Browsing by Subject "aistiyliherkkyys"

Objectives. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been assoaciated with anomalies in pain sensitivity, although the results of the studies have not been concordant. Since sensory atypicalities are a frequent feature in ASD, it has led to the hypothesis of sensory dysfunction which affects the whole sensory system, including the pain system. ASD has also been associated with increased pain disturbance in previous studies. This Master`s thesis investigated the relationship between ASD traits and pain intensity, pain interference, and pain sensitivity. Moreover, the aim was to study if sensory atypicalities have a different impact on pain intensity, pain interference, and pain sensitivity, when accompanied with ASD traits. Methods. The sample consisted of 947 adults aged between 18 and 60 years. The data were collected using an online questionnaire, which contained items about ASD traits, pain intensity and pain interference from the past week, pain sensitivity in different situations, and sensory hyper- and hyposensitivies. In addition, there were items on backround information relevant for the study in the questionnaire. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the score obtained from the ASD trait questionnaire: the ASD trait group and the reference group. Results and conclusions. There was a significant negative association between ASD traits and pain intensity, such that the estimates of pain intensity were significantly lower in the ASD trait group than in the reference group, despite there being more self-reported comorbidities and chronic pain presented in the ASD trait group. There were no significant associations between ASD traits and pain interference or pain sensitivity. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between ASD traits and sensory atypicalities in pain intensity, pain interference, and pain sensitivity; as the number of sensory atypicalities increased, pain intensity, pain interference, and pain sensitivity increased significantly in the reference group. Instead, the impact of sensory atypicalities on pain was significantly weaker in individuals with ASD traits. The results imply that individuals with ASD traits may have lower pain sensitivity in everyday life, but regular pain sensitivity in specific pain situations. The impact of sensory atypicalities on pain seems to be stronger in individuals without ASD traits, which does not provide support for the hypothesis of sensory dysfunction as an underlying mechanism of pain sensitivity in ASD.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the experiences of parents with highly sensitive children's schooling and support need. The first research question was to find out in what way parents experience highly sensitivity to be present in the child's school running. Second question of research was how the dialogue and understanding between parents and the school has gone. The third question of research was what kind of support highly sensitive children should receive and the fourth research question was what kind of information should be given to schools on the basis of parental reportedly. The study is empirical, which explores the experiences of the parents of highly sensitive children. They were approached from the Facebook Highly Sensitive group and the dossier was collected from them by email. The survey was answered in the form of a questionnaire and a free-form writing. The purpose of the study was to highlight the experiences and aspirations of parents, how should children's individual differences be reflected in the school's everyday life. After collecting the material, I used method of thematic analysis of research. I highlighted the points of interest in research, encode and theme material through different themes and similarities and differences. As an auxiliary tool for describing the analysis, I used the Matrix table. The results showed that parents were longed for schools to increase their general knowledge about highly sensitivity and related sensory processing sensitivity. Half of respondents hoped for more understanding of schools to see individual differences between their highly sensitive children. In conclusion, it seemed that for example, schools would benefit from leaflets, which describe the main issues of highly sensitivity. Also, increasing emotional education in schools would probably be beneficial. In addition, operating therapy was significant help, especially in sensory processing sensitivity. This supports the idea of schools to increase co-operation with therapy, bringing valuable operational expertise to the the aim of strengthening learning and active participation of children and young people in the everyday life of schoolwork.