Interventions In Natural Environments Research Articles

Nature-based interventions to promote health for people with stress-related illness: An integrative review.

Stress-related illness is increasing and is a common cause of sick leave. Spending time in nature have a positive effect on health and well-being for instance by reducing stress. Specific programmes with nature-based interventions (NBI) with the intention to involve people in activities in a supportive natural environment have been developed for people with stress-related illness. To identify and summarise scientific studies of NBIs to promote health for people with stress-related illness. The design used in this study is integrative literature review. Scientific studies focusing on any type of NBI for people with stress-related illness were sought in Cinahl, PubMed, PsycInfo, AMED and Scopus. In total, 25 studies using both qualitative and quantitative designs were included in the review. The reviewed studies focused on garden or forest interventions. In the majority of the studies, NBIs were performed in groups, including individual activities, and the length of programmes varied. Interventions in natural environments have unique qualities for individualised, meaningful activities and interactions with others in a non-demanding atmosphere. NBIs offer restoration that reduces stress, improves health and well-being and strengthen self-efficacy and work ability. Connectedness with nature support existential reflections and people with stress-related illness can achieve balance in everyday life. In conclusion, NBIs may have advantages to promote health for people with stress-related illness and should therefore be considered as an alternative to those affected. Further research from different perspectives, including nursing, is needed to understand the possibilities of NBIs and how they can be integrated into practice.

Methodological Considerations for Movement Education Interventions in Natural Environments for Primary School Children: A Scoping Review.

Background: Education is the ideal setting for carrying out projects to improve primary students’ capacities. In recent years, interventions in natural environments have been more frequently proposed, but there is still a lack of standardization, making deeper study of the topic necessary. This review aims to report on what previous scientific research has been carried out, and eventually, to propose standard operating procedures for future interventions. Methods: This is a scoping review that adopted the PRISMA guidelines. Primary school children have been included, and the interventions had to be proposed adopting nature as the primary element of the learning process. Results: A total of 19 studies have been included, and a wide range of methodological differences has been detected regarding the included intervention protocols. Conclusions: Learning in nature is a feasible intervention that, despite the high heterogeneity of interventions, demonstrates positive outcomes in the learning sphere of children.

The Virginia Applied Behavior Analysis Consortium: Preparing Behavior Analysts Using a Collaborative Model.

The development and the evolution of the Virginia Applied Behavior Analysis Consortium, a collaborative project between four institutions of higher education in the state of Virginia, are described. The main goal of the program is to address the shortage of certified behavior analysts by preparing special education teachers and autism specialists to implement effective behavior-analytic interventions in natural environments. In this article, we briefly discuss the history and the purpose of the program, its components, the evolution of the program, the advantages and outcomes of a collaborative model, and future directions for improvement.

Places for active outdoor recreation – a scoping review

The paper reports on a scoping literature review aiming to provide an overview of existing research on the significance of natural environments to active outdoor recreation. The study brings together research from two research areas, and the perspective is both of conceptual and summative character. The paper presents key research contributions that illuminate research, and provides an overview of research traditions in the field. A total of 51 studies are included in the literature study, and are organised by setting: 1) natural settings (forests), 2) semi-natural settings (parks) and 3) infrastructure related settings (trails and paths). Most of the studies have a quantitative design. Almost all studies are cross-sectional studies, and present snapshots of the significance of natural environments to active outdoor recreation. The majority of the studies have a health perspective with measures of physical activity in general. Conclusions are that some knowledge exits on the impact and significance of natural environments and places to people's active outdoor recreation, which can be useful to managers and administrators of natural environments as well as to the health sector. Natural environments generally seem to have great impact on people`s physical activity. People seek and get various experiences from being active in natural environments and have rather different preferences to the natural settings. This may lead to the conclusion that it is relevant to apply an activity- and context-specific perspective at interventions in natural environments. Limitations of the study and future research is discussed.

