or stimming toy during the test • Put their favourite programme on so they can watch during the test • Play relaxing music during the test • Your child or young person might prefer to watch or close their eyes as you take swabs, give them the option Ambitious about Autism An autism-friendly guide to testing your child or young person 3 There are four steps to the Coronavirus home testing kit.
    [Show full text]
  • Combining Multiple Corpora for Readability Assessment for People with Cognitive Disabilities
    Combining Multiple Corpora for Readability Assessment for People with Cognitive Disabilities Victoria Yaneva, Constantin Orasan,˘ Richard Evans, and Omid Rohanian Research Institute in Information and Language Processing, University of Wolverhampton, UK v.yaneva, c.orasan, r.j.evans, omid.rohanian @wlv.ac.uk { } Abstract the task of text evaluation is challenging for target users because of their cognitive disability. Given the lack of large user-evaluated cor- Following from the first difficulty, user- pora in disability-related NLP research evaluated data is scarce and the majority of NLP (e.g. text simplification or readability as- research for disabled groups is done by exploit- sessment for people with cognitive dis- ing ratings or simplification provided by teachers abilities), the question of choosing suit- and experts (Inui et al., 2001; Dell’Orletta et al., able training data for NLP models is not 2011; Jordanova et al., 2013). Examples of such straightforward. The use of large generic a corpora are the FIRST corpus (Jordanova et al., corpora may be problematic because such 2013), which contains 31 original articles and ver- data may not reflect the needs of the target sions of the articles that had been manually simpli- population. At the same time, the avail- fied for people with autism, and a corpus of man- able user-evaluated corpora are not large ually simplified sentences for congenitally deaf enough to be used as training data. In Japanese readers (Inui et al., 2001). Henceforth this paper we explore a third approach, in in this paper, we refer to such manually simpli- which a large generic corpus is combined fied corpora as population-specific corpora.
    [Show full text]
  • University Microfilms International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor
    INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of die original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Boston Medical Center Autism Friendly Initiative: Improving
    Boston Medical Center Autism Friendly Initiative: Improving Hospital Experience for Patients with Autism Sarah Qin, MBA1; Shari King, MA1; Lauren Busa, MA1; Julia Goupil1; Daniel Cahill1; Sarabeth Broder-Fingert, MD, MPH2; Marilyn Augustyn, MD1 1Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center 2Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine *We have nothing to disclose Background Identifying the Challenges Targeted Interventions Trainings The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is rising, Staff Survey: In partnership with PLAN parents, the Boston University School of however, there are significant barriers to quality healthcare for Autism Support Checklist (ASC) Medicine and the Goldman School of Dental Medicine, we train patients with ASD. Patients with ASD experience more outpatient Autism Support Checklist Name of Patient: ____________________________ The Autism Support future doctors and dentists how to better interact with patients visits and their annual healthcare costs are higher than patients Date Completed: _________________ Communication Checklist collects with ASD. 1. How does the patient communicate information? without ASD. Patients with ASD encounter high levels of unmet Spoken language Pictures information from Written Words need and lower levels of satisfaction with care. To address these Non-verbal “I will be better able to recognize ASD and adapt to Electronic Communication patients with ASD Gestures issues at Boston Medical Center (BMC), we have launched the Other: ____________________ patient interactions and understand the needs of both 2. What would help the patient understand information? and their caregivers Spoken language Autism Friendly Initiative to improve the healthcare experience for Pictures the patient and family.” Written Words about individualized Electronic Communication rd Other: ____________________ -3 Year Medical Student our patients with ASD.
