It is often voiced that parents of autistic children are the expert of their child, whereas parenting programmes target them as effective mediators for change. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
It is often voiced that parents of autistic children are the expert of their child, whereas parenting programmes target them as effective mediators for change. This paper aims to explore this unchallenged heuristic to develop an understanding of both emotional and relational needs of parents through trainers’ experiences of delivering emotion-focused and autism parent training.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study used a constructivist approach of grounded theory to gain an in-depth understanding of trainers’ experiences from their encounters when delivering parent training. Six expert trainers were interviewed, and a two-phased coding of ground theory and an adapted thematic analysis was used.
Findings
An overarching theme emerged: emotion transformation from painful triggers, to enhanced attunement and relational repair. Four main themes containing 13 subthemes were identified. The interaction of these themes and subthemes are presented in a three-phase process model. Phase 1: uncovering painful emotions from a shared journey contained one theme: parent painful triggers. Phase 2: uncovering interpersonal rupture cycle contained one theme: relational rupture cycle within non-synchrony of attunement. Phase 3: parent–child relational repair contained two themes: repairing attachment bonds and therapist’s prizing stance.
Social implications
The authors challenge the parent as expert heuristic and propose that not all parents feel expert in neurotypical-neurodivergent intersubjectivity. The authors are curious to see whether trainers/therapists can guide parents through unprocessed emotions and non-synchrony of attunement to promote healing and relational repair, which requires further investigation.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first emotion-transformation process model grounded in humanistic principles of relational acceptance and emotion theory. The authors propose that a focus on process rather than outcome is more likely to result in higher parenting self-efficacy.
Details
Keywords
Anna Robinson, Ian Galbraith and Lorna Carrick
Autistic people are subject to having their behaviour shaped from a variety of practitioners predominantly using behaviourist methodologies. Little is known about how learning…
Abstract
Purpose
Autistic people are subject to having their behaviour shaped from a variety of practitioners predominantly using behaviourist methodologies. Little is known about how learning alternative humanistic methodologies impacts practitioner experiences of relational encounters with autistic people. This paper aims to develop an understanding of practitioner experiences of using person-centred counselling (PCC) skills and contact reflections (CR) when engaging with autistic people.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study used an interpretive approach to help elucidate perceptions of changing practice. It involved a framework analysis of 20 practitioner’s experiential case study accounts.
Findings
An overarching theme emerged: subtle transformations resulted from shifting practice paradigms. Four broad themes were identified: “A different way of being”; “Opening heightened channels of receptivity”; “Trust in self-actualising growth” and “Expanding relational ripples”. The findings suggest that PCC and CRs skills training shows promise in providing practitioners with a different way of being with autistic people that enhances their capacity towards neurotypical-neurodivergent intersubjectivity.
Social implications
The authors speculate on the power dynamics of care relationships and those who may identify as possessing autism expertise. The authors are curious as to whether this humanistic skills training can truly penetrate practitioner core values and see this as a fundamental issue which requires further investigation.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to provide a qualitative account of autism practitioner reflections following training in humanistic methodologies. It challenges the concept of autism expertise, guided by a pathologiSing model, focused on fixing a problem located in the person, which conceals the removal of personhood.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to investigate the long-term impacts autistic adults experienced from childhood participation in the applied behavioural analysis (ABA).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the long-term impacts autistic adults experienced from childhood participation in the applied behavioural analysis (ABA).
Design/methodology/approach
Possible participants were recruited through advertisements on social media and autism and ABA organisations. Possible participants were given the choice between an online or face-to-face interview or an anonymised online questionnaire.
Findings
Reflections from 10 participants were indicative of a predominantly detrimental impact of ABA. Reflections gave rise to a core theme “recalling hidden harms of childhood experiences of ABA”. Outcomes are discussed in relation to the impact on autistic identity, current research and progressing understanding of the impacts of early intervention from the autistic perspective.
Research limitations/implications
The practical implications of ABA are discussed alongside recommendations for future practice and research with the involvement of autistic individuals within interventive processes.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to take an in-depth, qualitative approach to autistic experiences of ABA. The findings themselves are driven to conceptualise and give voice to the core impacts which carried through participants’ exploration and understanding of self.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
Fahriye Hilal Halicioglu and Kubra Gurel
Most of the emphasis in the green building literature on the green performance of buildings has been on optimizing energy and resource efficiency. Admittedly, from the perspective…
Abstract
Purpose
Most of the emphasis in the green building literature on the green performance of buildings has been on optimizing energy and resource efficiency. Admittedly, from the perspective of the sustainable construction industry, making optimally energy and resource efficiency, often seen as a technical challenge, has a premise role in green building projects. However, green buildings need to optimally meet the health, well-being and comfort requirements of their occupants and their environmental quality targets. In that context, perceived quality is a crucial determinant of occupant satisfaction and can play a critical role in the user-oriented improvement of the green performance of buildings. While previous research has highlighted issues related to occupant satisfaction, none of them examines green buildings from a perceived quality perspective. Therefore, the study attempts to fill this research gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, to reveal the positive and negative satisfaction of the building occupants according to the green building features, the review of previous research in the related literature is supplemented by an exploratory study of case studies evaluating occupant satisfaction in green buildings. Then, a conceptual framework is proposed to link perceived quality and green building features towards occupant satisfaction.
