Background: Family carers often lack support for their own well-being as they navigate diagnostic and early intervention services for intellectual and developmental disabilities. Methods: This study explored the emotional journey of carers during Early Positive Approaches to Support, an 8-week group program. Participants journaled their emotional…

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often have social-emotional and behavioural difficulties. The present study explored these difficulties in children (n = 50, aged 6-10 years) with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental language disorder. Parents, teachers and therapists evaluated children's…

Mothers of children with developmental disabilities suffer from tremendous stress and anxiety. These mothers may use religion and spirituality as coping mechanisms to help them adjust to changes emerging in their lives as well as to resolve problems. This study evaluated the spiritual needs of mothers of children with developmental disabilities…

Purpose: This study evaluated the pathways between developmental language disorder (DLD), psychosocial risk factors, and the development of emotional difficulties from ages 3 to 11 years within the Millennium Cohort Study. Method: A total of 14,494 singletons (49.4% female) from the Millennium Cohort Study were evaluated within this study. Risk of…

Introduction: The presence of comorbid mental illness in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) has been shown to have additional negative impact on parents and caregivers. However, the impact of such dual diagnoses on typically developing siblings has yet to be examined. Methods: Parents and typically developing…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine perceptions of adult sibling relationships with a brother or sister with severe disabilities and the contexts affecting the relationships. Adult siblings without disabilities (N = 79) from 19 to 72 years of age completed an online survey with four open-ended questions about their relationship…

This study examined emotional awareness in children with autism. Twenty-two high functioning children with autism (mean age 10 years and 2 months) and 22 typically developing children, matched for age and gender, were presented with the four basic emotions (happiness, anger, sadness and fear) in single and multiple emotion tasks. Findings suggest…

Children with developmental disabilities often report having few friends. Researchers have tended to focus on social skill deficits, neglecting other potent predictors of children's feelings of loneliness. In a sample of 82 children with developmental disabilities, we examined characteristics of the child at age 3 (i.e., the conclusion of early…

In the current investigation, we evaluated the effects of open and closed economies on the adaptive behavior of 2 individuals with developmental disabilities. Across both types of economy, progressive-ratio (PR) schedules were used in which the number of responses required to obtain reinforcement increased as the session progressed. In…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends (InPACT) 2016, taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 of April to 2 of May, 2016. Psychology, nowadays, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and…