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Graduate Theses & Dissertations

: Social Communicative Factors as Predictors of Symptom Severity in Autism Spectrum Disorders; Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while providing many benefits, presents challenges to clinicians such as predicting the stability of symptoms. Accurately predicting symptom severity allows clinicians to confidently diagnose and assign the most appropriate treatment. Little research exists to date to predict symptom severity in children with ASD who have not been exposed to treatment. The present file review examined prelinguistic skills as predictors of symptom severity in a group of young children (age: 18 – 64 months) with ASD (n = 199) who had not been exposed to significant levels of treatment. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that of the two core diagnostic features (social communicative deficits and restricted repetitive behaviours), social communicative skills best predicted symptom severity. Furthermore, social communicative gestures predicted symptom severity after age, adaptive behaviour, restricted repetitive behaviours, and functional gestures had been accounted for. Author Keywords: autism, gestures, predictors, prelinguistic, social communicative, symptom severity

: Assessing the Effects of Brief Interventions on Mood and Dream Imagery in Recovering Alcohol and Drug Addicts; Addiction can lead to a plethora of health, social and economical problems. Substances are used for mood regulation, and therefore, waking day mood is extremely important during recovery of alcohol and drug addiction. The current study examined the effects of Meditation and Sleep Mentation Therapy on mood levels. All participants were male, and currently in treatment programs or early stages of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Participants were tested for anxiety and depression and were asked to provide a recent dream, prior and post to participating in the intervention. Dreams were scored using Hall and Van de Castle guidelines for scoring imagery. Results are consistent with previous research in that mood levels changed over the course of the meditation period. Implications for future research are discussed as well as applications of Sleep Mentation Therapy and Meditation in clinical and applied practice. Author Keywords: Addiction, Dream Therapy, Meditation, Mood

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