The purpose of this project was to research the expression of Autism Spectrum Disorder in children and create a children’s book that can help the peers of individuals with a diagnosis to understand what the disorder entails and potentially gain a new sense of empathy for peers of all levels of physical and mental abilities. The research component includes interviews with individuals deemed knowledgeable about ASD, including occupational therapists, behavioral analysts, and parents, as well as a literature review of research studies on the expression of Autism in children. This written portion of the project may also serve as a manual for individuals who have little to no knowledge of ASD, as it dives deeper into the content of the book and research, while remaining easily understandable and clear to those without any prior knowledge or experience with ASD. It could prove especially useful for those in professions that come into contact with individuals with Autism, but do not necessarily require psychology courses or training as a prerequisite for the role, such as teachers and some health professionals.

The aim of this study was to assess whether exposing individuals who are 6-month post-stroke with an upper extremity motor deficit and some form of speech impairment (aphasia and/or apraxia) to upper extremity training utilizing Startle Adjuvant Rehabilitation Therapy (START) would result in improvement in symptoms of speech impairment. It was hypothesized that while scores on Diadochokinetic Rate (a measure of apraxia) and Repetition (a measure of aphasia) would improve by timepoint with START as compared to the Control group, measures of aphasia including Spontaneous Speech, Auditory Verbal Comprehension, and Naming would not be different in scores by timepoint. Subjects were recruited from two separate ongoing studies consisting of three days of similar upper extremity training on certain functional tasks with and without START and the speech assessments utilized were pulled from the Western Aphasia Battery (Revised) and Apraxia Battery for Adults 2nd Edition. It was found that there were no statistically significant differences by timepoint in either condition for any of the speech assessments. This proof-of-concept study is the first to assess whether the StartReact effect, when applied to the upper extremity domain, will translate into measurable improvements in speech impairment despite the lack of any speech training.

Psychological therapy is the process of understanding, treating, and maintaining a healthy psyche. Psychological therapy comes in many shapes and sizes. Different methods of therapy include but are not limited to cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, psychoanalytic therapy, group therapy, and humanistic therapy. Most of these major therapeutic options fall under the umbrella of “talk therapy”. Although talk therapy is effective, practicing talk therapy exclusively limits not only the capabilities of therapy, but also potential clientele who would benefit from alternatives to talk therapy. Because each psyche is as unique and individual as fingerprints, each person seeking therapy should be able to create a personalized therapy program. Generating unique combinations of various therapy methods that are catered specifically to the client is a way to achieve this lofty goal. This research intends to better understand whether this proposal of combining various therapeutic techniques and methods in order to achieve individualized therapy programs will increase the effectiveness of the therapy being administered. In this meta analysis, the focus will be on animal therapy and poetry therapy used in conjunction theoretically as an example of potential applications for various combinations in conjunctive therapy. Conjunctive therapy is the main idea being piloted in this thesis and is a new form of therapy that involved the usage of two therapeutic techniques together while maintaining and equal prevalence and importance between them.