We studied whether there exist variations in pain responses between different intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) etiologies. Self-reports and facial expressions (Facial Action Coding System = FACS) were recorded during experimental pressure stimuli and compared among 31 individuals with IDD--13 with cerebral palsy (CP), nine with Down…

The issue of pain warrants attention as, by virtue of having an intellectual disability, a person may have associated medical or physical conditions and associated factors increasing their risk of pain disorders. People with intellectual disability experiencing pain need to be provided with the best possible care. The focus of this article is on…

Background: Few formal instruments exist to assess the communicative competence of patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICUs). This can limit interventions by health professionals. Aims: To map the categories and instruments for assessing the communicative competence of adult patients with minimal response in ICUs. Methods &…

Background: The aims of this study were to (1) examine the reactions of teachers and student teachers to children experiencing pain, (2) identify the most common challenges and potential resources that are associated to dealing with them, and (3) examine whether their responses differed as a function of their experience or sex. Methods: Forty…

Pain assessments typically depend on self-report of the pain experience. Yet, in individuals with autism spectrum disorders, this can be an unreliable due to communication difficulties. Importantly, observations of behavioral hypo- and hyperresponsivity to pain suggest altered pain sensitivity in autism spectrum disorder. Neuroimaging may provide…

In addition to the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder, a number of clinically important comorbid complaints, including sensory abnormalities, are also discussed. One difference often noted in these accounts is hyposensitivity to pain; however, evidence for this is limited. The purpose of the current review therefore was to examine…

Many actions of troubled children and adolescents can disguise and conceal their ever-present and deep-seated psycho-emotional pain. Adults living and working with these youth may overlook this pain in a strategy of avoidance. Labelling troubling behavior as "outbursts," "explosions," or "acting out," ignores the…

Objective: The predictive utility of hypnotizability, conceptualized as the change in suggestibility produced by a hypnotic induction, was investigated in the suggested reduction of experimental pain. Method: One hundred and seventy-three participants were assessed for nonhypnotic imaginative suggestibility. Thereafter, participants experienced…

The 18 items' Non-Communicating Adult Pain Checklist (NCAPC) has been developed from the 27 items Non-Communicating Children Pain Checklist to better capture pain behavior of adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). As part of the NCAPC's measurement properties, internal consistency, reliability and sensitivity to pain have…

This study was designed to investigate whether a brief intervention encouraging parental coping-promoting talk within the treatment room would have beneficial effects on infant pain responses to an immunization injection. Infant-parent dyads were recruited from a 6-month immunization clinic and randomized to an intervention group (n = 25) or…

The ongoing crisis concerning torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners by U.S. personnel or under U.S. auspices in the "War on Terror" raises issues central to the identity of both church and society. The practice of torture cries out for practical theological reflection inasmuch as it threatens to eviscerate the moral…

Results indicated that six cries differentially affected subjects' affective, self-reported, behavioral responses and tendency to report not hearing the cry. Participants were 53 male and 65 female psychology undergraduates and 58 mothers who were exposed to one of six types of infant cries. Higher pitched cries elicited less optimal responses…

The mediator role of response expectancies and the moderator role of hypnotic suggestibility were evaluated in the analogue treatment of pain. Approximately 1,000 participants were assessed for hypnotic suggestibility. Later, as part of a seemingly unrelated experiment, 188 of these individuals were randomly assigned to distraction,…

Developed a scale for detecting random responses on the Multidimensional Pain Inventory using 95 undergraduates, 34 chronic pain patients, and 115 health-care professionals. A variable response scale was developed that discriminated accurately between valid and random profiles in two cross-validation samples, predicting random profiles with 90%…

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to derive and cross-validate the factor structure of the Pain Response Inventory (PRI), a measure of children's coping responses to recurrent pain, with 688 school children, 120 children with abdominal pain, and 175 former abdominal pain patients. Results suggest that different health outcomes are predicted by…