Family Support and Early Intervention Services for the Youngest Children with Visual Impairments

The newest generation of professionals in the field of educating learners who are visually impaired (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) have both preservice training and an abundance of professional materials to assist them as they work to address the early intervention and specially designed instructional needs of the youngest children with visual impairments, those from birth through 5 years of age. University preparation programs in visual impairment address the professional competencies that professionals need to provide education services across the life span from birth to 21 years. Federal grants from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) have supported the development of both preservice (for example, the Early Intervention Training Center for Infants and Toddlers) and inservice (for example, Vision Impaired Inservice in America, VIISA) modules or training resources for services for young children (birth to age 5) who are visually impaired. There are a plethora of books and resource materials that detail research-based findings for the developmental trajectory of young children who are visually impaired, as well as evidence-based interventions and family-support strategies. The field of visual impairment has a long and proud history of providing educational services to children under the age of the 5 years. Such services began before the U.S. federal mandate (that is, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA) for Part B services for school-age children with disabilities, including preschool-aged children, and later Part C services for infants and toddlers with disabilities. These specialized early educational services were offered traditionally by entities who worked exclusively with children who are visually impaired. Today, the field of visual impairment has evolved to expect the timely provision of specialized and visual impairment-specific early intervention services and supports as soon as a young child is diagnosed with early-onset visual impairment. Or do barriers still remain to early intervention services? It is important to ask whether every family of a child newly diagnosed with a congenital or early-onset visual impairment has access to a certified teacher of children with visual impairments and a certified orientation and mobility (O&M) specialist. For that matter, are all children diagnosed with visual impairments as early as possible to ensure the soonest possible medical interventions and referrals for specialized early intervention services? Are the visual impairment experts well trained enough in early childhood education that they can differentiate practices that are appropriate for infants and toddlers from those that are appropriate for preschoolers or those that are appropriate for kindergarteners or older children? The life span of birth to age 21 has many unique phases of development that are described in the research of Piaget, Erickson, Vygotsky, and other recent theorists of early neuroscience-based learning. Early childhood and early childhood special education are fields onto themselves. As such, practitioners need considerable knowledge to offer family-centered and developmentally appropriate practices that address and support routines-based interventions in natural environments that include the unique and important early intervention services and supports that are needed by infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families. It is simply not enough to understand the effect of and general intervention needs related to pediatric vision loss when working with young children with visual impairments. Teachers of children with visual impairments and certified O&M specialists, in roles as early interventionists, need to first understand general child development, then the potential impact of vision loss on the development of children, and, most importantly, the need for individualized supports for children and families based on their priorities, culture, and self-identified needs. …

Advances in Early Communication and Language Intervention

Learning to communicate using speech and language is a primary developmental task for young children. Delays in the acquisition of language are one of the earliest indicators of developmental deficits that may affect academic and social outcomes for individuals across the life span. In the period since the passage of PL 99-457, significant progress in research related to language intervention has been made in five areas: (a) the social, symbolic, and prelinguistic foundations to spoken language; (b) parent-implemented language interventions; (c) the language foundations for literacy; (d) the relationship between language and social behavior; and (e) the use of augmented and alternative modes of communication. Although there are indications of important advances in the knowledge base of early identification as well as comprehensive and continuous intervention, preparing professionals to provide effective interventions in natural environments continues to be a challenge for the field.

REVIEW OF METHODS AND APPROACHES USED TO EVALUATE HEALTH INTERVENTIONS IN NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPING GREEN SPACE AND HEALTH EVIDENCE BASE

Background and aims: The University of Highlands and Islands led a UK initiative, the “Outdoors and Health Network” (OHN) funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and Medical Research Councils in 2009/10. An emergent finding from the network was an identified gap in the critical review of the research approaches taken in evaluating health interventions in natural environments. The review aimed to provide recommendations for strengthening the research methods used to evaluate health interventions in the natural environment. Whilst the links between health and natural environments have been well documented, the most effective ways in which environments can be used to improve health remains largely elusive. By scrutinising intervention evaluations, the ways the natural environment can be utilised for health improvement will be clearer. More importantly the green space and health knowledge base will become more transparent and its current limitations and potential better understood. Methods: A search strategy and inclusion criteria were developed. Data from each of the included evaluation reports was extracted into a pre-determined template, framed around five key review questions. Results: Forty evaluations were reviewed. The review findings illustrate how current evaluation methods and approaches can be strengthened. Health interventions and natural environments are both complex and dynamic. The results suggest that evaluation methods are currently not complex and dynamic enough to capture and interpret the processes and outcomes relevant to health interventions in the outdoors. Conclusions: Given the limitations of some methods and weaknesses in application within this area of enquiry, the review concludes that the developing knowledge base from evaluations of interventions is problematic, under-developed and under-utilised. The evidence base for green space and health could be strengthened by more effective use of mixed methods by multi-disciplinary teams; increased use of existing evidence, increased coordination of evaluation input and enhanced guidance and training.

