Flourishing in children with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Flourishing is an indicator of positive mental health and is important for children's development and well-being. We used variables from the National Survey of Children's Health 2016 as indicators of flourishing (difficulty making friends, is bullied, bullies others, shares ideas with family, argues, finishes tasks, does all homework, shows curiosity, stays calm, and cares about doing well in school) to compare differences in parent perceptions of their children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We anticipate that these findings will help identify intervention targets to support the well-being of individuals with ASD. Children between 6 and 17 years of age, without intellectual disability, brain injury, cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome were included. Total participants were 34,171 controls (male/female = 17,116/17,155) and 812 with ASD (male/female = 668/144). Factor analysis resulted in three-factor structures (social competence, behavioral control, and school motivation) with good model fit (root mean square error of approximation = 0.08, comparative fit index = 0.92, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.89). The multivariate regression model and propensity score with inverse probability of treatment weighting (PS-IPTW) method revealed that children with ASD had lower scores in the social competence and behavioral control factors compared to the control group (all P < 0.05). However, no significant differences were found in the school motivation factor between the two groups (P > 0.05) in both multivariate regression model and PS-IPTW method. Findings suggest that social competence and behavioral control are indicators of flourishing and are important intervention targets to increase flourishing among children with ASD. Autism Res 2019, 12: 952-966. Health 2016 to examine differences in parent perceptions of the indicators of flourishing (difficulty making friends, is bullied, bullies others, shares ideas with family, argues, finishes tasks, does all homework, shows curiosity, stays calm, and cares about doing well in school) between children with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We anticipate that this information will help to identify therapeutic targets to support the well-being of individuals with ASD. Children between 6 and 17 years old, without intellectual disability (ID), brain injury (BI), cerebral palsy (CP), or Down syndrome (DS) were included. From the total (N = 50,212), we excluded children under age 6 (n = 14,494), those who once, but do not currently have ASD (n = 81), and those with ID (n = 432), BI (n = 170), CP (n = 35), and DS (n = 17), resulting in 34,983 records used. Total participants, age 6-17 years, were 34,171 controls (male/female = 17,116/17,155) and 812 with ASD (male/female = 668/144). Factor analysis resulted in the identification of three flourishing categories among the indicator variables (social competence, behavioral control, and school motivation). Children with ASD had lower scores in the social competence and behavioral control factors compared to the cont...

Supporting Students with Neurodevelopment Disorders in School Health Care—School Nurses’ Experiences

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“…Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are rising among school-aged children and adolescents, especially in those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and/or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) [ 1 , 2 ]. Coping with stress and pain can be challenging for all children and adolescents, especially those with NDDs [ 3 ]. Students with NDDs should have their social skills and emotion management skills identified as early as possible, because they are at higher risk of decreased psychological, social, and physical well-being [ 3 ].…”

“…Coping with stress and pain can be challenging for all children and adolescents, especially those with NDDs [ 3 ]. Students with NDDs should have their social skills and emotion management skills identified as early as possible, because they are at higher risk of decreased psychological, social, and physical well-being [ 3 ]. School health care has a crucial role in supporting children and adolescents with NDDs [ 4 , 5 , 6 ], for example, to develop individual health and education plans for students with NDDs.…”

Caregiver's difficulty paying child's healthcare bills and bullying victimization of adolescents with physical disabilities

“…Adolescents' difficulty making friends was measured with a single question: “Compared to other children his or her age, how much difficulty does this child have making or keeping friends?” This item has been used to measure adolescents' friendship difficulties in other studies (Hilton et al, 2019; Rupp & McCoy, 2019). The item was rated on a three‐point scale: no difficulty (1), a little difficulty (2) , and a lot of difficulties (3) .…”

Human Flourishing in Adolescents with Cancer: Experiences of Pediatric Oncology Health Care Professionals

“…Concepts such as "resilience," "thriving," or "post-traumatic growth" have been used to study and describe the population of AC who appear to have experienced positive coping (Arpawong et al, 2013;Haase, Kintner, Monahan, & Robb, 2014;Parry & Chesler, 2005). More recently, the concept of human flourishing (HF) has appeared in studies of children and adolescents, reflecting the need to capture the extent of this exceptional growth and fulfillment (Hilton, Ratcliff, Collins, Flanagan, & Hong, 2019;Nabors et al, 2018;Orkibi, Hamama, Gavriel-Fried, & Ronen, 2015).…”