Raising the voice of the lost girls

How does a ‘Jewellery Club’ adaptation of the Lego Therapy intervention impact on social anxiety and interactions between girls aged 7 with social communication interaction difficulties?

“…Towards the end of the intervention, all parents noted an improvement in the frequency and duration of any periods of emotional dysregulation at home linked to events in school, although these were still occurring and of a concern to at least one of the parents. This demonstrates that the impact was observed beyond the school environment, which is important as it suggests a decrease in social anxiety rather than an increase in masking (Grant, 2019, p. 32); an important factor to consider as all parents noted a significant difference in their child's behaviour between home and school.…”

“…Missed diagnosis (Dworzynski et al., 2012, p. 793; Petrou et al., 2018, p. 32) and misdiagnosis of autistic females (Young et al., 2018, p. 402) could be partly due to current diagnostic criteria and screening methods being largely based upon studies involving autistic boys (Carpenter et al., 2019, p. 3; Young et al., 2018, p. 401). In addition, masking (Grant, 2019, p. 32), parental expectations of different genders and the understanding of professionals of female autistic traits can influence rates of diagnosis (Young et al., 2018, p. 400). Mis‐diagnosis and delay in diagnosis significantly impact opportunities for early intervention, which has been shown to be an important success factor (Fuller & Kaiser, 2020).…”