    [Show full text]
  • 100 Day Kit for Newly Diagnosed Families of School Age Children
    100 Day Kit for Newly Diagnosed Families of School Age Children FAMILY SERVICES DECEMBER 2014 100 DAY KIT FOR SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN The Autism Speaks 100 Day Kit is a tool designed to help assist families of children recently diagnosed with autism during the critical period following an autism diagnosis. The 100 Day Kit for School Age Children was released in 2014 and adapted from the 2010 Asperger Syndrome/High-Functioning Autism Tool Kit after the DSM-5 was published. The kits were created by the Autism Speaks Family Services staff in conjunction with both an advisory committee and the Family Services Committee. Autism Speaks would like to extend special thanks to the Advisory Committee for the time and effort that they put into reviewing this kit: 100 Day Kit for School Age Children Mel Karmazin* Advisory Committee Grandparent Ann Brendel Brian Kelly * ** Parent Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Artie Kempner* Behavioral Sciences Parent Duke University Medical Center Gary S. Mayerson* Lauren Elder, Ph.D. Founding Attorney, Mayerson & Associates Director, Ascent Psychological Services Kevin Murray* Peter F. Gerhardt, Ed.D. Parent Former President, Organization for Autism Research (OAR) Linda Meyer, Ed.D. Kerry Magro, M.A. Executive Director, Autism New Jersey Autism Speaks Social Media Coordinator, Danny Openden, Ph.D., B.C.B.A.-D. Self-advocate President and CEO, Southwest Autism Research and Valerie Paradiz, Ph.D. Resource Center (SARRC) Director, Valerie Paradiz, LLC Valerie Paradiz, Ph.D. Director Autistic Global Initiative Director, Valerie Paradiz, LLC Parent and self-advocate Director Autistic Global Initiative Patricia R.
    [Show full text]
  • Fifth Grade Core Competencies
    Fifth Grade Core Competencies Language Arts Reading Read at Fountas and Pinnell Level V Read fluently at grade level Comprehend grade level text Read fictional and informational text Summarize main idea of text Make connection with self, other text, and world Read independently and silently Writing Construct essays that are clear and focused and enrich the central theme Demonstrate an understanding of the standard writing conventions to enhance readability Organize essays with a strong beginning, middle, and end Select vocabulary that is potent and complements the purpose Write for different purposes, including narrative, expository, persuasive, and response to literature Spell the Dolch word list in context correctly Integrate Wordly Wise vocabulary in speech and writing Respond to questions using complete sentences Take notes from text, lecture, and discussions Write legibly in cursive and print Keyboard at a minimum of 10 words per minute Uses technology to research and present data Oral Expression and Listening Deliver message clearly and self-assuredly Ask relevant questions Present oral reports confidently in front of audience Participate in discussions Follow oral and written directions Math Recall multiplication and division facts automatically Compute with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and negative numbers Identify numbers according to place value Estimate to determine if answers are reasonable Demonstrate how to solve problems Measure length, degrees, area, and volume Calculate (mentally) the correct change for customers at Snack Shack Create graphs and charts from data Interpret graphs and charts 1 Fifth Grade Core Competencies Work Habits/Social Skills Read and follow directions independently Contribute positively to group work Complete and hand work in on time Use time wisely Apply skills to daily work Maintain organization of materials Demonstrate ability to focus on task Study for a variety of tests and quizzes Accept responsibility for own behavior Show consideration and respect through actions and words 2 Fifth Grade Core Competencies .
    [Show full text]
  • Software and Hardware Resource Catalog
    Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization Assistive and Instructional Technology SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE RESOURCE CATALOG Software Assessment Titles Company Subject / Skill Description Stages Assessment Software Cambium Learning Technologies Assessment Software Stages software provides all the by Itellitools Intellitools tools you need to effectively assess the seven developmental http://www.intellitools.com/files/st stages of cognitive language ages-20121031.pdf development in special needs learners. Early Learning Titles Company Subject / Skill Description Classroom Suite Cambium Learning Technologies Math, Reading and Writing Classroom Suite is a unique Intellitools software intervention tool developed based upon the http://www.intellitools.com/classro principles of Universal Design for om-suite.html Learning (UDL) that combines two educational paradigms— systematic, explicit instruction and flexible creativity tools— Teachers have control over specific learning objectives, 2 | Page allowing differentiated instruction for individuals or groups to help students in grades PreK-5 achieve mastery in reading, writing, and mathematics. Choose and Tell: Inclusive TLC Cause and Effect This is a great way to get 2206 Legacy Oak Drive Waxhaw, children using their imagination Fairy Tales NC 28173 and taking control of the story by Legends Toll Free: 1-800-462-0930 making their own decisions. The Nursery Rhymes Fax: 1-704-243-3623 results are beautifully illustrated, always entertaining and http://www.inclusivetlc.com delightfully comical! Switch accessible and configurable to suit the needs of different learners. Also features auditory scanning. Magic of Mother Goose, The Reading Each of the 14 complete units contains ready-to-print activities as PDF files. All materials have been made with Picture It and include Literacy Support Pictures.
