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Coffee and Chat | Sensory Integration, ARFID and Travel

FREE| Wednesday 2 March 7.30 pm GMT

Book Here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2022-asi-wise-coffee-chat-talking-ayres-sensory-integration-registration-238213722657

Dr Yana Wengel is an associate professor at Hainan University. Yana takes a critical approach to tourism studies; her interests include volunteer tourism, tourism in developing economies and nature-based tourism. Her dissertation examined the social construction of host-guest experiences in volunteer farm tourism. Her current projects are focused on nature-based tourism and leisure and travel experiences of patients with an eating disorder. Yana is interested in creative methodologies for data collection and stakeholder engagement. She is a co-founder of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® research community.

Publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8131-4137  

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/yanawengel

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Coffee and Chat | Q &A with Chewigem and Sensooli

Join us for coffee and chat this week.

We will be hosting a Q & A session tonight. Come and join us to hear about Sensooli and Chewigem products. We will be joined tonight on the call by Jenny McLaughlan and Loz Young, who will be telling us more about Chewigem and their new initiative Sensooli . They are keen to hear therapist feedback about their products and how this relates to our practice;including what we might like to know more about. For more information please see https://chewigem.com/ and their new space https://sensooli.com/.

Please post any questions before the session to the ASI in Practice Telegram Group or email through to hello@asi-wise.org.

This is an open evening session, so please also do bring any others questions or chat about anything related to ASI.

Book here now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asi-wise-coffee-chat-q-a-session-with-sensooli-chewigem-tickets-212407796437

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Coffee and Chat: The ABC’s of Sleep with Jan Jenner

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Research Update: Early Deprivation and Brain Development

A new article has been published which adds more to that we know about deprivation on development of the mind, body and brain.

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Millions of children worldwide live in nonfamilial institutions. We studied impact on adult brain structure of a particularly severe but time-limited form of institutional deprivation in early life experienced by children who were subsequently adopted into nurturing families. Institutional deprivation was associated with lower total brain volume in a dose-dependent way. Regionally specific effects were seen in medial prefrontal, inferior frontal, and inferior temporal areas. Deprivation-related alterations in total brain volume were associated with lower intelligence quotient and more attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms; alterations in temporal volume seemed compensatory, as they were associated with fewer attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. We provide evidence that early childhood deprivation is related to alterations in adult brain structure, despite environmental enrichment in intervening years.

Read more here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/01/01/1911264116

Download a copy [open access] Early childhood deprivation is associated with alterations in adult brain structure despite subsequent environmental enrichment


More articles here…

Enriched Environments as a Potential Treatment for Developmental Disorders: A Critical Assessment

The beneficial effects of enriched environments have been established through a long history of research. Enrichment of the living conditions of captive animals in the form of larger cages, sensory stimulating objects, and opportunities for social interaction and physical exercise, has been shown to reduce emotional reactivity, ameliorate abnormal behaviors, and enhance cognitive functioning. Recently, environmental enrichment research has been extended to humans, in part due to growing interest in its potential therapeutic benefits for children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). This paper reviews the history of enriched environment research and the use of enriched environments as a developmental intervention in studies of both NDD animal models and children. We argue that while environmental enrichment may sometimes benefit children with NDDs, several methodological factors need to be more closely considered before the efficacy of this approach can be adequately evaluated, including: (i) operationally defining and standardizing enriched environment treatments across studies; (ii) use of control groups and better control over potentially confounding variables; and (iii) a comprehensive theoretical framework capable of predicting when and how environmental enrichment will alter the trajectory of NDDs.

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Read more here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00466/full


Early Adverse Experiences and the Developing Brain

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Read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2015252

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Respect the Intelligences of Kids with Intellectual Disabilities

Screen Shot 2019-07-29 at 23.35.21.pngread the whole story at Respect the Intelligences of Kids with Intellectual Disabilities