Primatology in southern Brazil: a transdisciplinary approach to the conservation of the brown-howler-monkey Alouatta guariba clamitans (Primates, Atelidae)

Human interventions in natural environments are the main cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. The situation is not different in southern Brazil, home of five primate species. Although some earlier studies exist, studies on the primates of this region began to be consistently carried out in the 1980s and have continued since then. In addition to important initiatives to study and protect the highly endangered Leontopithecus caissara Lorrini & Persson, 1990 and Brachyteles arachnoides E. Geoffroy, 1806, other species, including locally threatened ones, have been the focus of research, management, and protection initiatives. Since 1993, the urban monkeys program (PMU, Programa Macacos Urbanos) has surveyed the distribution and assessed threats to populations of Alouatta guariba clamitans (Cabrera, 1940) in Porto Alegre and vicinity. PMU has developed conservation strategies on four fronts: (1) scientific research on biology and ecology, providing basic knowledge to support all other activities of the group; (2) conservation education, which emphasizes educational presentations and long-term projects in schools near howler populations, based on the flagship species approach; (3) management, analyzing conflicts involving howlers and human communities, focusing on mitigating these problems and on appropriate relocation of injured or at-risk individuals; and finally, (4) Public Policies aimed at reducing and/or preventing the impact of urban expansion, contributing to create protected areas and to strengthen environmental laws. These different approaches have contributed to protect howler monkey populations over the short term, indicating that working collectively and acting on diversified and interrelated fronts are essential to achieve conservation goals. The synergistic results of these approaches and their relationship to the prospects for primatology in southern Brazil are presented in this review.

Directed Attention as a Common Resource for Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation

Research on executive functioning and on self-regulation have each identified a critical resource that is central to that domain and is susceptible to depletion. In addition, studies have shown that self-regulation tasks and executive-functioning tasks interact with each other, suggesting that they may share resources. Other research has focused specifically on restoring what we propose is the shared resource between self-regulation and executive functioning. Utilizing a theory-based natural environment intervention, these studies have found improvements in executive-functioning performance and self-regulation effectiveness, suggesting that the natural environment intervention restores this shared resource.

Enhancing Generalized Teaching Strategy Use in Daily Routines by Parents of Children With Autism

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of facilitating generalized use of teaching strategies by parents of children with autism within daily routines. Five preschool children with autism participated in intervention with a parent within daily routines in the family's home. Parents learned to include 2 teaching strategies in target routines to address their child's communication objectives. Parent-child interactions in routines were videotaped for data coding and analysis. Proactive programming of generalization occurred by systematic selection of intervention routines and by embedding intervention in multiple routines. Generalization data were collected by measuring strategy use in untrained routines. A multiple baseline design across teaching strategies was used to assess experimental effects. All parents demonstrated proficient use of teaching strategies and generalized their use across routines. The intervention had positive effects on child communication outcomes. All parents perceived the intervention to be beneficial. Results from this study add to the limited body of evidence supporting parent-implemented interventions in natural environments with young children with autism spectrum disorder. Additional research that replicates this approach with children of varying ages and disabilities and families with diverse characteristics is needed to support the generality of these findings.

Handwriting: Anatomy of a Collaborative Assessment/Treatment Model

Erhardt RP, Meade V. Stillwater, MN 55082, PDP Press Inc, 2005, spiralbound, 150 pp, illus, ISBN: 0-9623703-7-1, $45. The purpose of this book is to provide a well-documented case report that describes a team approach, current research, and family/client-based natural environment intervention for a client with handwriting difficulties. The authors are two highly respected clinicians, Rhoda Erhardt, an occupational therapist, and Vickie Meade, a physical therapist. The authors’ intended audience includes occupational therapists and physical therapists, health care professionals who are involved with multidisciplinary teams, and parents or other people interested in the proficiency of case management. This book reflects the thought processes that went into examination, intervention, and follow-up re-evaluation (outcomes) of a 13-year-old boy with handwriting problems. One chapter reviews the literature regarding handwriting and visual-perceptual motor function. Looking at the literature review helped me understand the authors’ approach regarding their initial question: Is the child’s handwriting the problem or the symptom? …