    [Show full text]
  • These Tool Kits Are Available from Autism Speaks. 100 Day Kit (Other Languages Available)
    These Tool Kits are available from Autism Speaks. 100 Day Kit (Other Languages available) The Autism Speaks 100 Day Kit for Newly Diagnosed Families of Young Children was created specifically for families of children ages 4 and under to make the best possible use of the 100 days following their child's diagnosis of autism. 100 Day Kit for School Age Children The Autism Speaks 100 Day Kit is a tool designed to help assist families of children between the ages of 5 and 13 recently diagnosed with autism during the critical period following an autism diagnosis. Advocacy Tool Kit The Advocacy Tool Kit aims to help both individuals on the spectrum and their families develop and use critical advocacy skills in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. An Introduction to Behavioral Health Treatments This tool kit is designed to provide parents of children with ASD with an overview of in- home strategies as well as tips to teach and increase desirable behaviors and decrease behavior problems. Autism and Medication: Safe and Careful Use More than half of children with autism take medicine at some point during their childhood. Deciding to use medicine to treat children with autism is a difficult decision for most families. Blood Draw Tool Kit Blood Draw Tool Kit for Parents Has your child with ASD had a negative experience during a doctor’s visit that has left him or her feeling anxious? Does the prospect of having your child’s blood drawn make you anxious as well? Dental Professionals' Tool Kit Many children experience a great deal of anxiety when visiting the dental practitioner’s office, especially those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
    [Show full text]
  • Autism Planning and Design Guidelines 1.0
    AUTISM PLANNING AND DESIGN GUIDELINES 1.0 Attempt 1.0 August 2017 - December 2018 THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING STUDENTS AUTISM PLANNING AND DESIGN GUIDELINES 1.0 KNOWLTON SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING PROGRAM Supported By: THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY KNOWLTON SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AUTISM LIVING ATTEMPT 1.0 AUGUST 2017 - DECEMBER 2018 i. SUMMARY AUTISM PLANNING AND DESIGN GUIDELINES 1.0 AUTISM PLANNING AND DESIGN GUIDELINES 1.0 i. summary | 3 THE SIX FEELINGS FRAMEWORK Our research culminated in the creation of a planning and design strategy: The Six Feelings Framework. These six feelings combine to promote feelings of being included. When considering their needs, planning and design implementations in the public realm (in a public space or when using infrastructure) should make adults with autism: 1. Feel connected - because they are easily reached, entered, and/or lead to destinations. 2. Feel free - because they offer relative autonomy and the desired spectrum of independence. 3. Feel clear - because they make sense and do not confuse. 4. Feel private - because they offer boundaries and provides retreat. 5. Feel safe - because they diminish the risk of being injured. 6. Feel calm - because they mitigate physical sensory issues associated with autism. Although these feelings are also desirable for neurotypical people they are especially cru- cial for people with autism. Understanding that it may not seem useful to plan for one group of people, planning through the lens of autism can benefit everyone. The Six Feelings Framework helps planners create spaces and infrastructure that are more usable, comfortable, and beneficial to all constituents (but particularly adults with autism) who feel more connected, free, clear safe, private (when needed), calm, and ultimately, included.
