In 1951, when Maria Montessori described the pattern of human development as the Constructive Rhythm of Life, marking each of four chapters or planes of development with an inverted triangle, she colored the first and third planes red to represent their intensity (Grazzini, 1996). These two red triangles are referred to as creative periods and…

T he author considers adult doll play as therapeutic intervention by examining how the physical properties of reborn dolls and also sex dolls provide comfort and establish needs met through care giving. She discusses dolls providing a sense of personal identity through narrative play, community, and retail therapy, and she describes the…

Subjective experiences of autistic adults remain under-researched, especially in the field of art. To learn more about their uses and functions of music, we interviewed 13 autistic adults and through a hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis found four overarching themes: Well-being, Identity and self-development, Connectedness, and Negative…

Purpose: Developmental stuttering is a complex and multifaceted neurodevelopmental disorder that may cause pervasive negative consequences for adults who stutter (AWS). Historically, intervention for AWS has primarily addressed speech fluency, with less focus on the covert psychosocial aspects of the disorder. The purpose of this article is to…

Background: Sexual well-being significantly impacts the overall quality of life for individuals with and without intellectual disabilities. Notably, parents play a pivotal role in influencing their children's sexual development, and their attitudes towards this topic are shaped by Chinese sociocultural values. Methods: This study employed…

Research in the field of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focuses mainly on school-aged children and male participants. This has left substantial gaps in our understanding of the life course of autistic individuals, particularly autistic females, once they reach adulthood. The objective of this concise narrative review is to discuss the current…

Statistical learning (SL), the ability to detect and extract regularities from inputs, has been considered as an early-maturing and domain-general mechanism that is critical for typical language development. However, recent evidence in neurotypical adults and children have found that individuals can vary in their SL abilities across linguistic and…

Definitions of adulthood for people with intellectual disability are often complicated, with milestones being markedly different for this population. This is then associated with difficulties for both the people with intellectual disability and their parents, who are closely involved in this transitional period. This paper aims to report on…

Many autistic people and people with non-spectrum neurodevelopmental disabilities (e.g. intellectual disability) report feeling lonely, which can negatively impact their well-being. There is little longitudinal research, however, tracking changes in how autistic people experience, conceptualize, and cope with loneliness throughout their lives. A…

Psychosexual functioning is an important aspect of human development and relationships. A previous study investigated psychosexual functioning of autistic adolescents using the Teen Transition Inventory (TTI), but there is a lack of comprehensive measurement of psychosexual functioning among autistic and non-autistic (NA) adults. To address this…

This qualitative case study examines the learning experiences of self-organized Chinese and Chinese American adults from the X Care Group amid the political repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed how care group members created meaning in their daily life experiences, reformed their identity, and increased their Chinese and…

This dissertation describes a qualitative research study that grows our understanding of the career development experiences, supports, and barriers of social entrepreneurs who are gifted adults (SEGA) so that we may nurture the career development of future SEGA. Research questions for this study probed the career development experiences, supports,…

This study explores gender-related inequality in participation in Adult Education and Training (AET) in four countries with vastly different adult learning systems and support measures for women's AET. Our examination of the data from an original international survey conducted in 2022 has found that the participation of men and women clearly…