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      Vitality from Experiences in Nature and Contact with Animals—A Way to Develop Joint Attention and Social Engagement in Children with Autism?

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          Abstract

          Animals are increasingly included in treatment for children with autism, and research has shown positive effects, such as increased social initiatives, decreased typical autistic behaviors, and decreased stress. However, there are still knowledge gaps, for example, on underlying mechanisms and effects from longer treatment duration. The purpose of this study is to contribute to these gaps and ask questions about the ways in which animals and nature can improve conditions for psychological development through support from therapists. The method is based on grounded theory. Data comes from a treatment model (duration 1½ years, a total of nine children), from environmental psychology and developmental psychology, both typical and atypical as in autism. The results consist of three key categories; reduce stress and instill calm, arouse curiosity and interest, and attract attention spontaneously. These three key categories are related to an underlying core variable, vitality forms, which was described by Daniel Stern and, according to him, is important in forming overall experiences. The starting point is the brain’s way of encoding many internal and external events based on movement perception. Here it is argued that the vitality forms from nature and animals are particularly favorable for effecting development-promoting interactions with a therapist.

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          Cortical activation and synchronization during sentence comprehension in high-functioning autism: evidence of underconnectivity.

          The brain activation of a group of high-functioning autistic participants was measured using functional MRI during sentence comprehension and the results compared with those of a Verbal IQ-matched control group. The groups differed in the distribution of activation in two of the key language areas. The autism group produced reliably more activation than the control group in Wernicke's (left laterosuperior temporal) area and reliably less activation than the control group in Broca's (left inferior frontal gyrus) area. Furthermore, the functional connectivity, i.e. the degree of synchronization or correlation of the time series of the activation, between the various participating cortical areas was consistently lower for the autistic than the control participants. These findings suggest that the neural basis of disordered language in autism entails a lower degree of information integration and synchronization across the large-scale cortical network for language processing. The article presents a theoretical account of the findings, related to neurobiological foundations of underconnectivity in autism.
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            The impacts of nature experience on human cognitive function and mental health.

            Scholars spanning a variety of disciplines have studied the ways in which contact with natural environments may impact human well-being. We review the effects of such nature experience on human cognitive function and mental health, synthesizing work from environmental psychology, urban planning, the medical literature, and landscape aesthetics. We provide an overview of the prevailing explanatory theories of these effects, the ways in which exposure to nature has been considered, and the role that individuals' preferences for nature may play in the impact of the environment on psychological functioning. Drawing from the highly productive but disparate programs of research in this area, we conclude by proposing a system of categorization for different types of nature experience. We also outline key questions for future work, including further inquiry into which elements of the natural environment may have impacts on cognitive function and mental health; what the most effective type, duration, and frequency of contact may be; and what the possible neural mechanisms are that could be responsible for the documented effects. © 2012 New York Academy of Sciences.
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              More green space is linked to less stress in deprived communities: Evidence from salivary cortisol patterns

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Int J Environ Res Public Health
                Int J Environ Res Public Health
                ijerph
                International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
                MDPI
                1661-7827
                1660-4601
                23 November 2019
                December 2019
                : 16
                : 23
                : 4673
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Work Science, Business Economics and Environmental Psychology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden; patrik.grahn@ 123456slu.se (P.G.); Caroline.Hagerhall@ 123456slu.se (C.H.)
                [2 ]Region Västra Götaland, Habilitation & Health, Children and Youth Habilitation, 541 50 Skövde, Sweden
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: kristina.bystrom@ 123456vgregion.se ; Tel.: +4640-415000
                Article
                ijerph-16-04673
                10.3390/ijerph16234673
                6926568
                31771215
                5c852ca3-9084-4e71-910e-9b901573d0ea
                © 2019 by the authors.

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 15 October 2019
                : 21 November 2019
                Categories
                Article

                Public health
                autism,child development,treatment,mentalization,animal-assisted therapy,nature-based intervention

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