Effects of service dogs on children with ASD's symptoms and parents' well-being: On the importance of considering those effects with a more systemic perspective.

The integration of a service dog can have numerous benefits for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, although integration takes place within a family, little is known about the dynamics of these benefits on the family microsystem. Thus, the aim of our study was to propose a more systemic perspective, not only by investigating the benefits of SD integration, but also by exploring the relationships between improvements in children with ASD, parents' well-being, parenting strategies and the quality of the child-dog relationship. Twenty parent-child with ASD dyads were followed before, as well as 3 and 6 months after service dog integration. At each stage, parents completed an online survey which included: the Autism Behavior Inventory (ABI-S), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Y), the Parenting Stress Index Short Version (PSI-SF), the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). First, repeated measure one-way ANOVAs revealed that both children's ASD symptoms and parents' anxiety decreased significantly after service dog integration. Additionally, Spearman correlations revealed that the more ASD symptoms decreased, the more parent's anxiety and parenting stress also decreased. Second, the quality of the child-dog relationship appeared to contribute to those benefits on both children's ASD symptoms and parents' well-being. Interestingly, parenting strategies seemed to adapt according to these benefits and to the quality of the child-dog relationship. Through a more systemic perspective, this study highlighted that the integration of a service dog involved reciprocal and dynamic effects for children with ASD and their parents, and shed new light on the processes that may underlie the effects of a service dog for children with ASD.

Emotion Facial Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Service Dogs.

Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces. Numerous studies have demonstrated the multiple benefits of exposure to pet dogs and service dogs on the interaction skills and psychosocial development of children with ASD. However, no study has investigated if those benefits also extend to the processing of facial expressions. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a service dog had an influence on facial expression processing skills of children with ASD. Two groups of 15 children with ASD, with and without a service dog, were compared using a facial expression recognition computer task while their ocular movements were measured using an eye-tracker. While the two groups did not differ in their accuracy and reaction time, results highlighted that children with ASD owning a service dog directed less attention toward areas that were not relevant to facial expression processing. They also displayed a more differentiated scanning of relevant facial features according to the displayed emotion (i.e., they spent more time on the mouth for joy than for anger, and vice versa for the eyes area). Results from the present study suggest that having a service dog and interacting with it on a daily basis may promote the development of specific visual exploration strategies for the processing of human faces.

Visual Exploration and Observation of Real-Life Interactions Between Children with ASD and Service Dogs.

Two original studies explored relationships between visual attention of children with ASD (candidates for receiving a service dog) and their behaviors during their first interaction with a service dog. The first study consisted in video behavioural analyses of 16 children with ASD interacting with a service dog. During the interaction with a service dog, the time children with ASD spent looking towards social items vs objects was associated with how they interacted with the service dog. The second study was exploratory (i.e. 6 children), using the same behavioural approach but coupled with eye-tracking data. The more children with ASD looked at both their parent and the evaluator, as opposed to inanimate items, the more they interacted with the service dog.

Early menarche predicts increased depressive symptoms and cortisol levels in Quebec girls ages 11 to 13.

Earlier age of menarche is believed to confer greater vulnerability to depressive symptoms via increased reactivity to stressors associated with adolescence. In this longitudinal study, we measured depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol levels in 198 boys and 142 girls between the ages of 11 and 13 tested four times during Grade 7 as they transitioned from elementary school to secondary school as per Quebec's education system. Results showed that girls who had already reached menarche before starting secondary school had significantly higher depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol levels across the school year in comparison to girls who had not reached menarche, who in turn presented higher depressive scores than boys. When we divided menarcheal girls as a function of menarcheal timing in subanalyses, we found that girls with early menarche presented consistently elevated depressive symptoms across the school year while girls with on-time menarche presented transient depressive symptoms but no differences in salivary cortisol levels. Collectively, these results show that early menarche is associated with high depressive symptoms and cortisol levels in adolescent girls. This developmental milestone may render girls more vulnerable to environmental stressors and therefore represents a critical period to intervene to promote mental health.

No personalization without participation: on the active contribution of psychiatric patients to the development of a mobile application for mental health.

BACKGROUND: Despite the increasing pervasiveness of mobile computational technologies, knowledge about psychiatric patients' preferences regarding the design and utility of mobile applications is very poor. This paper reports on a pilot-study that involved 120 psychiatric patients in the development of a mobile application (app) that is being used for data entry into the Signature Project data bank at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), Canada. Participants were invited to comment on the 'look and feel' of the Signature App. Their input also extended the procedures for data collection. These suggestions may contribute to increased mental health literacy and empowerment of persons with mental illness receiving services at the IUSMM. METHODS: Participants were recruited to fill out a questionnaire on a tablet computer while waiting at the Emergency Room (ER, n = 40), Psychotic Disorders outpatient clinic (n = 40) or Anxiety and Mood Disorders outpatient clinic (n = 40) of IUSMM. Nine patients from each of these sub-groups participated in a focus group to review the results and to discuss how the design and use of the Signature App could be improved to better meet the needs of patients. RESULTS: This study (n = 120) indicated that psychiatric patients are clearly capable of using a tablet computer to fill out questionnaires for quantitative data entry, and that they enjoyed this experience. Results from the focus groups (n = 27) highlight that the app could also be used by patients to communicate some personal and contextual qualitative information. This would support a holistic and person-centered approach, especially at the ER where people acutely need to describe their recent history and receive emotional support. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot-study has confirmed the necessity of involving patients not only in the testing of a new mobile application, but also as active contributors in the entire research and development process of a person-centered information and communication technology infrastructure. The input of participants was essential in designing the Signature Project computational procedure and making use of the app a positive and empowering experience. Participants also gave critical feedback remarks that went beyond the initial scope of the pilot-study, for example they suggested the addition of a client-clinician component.

Dominance among unfamiliar peers starts in infancy.

Dominance has been conceived for a long time in terms of asymmetry in agonistic conflicts. But this conception has shown its limits in the complexity of children's social worlds. Today, dominance is rather conceived in terms of asymmetry in resource control within children's dyads. Some observational studies have been done in this context, but only on small groups of familiar children and often up to 3 years of age. Our aim was to reveal whether asymmetry in resource control would occur between younger children who met each other for the first time in the presence of an attractive toy. We observed 201 dyads of 19-month-old unfamiliar peers in four repetitive competitive sessions for a toy. Resource control and asymmetry between participants were highly consistent between sessions. The level of asymmetry in resource control between participants was very high. This asymmetry was influenced neither by gender nor by age, and coercive behaviors in the situation, physical aggression rated by parents, birth order, and day-care habits did not account for the asymmetry in our setting. However, body size at birth (although not at the time of testing) and anxiety rated by parents contributed significantly to the asymmetry in resource control.