RESUMO
Background: Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly experience difficulties maintaining social gaze with others during interactions. Although behavioral interventions targeted to promote social gaze in ASD are evident in the literature, to our knowledge, no review of the literature has been conducted to summarize and evaluate the evidence for these interventions. Methods: We reviewed and summarized behavioral intervention studies designed to promote social gaze in individuals diagnosed with ASD and other developmental disabilities published in English between 1977 and January 2022 using PsychINFO and PubMed databases. Results: 41 studies met the inclusion criteria describing interventions conducted on 608 individuals. A variety of intervention strategies were employed to promote social gaze in these individuals including discrete trial instruction, prompting, modeling, and imitation. Most studies employed single-case research designs and reported successful outcomes, but limited data were available concerning the generalization, maintenance and social validity of these interventions. An increasing number of studies utilized technology-based procedures including computer application gameplay, gaze-contingent eye tracking devices and humanoid robots. Conclusions: The present review indicates that behavioral interventions can be successfully employed to promote social gaze in individuals with ASD and other developmental disabilities. However, future research is needed to establish the generalization, maintenance and social validity of these interventions. There are also important ethical issues to be addressed given the increasing divide between treatment advocates and proponents of the neurodiversity movement.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the world's population, with approximately 266 million cases and 5 million deaths to date. COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation led to vaccine hesitancy among the public, particularly in vulnerable communities, which persists today. Social media companies are attempting to curb the ongoing spread of an overwhelming amount of COVID-19 misinformation on their platforms. In response to this problem, the authors hosted INFODEMIC: A Stanford Conference on Social Media and COVID-19 Misinformation (INFODEMIC) to develop best practices for social media companies to mitigate online misinformation and disinformation. OBJECTIVE: The primary aim of this study was to develop recommendations for social media companies to address the COVID-19 infodemic. We report the methods used to execute the INFODEMIC conference, conference attendee engagement and analytics, and a qualitative thematic analysis of the conference presentations. The primary study outcomes were the identified themes and corresponding recommendations. METHODS: Using a constructivist paradigm, we conducted a thematic analysis of the 6-hour conference transcript to develop best practice recommendations. The INFODEMIC conference was the study intervention, the conference speakers were the study participants, and transcripts of their presentations were the data for this study. We followed the 6-step framework for thematic analysis described by Braun and Clarke. We also used descriptive statistics to report measures of conference engagement including registrations, viewership, post-conference asynchronous participation, and conference evaluations. RESULTS: A total of 26 participants spoke at the virtual conference and represented a wide array of occupations, expertise, and countries of origin. From their remarks, we identified 18 response categories and 4 themes: trust, equity, social media practices, and interorganizational partnerships. From these, a total of 16 best practice recommendations were formulated for social media companies, health care organizations, and the general public. These recommendations focused on rebuilding trust in science and medicine among certain communities, redesigning social media platforms and algorithms to reduce the spread of misinformation, improving partnerships between key stakeholders, and educating the public to critically analyze online information. Of the 1090 conference registrants, 587 (53.9%) attended the live conference, and another 9996 individuals viewed or listened to the conference recordings asynchronously. Conference evaluations averaged 8.9 (best=10). CONCLUSIONS: Social media companies play a significant role in the COVID-19 infodemic and should adopt evidence-based measures to mitigate misinformation on their platforms.
