Massage therapy benefits in Autistic children

[Delta4Embassy]

Episode of Law & Order: SVU featured a subplot involving parents or stepparents massaging their children and getting in trouble for it. At one point during the investigation, the Dr. Wong character confirms it's a legitimate therpay. But is it really, or is it just tv?

Kids with autism see big benefits from massage, study says

"That's because most autism treatments require some degree of language and ability to focus, she said. Her treatment removes those barriers by centering on a 15-minute whole-body massage. The treatment, which she trains parents to use daily with children under the age of 6, is now the subject of a two-year replication study to assess its effectiveness.

The first report on the study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Autism Research and Treatment, found that overall autism severity among the 103 Oregon preschoolers in the study decreased by 32 percent, resulting in improved behavior and language. Autism severity is assessed by evaluating symptoms against screening tools such as the Autism Behavior Checklist.

More specifically, sensory problems improved by 38 percent and sensitivity to touch and texture improved by 49 percent after five months of treatment.

Children in the study also experienced an 18 percent increase in receptive language, Silva said. Among low-functioning children, a lack of receptive language means "they don't answer to their name, they don't understand." Among high-functioning children, she said, "it's that they don't listen - it's more that they would have a monologue" instead of a conversation."
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Googling around for info, there's a laundry list of conditions that responds well to massage therapy. Works in general too.

Massage decreases aggression in preschool children: a long-term study. - PubMed - NCBI

"Massage decreases aggression in preschool children: a long-term study.

Abstract
AIM:

To evaluate the effects of massage in 4- to 5-year-old children with aggression and deviant behaviour at day-care centres.
METHOD:

The children received daily massage in preschool at the midday rest (n = 60). The controls were listening to a story (n = 50). The Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) was used to rate the children's behaviour by parents and staff before the treatment started, and after 3 and 6 months. A long-term evaluation was also carried out. It included all massaged children still in daycare after 12 months (n = 34).
RESULTS:

Children with high scores of behaviour problems, receiving massage and/or extra attention showed significant decrease in aggression scores after 3 months, but after 6 months significantly lowered scores were only found in massage-treated deviant children. Parents of the children receiving massage rated a significant decrease of somatic problems of their children. Staff rated that the massaged children's social problems decreased, compared to the control children. Attention problems tended to decrease, especially at home. A continuous decrease in aggressive behaviour and somatic problems over a 12-month period was observed in the children receiving massage.
CONCLUSION:

Daily touching by massage lasting for 5-10 min could be an easy and inexpensive way to decrease aggression among preschool children."
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I know what's going to happen, but unlike previous threads not going to respond. Read it, learn about it, or don't. Your loss.

 

[Iron Head]

I just projectile vomitted all over my computer monitor...

 

[Spinster]

Massage can be therapeutically beneficial in many instances, not just autistic kids. It's very helpful in cases of spinal injury patients, and is helpful in people who have contracture from being in a wheelchair or bedridden for years. They have an unlocking of "frozen" joints and tendons.

 

[waltky]

Helping autistic kids with Google Glass...

Google Glass finds use in helping autistic children
Fri, Jun 24, 2016 - Like many autistic children, Julian Brown has trouble reading emotions in people’s faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder. The 10-year-old San Jose boy is getting help from “autism glass” — an experimental device that records and analyzes faces in real time and alerts him to the emotions they are expressing.

The facial recognition software was developed at Stanford University and runs on Google Glass, a computerized headset with a front-facing camera and a tiny display just above the right eye. Julian is one of about 100 autistic children participating in a Stanford study to see if “autism glass” therapy can improve their ability to interpret facial expressions. “There’s not a machine that can read your mind, but this helps with the emotions, you know, recognizing them,” Julian said. Julian wears the device each day for three 20-minute sessions when he interacts with family members face-to-face — talking, playing games, eating meals. The program runs on a smartphone, which records the sessions.

When the device’s camera detects an emotion such as happiness or sadness, Julian sees the word “happy” or “sad” — or a corresponding “emoji” — flash on the glass display. The device also tests his ability to read facial expressions. “The autism glass program is meant to teach children with autism how to understand what a face is telling them. And we believe that when that happens they will become more socially engaged,” said Dennis Wall, who directs the Stanford School of Medicine’s Wall Lab, which is running the study.

Stanford student Catalin Voss and researcher Nick Haber developed the technology to track faces and detect emotions in a wide range of people and settings. “We had the idea of basically creating a behavioral aide that would recognize the expressions and faces for you and then give you social cues according to those,” said Voss, who was partly inspired by a cousin who has autism.

Google provided about 35 Google Glass devices to Stanford, but otherwise has not been involved in the project. The Silicon Valley tech giant stopped producing the headset last year after it failed to gain traction, but the device found new life among medical researchers. Brain Power, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based start-up, is also developing Google Glass-based applications to help children with autism improve their face-reading abilities and social skills. Autism advocates are excited that researchers are developing technologies to help the estimated one in 68 US children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

Google Glass finds use in helping autistic children - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Kaspar the robot Helps Autistic Children With Social Skills...

British Robot Helps Autistic Children With Social Skills
March 31, 2017 — "This is nice, it tickles me," Kaspar the social robot tells four-year-old Finn as they play together at an autism school north of London.

Kaspar, developed by the University of Hertfordshire, also sings songs, imitates eating, plays the tambourine and combs his hair during their sessions, aimed at helping Finn with his social interaction and communication. If Finn gets too rough, the similarly sized Kaspar cries: "Ouch, that hurt me." A therapist is on hand to encourage the child to rectify his behavior by tickling the robot's feet. Finn is one of around 170 autistic children that Kaspar has helped in a handful of schools and hospitals over the last 10 years.

But with approximately 700,000 people in Britain on the autism spectrum, according to the National Autistic Society who will mark World Autism Day on Sunday, the university want Kaspar to help more people. "Our vision is that every child in a school or a home or in a hospital could get a Kaspar if they wanted to," Kerstin Dautenhahn, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire, told Reuters. Achieving that goal will largely depend on the results of a two-year clinical trial with the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, which, if successful, could see Kaspar working in hospitals nationwide.

Kaspar, a child-sized humanoid robot developed at the University of Hertfordshire to interact and help improve the lives of children with autism, is seen at the University of Hertfordshire, in Stevenage, Britain​

TRACKS, an independent charity and specialist early-years center for children with autism in Stevenage, have seen positive results from working with Kaspar, who sports a blue cap and plaid shirt for play sessions. "We were trying to teach a little boy how to eat with his peers. He usually struggled with it because of his anxiety issues," said deputy principal Alice Lynch. "We started doing it with Kaspar and he really, really enjoyed feeding Kaspar, making him eat when he was hungry, things like that. Now he's started to integrate into the classroom and eat alongside his peers. So, things like that are just a massive progression." Many children with autism find it hard to decipher basic human communication and emotion so Kaspar's designers avoided making him too lifelike and instead opted for simplified, easy-to-process features.

Autism support groups have been impressed. "Many autistic people are drawn to technology, particularly the predictability it provides, which means it can be a very useful means of engaging children, and adults too," Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society's Centre for Autism, told Reuters. "This robot is one of a number of emerging technologies which have the potential to make a huge difference to people on the autism spectrum."

British Robot Helps Autistic Children With Social Skills