    [Show full text]
  • Checklist for Autism Friendly Environments
    Checklist for Autism-Friendly Environments Stephen Simpson 2015 1 Copyright- Not to be used without consent of author Stephen Simpson Service version RNLD, BPhil (Autism) Introduction Some people with Autism can experience severe difficulties with the world around them including ‘unfriendly’ environments. The effect could be anything from a person having mild discomfort to symptoms of acute pain and deterioration in functioning. If the environment is distressing for the person this may stop them from accessing it. Social, Health, Education and Leisure opportunities can therefore become reduced. Everyone with Autism is unique and affects them in different ways and they have their own specific needs to be considered. An environment can be described as anything from a space or room to a whole building. This document seeks to identify some of the ways that environments can be changed to be friendlier. The checklist is divided into TWO parts. All services need to complete Part A whilst Part B is for more specialist providers. Part A – Core Requirements These are essential and are minimum requirements to create a more Autism Friendly Environment. 1. Sensory • Sight/visual • Smell/olfactory • Hearing/auditory • Body awareness/proprioception 2.Communication Systems 3.Escape 4.Awareness – Core Stephen Simpson 2015 2 Copyright- Not to be used without consent of author Part B - Enhanced (if applicable) requirements 1. Sensory • Touch/tactile • Taste/gustatory • Balance/vestibular 2. Awareness - Enhanced 3. Theory of Mind /Flexibility of Thought Each area has a number of questions that will have a response yes or no. Decide and tick in the relevant column to whether you believe the environment fully addresses the question raised.
    [Show full text]
  • A Taped-Words Reading Intervention for Non-Native English Speakers
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2008 A Taped-Words Reading Intervention for Non-Native English Speakers Kai A. Richards University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Richards, Kai A., "A Taped-Words Reading Intervention for Non-Native English Speakers. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2008. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/502 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kai A. Richards entitled "A Taped-Words Reading Intervention for Non-Native English Speakers." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Sherry K. Bain, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Christopher Skinner, Robert Williams, Mark Hector Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kai Arian Richards entitled “A Taped- Words Reading Intervention for Non-Native English-Speakers.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education.
    [Show full text]
  • A GROUP of THEIR OWN: a Clinical Support Program for Autistic/Neurodiverse Gender-Diverse Youth and Their Parents
    A GROUP OF THEIR OWN: A Clinical Support Program for Autistic/Neurodiverse Gender-Diverse Youth and Their Parents Clinical Guide John F. Strang, PsyD1-4 Lauren Kenworthy, PhD2-4 Megan Knauss, MSW1 Julia Zeroth, MA1 Abigail Brandt, MA, CCC-SLP1-3 Colleen Morgan, MA, CCC-SLP1-3 Haley Meagher, MA1 Amber Song, BA1-2 Laura G. Anthony, PhD5,6 1Gender and Autism Program, Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC 2Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC 3Children’s National Research Institute, Washington DC 4George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington DC 5Pediatric Mental Health Institute, Children’s Hospital of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado 6University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 2. Group Goals and Framework…………………...………………………………………………………………..3 2.1 Group aims…………………………………………………………………………………………………………....4 2.2 Group composition………………………………………………………………………………………………...4 2.3 Group frequency……………………………………………………………………………………………………5 2.4 Multidisciplinary interventionist team…………………………………………………………………....5 3. Group Content: Techniques, Routines, and Topics……………………………………………………7 3.1 Learning and information processing supports for neurodiverse youth…………..………...7 3.2 Scripts and routines to welcome everyone, no matter where they are on the gender spectrum, and to promote gender eXploration……………………………………7 3.3 Informal (but supported) opportunities for group members to connect socially with one another……………………………………………………………………………………..10 3.4 Diverse role models visit group…………………………………………………………………………….10 3.5 Gender-related eXploration and supports…………………………………………………….………..12 3.6 Autism/neurodiversity-related eXploration and teaching…………………………….………...14 3.7 Exploring the co-occurrence of neurodiversity and gender diversity……………..……..…14 3.8 Discussion of medical gender supports……………………………………………………….…………14 3.9 Parent group………………………………………………………………………………………………………..15 4.
    [Show full text]