The practice of mindfulness helps to calm your mind, ground your body and keep your focus on the present. Practicing mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, reduce challenging behavior, improve attention and focus, boost learning and cognitive performance, strengthen emotional intelligence, foster engagement and enhance self-regulation. Research shows mindfulness practices can be helpful in supporting students with autism, not to mention their educators.
Parenting a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is often associated with reduced quality of life, high stress, depression and anxiety due to the ongoing nature of care. This review systematically investigated the efficacy of mindfulness interventions in reducing stress and increasing psychological wellbeing in parents of children with ASD. A comprehensive electronic database search was conducted for relevant articles. Only studies investigating parental stress or a measure of psychological wellbeing in parents of children with ASD post a mindfulness-based intervention were included. Ten studies met inclusion criteria; each was examined for treatment fidelity. All included studies contributed at least one self-report finding supporting the efficacy of mindfulness interventions in reducing stress and increasing psychological wellbeing. Three studies included physiological measures of reduced stress and emotional responses. Two reported concomitant improvements in child behavior. Mindfulness-based interventions potentially have long-term positive effects on stress levels and psychological wellbeing of parents of children with ASD, in addition to enhancing their child’s behavior. Future research is needed to develop a cost and time effective intervention aimed at maximizing efficacy of current interventions in children with ASD and their parents.
Children and adolescents with Asperger syndrome occasionally exhibit aggressive behavior against peers and parents. In a multiple baseline design across subjects, three adolescents with Asperger syndrome were taught to use a mindfulness-based procedure called Meditation on the Soles of the Feet to control their physical aggression in the family home and during outings in the community. They were taught to shift the focus of their attention from the negative emotions that triggered their aggressive behavior to a neutral stimulus, the soles of their feet.
Prior to training in the mindfulness-based procedure the adolescents had moderate rates of aggression. During mindfulness practice, which lasted between 17 and 24 weeks, their mean rates of aggression per week decreased from 2.7, 2.5 and 3.2 to 0.9, 1.1, and 0.9, respectively, with no instances observed during the last 3 weeks of mindfulness practice. No episodes of physical aggression occurred during a 4-year follow-up. This study suggests that adolescents with Asperger syndrome may successfully use a mindfulness-based procedure to control their aggressive behavior.
Some parents have to deal with the challenging behaviors of their children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including aggressive and destructive behaviors. While pharmacological and behavioral interventions have been the treatments of choice, sometimes the pharmacological treatments are not very effective or the behavioral interventions are so labor intensive that parents fail to implement them consistently, thus leading to treatment failure and parental stress. In this proof-of-concept study, we assessed the effects of providing mindfulness-based positive behavior support (MBPBS) training to three mothers on the challenging and compliance behaviors of their adolescents with ASD. The MBPBS program included a series of meditations aimed at personal transformation during an 8-week program. The training in mindfulness-based practices was paired with applications to their interactions with their adolescent children using a positive behavior support model, whereby the mothers learned how to apply behavioral contingencies with intuitive awareness. Results showed that the adolescents’ challenging behaviors decreased and compliance behaviors increased commensurate with the mothers’ training in MBPBS. In addition, statistically significant reductions in the mothers’stress levels were correlated with the MBPBS training. These findings provide initial support for MBPBS in assisting parents to effectively manage the challenging behaviors of their children with ASD and in increasing their positive social interactions with them, but without raising their own stress levels.
Over the last decade, the cultivation of mindfulness has become a common part of the curriculum in classrooms around the world. A recent survey indicates that nearly 50% of teachers are sharing mindfulness with children. To date, researchers have predominately used outcome-based trial designs to understand the practice’s efficacy for improving wellness in children. Less research has been directed towards understanding how children perceive mindfulness experiences. This gap inspired the research question—What are students’ perspectives of learning mindfulness practices at school? Thematic analysis was employed to understand and interpret 38 elementary school students’ mindfulness journals. Findings suggest that mindfulness enhances student wellbeing and helps children develop a greater awareness of their body, mind and emotions. Implications of these findings are discussed. Future research is required to determine how mindfulness practices enhance and sustain student wellbeing and learning.
Objectives To examine whether a brief mindfulness-based program (MBP) reduces observable challenging behavior in
elementary students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), when delivered one-on-one by a natural intervention agent.
Methods Using a concurrent multiple baseline design, we examined whether Soles of the Feet (SoF) reduces challenging
behavior in children with ASD when delivered by a school staff member in an elementary school setting. Three 9-to-10-yearold
children with ASD, presenting with high rates of challenging behavior and IQ scores above 85, were recruited from a
private special education school. The school mental health counselor (MHC) was trained on SoF over 8 h and deemed competent
after receiving 100% on a fidelity checklist. Following baseline data collection, the MHC implemented SoF across
five 20–30-min sessions, one-on-one with each student, and fidelity of implementation was monitored.
Results Results found that, from baseline to post-treatment, all three students showed a stable and decreasing trend of
observed challenging behavior in individually identified problematic contexts, representing a strong effect (NAP = 100%).
Teacher social validity ratings indicated the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of SoF for use in school settings, while
two of three students indicated that the treatment was socially valid. Although teacher-rated overall challenging behavior did
not decrease for all students, SoF reduced individually defined observable challenging behavior for each student in specific
targeted contexts.
Conclusions MBPs may provide a way for children with ASD to self-manage challenging behaviors, which may ameliorate
the need for more intensive individual interventions in schools.
Keywords Mindfulness · Soles of the Feet · Autism spectrum disorder ·
Can individuals with developmental disabilities learn mindfulness? If so, with what
result? A systematic literature review identified 12 studies that taught mindfulness
practice to individuals with mild to severe developmental disabilities, demonstrating that
mindfulness intervention could significantly reduce the behavioural and/or psychological
problems of this population. The majority of these mindfulness intervention studies were
longitudinal, featuring long intervention periods and long lasting intervention effects. This
paper analyses the characteristics and objectives of mindfulness interventions, along with
their effects, focusing on the adjustments made to intervention content and instruction
strategies to meet the specific requirements of individuals with developmental
disabilities. The potential for improving mindfulness interventions for people with
developmental disabilities is also discussed.