Findings
A review of the case studies in 49 research articles has shown deficiencies in a comprehensive understanding and approach to the perceived quality of green buildings. In response, the development of a framework for conceptual interrelationships may provide a pathway for more detailed quality assessments for future research. In this study, the proposed conceptual framework has the potential to provide a conceptual basis for future models in determining the relationship between quality expectations and quality experiences in green buildings. It can also serve as a constructive approach for assessing occupant satisfaction in the quality-driven improvements of green buildings and further investigation of the importance of various quality cues, quality attributes and their interactions.
Originality/value
This study aims to incorporate green building features and perceived quality concepts into a framework that can form the basis for assessing occupant satisfaction in green buildings. The ultimate goal of the proposed conceptual framework is to generate an insight that can contribute to rethinking the perceived quality of green buildings and developing more occupant-driven solutions for future green buildings.
Details
Keywords
We would not be here today if we had not invested in robots, says Bernard Robinson, director and chief executive of Tallent Engineering. Anna Kochan reports.
Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark were two prominent late 19th- and early 20th-century educators. Cooper and Clark taught African American students in federally…
Abstract
Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark were two prominent late 19th- and early 20th-century educators. Cooper and Clark taught African American students in federally sanctioned, segregated schools in the South. Drawing on womanist thought as a theoretical lens, this chapter argues that Cooper and Clark’s intellectual thoughts on race, racism, education, and pedagogy informed their teaching practices. Influenced by their socio-cultural, historical, familial, and education, they implemented antioppressionist pedagogical practices as a way to empower their students and address the educational inequalities their students were subjected to in a highly racialized, violent, and repressive social order. Historical African American women educators’ social critiques on race and racism are rarely examined, particularly as they pertain to how their critiques influence their teaching practices. Cooper and Clark’s critiques about race and racism are pertinent to the story of education and racial empowerment during the Jim Crow era.
Details
Keywords
Tammy Dalldorf and Sylvia Tloti
A strange phenomenon among women writers of the late eighteenth century, both conservative and liberal minded, was the predominance of female villains in their novels. While this…
Abstract
A strange phenomenon among women writers of the late eighteenth century, both conservative and liberal minded, was the predominance of female villains in their novels. While this can be seen as an after-effect of masculine patriarchal discourse, particularly for those women writers who possessed a more religious-based ideology, why was it prevalent among feminist writers of the time who should have been aware of misogynistic stereotypes? Two such writers who emulated this strange paradox were Mary Robinson and Charlotte Smith. Both these women had been vilified by the Anti-Jacobin British 18th press as notorious and corrupt ‘female philosophers’ who followed in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecraft. This chapter will conduct a historical feminist close comparative reading of Robinson's novel, Walsingham, and Smith's novel, The Young Philosopher, based on feminist scholarship on eighteenth-century female writers. It will examine how the female villains in the novels overpowered even the male antagonists and were often the cause behind the misfortunes, directly or indirectly, of the heroines/heroes. While these villains did serve as warnings against inappropriate behaviour, they illustrated the disaster for women when there is a lack of female community. Specifically, in the case of Robinson, her Sadean villains illustrated that no one is spared from the corruption of power and that the saintly female figure is nothing but an illusion of the male imagination. They were fallen Lucifers, rebels who relished in their freedom and power despite their damnation and punishment. The patriarchal system was temporarily demolished by them.
Details
Keywords
Richard N.S. Robinson, Anna Kralj, David J. Solnet, Edmund Goh and Victor J. Callan
The purpose of this study is to identify across a number of workplace variables the similarities and differences in attitudes between three key frontline hotel worker groups…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to identify across a number of workplace variables the similarities and differences in attitudes between three key frontline hotel worker groups: housekeepers, front office employees and food and beverage front-of-house staff.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative study was conducted using 25 semi-structured interviews with frontline workers employed in full-service hotels across Eastern Australia. Analysis was augmented through the Leximancer® software package to develop relational themes in the aggregation and disaggregation of the occupations.
Findings
Although work/life balance was a common theme across the three occupations, several distinct attitudinal differences emerged, in particular regarding perceptions of one occupational group towards another.
Practical implications
This study highlights the importance of hotel managers being cognisant of occupational differences and collecting data capable of assisting in the identification of these differences. Several practitioner relevant recommendations are made.
Originality/value
This exploratory study challenges assumptions regarding a “pan-industrial” hospitality occupational community and applies an emerging qualitative software package to highlight occupational differences and relational perceptions.
Details
Keywords
Annika Meschnig, Carolin Decker-Lange and Anna Dubiel
Drawing on transaction cost economics, the authors conceptualise brand licensing as a form of alliance. Its performance may be affected by a licensee’s potential opportunism…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on transaction cost economics, the authors conceptualise brand licensing as a form of alliance. Its performance may be affected by a licensee’s potential opportunism resulting from an imbalance of specific investments in brand-building prior to signing the licensing agreement. From the licensor’s perspective, brand licensing represents a trade-off between brand protection and additional revenues. This study aims to examine how this trade-off shapes licensors’ evaluations of the attractiveness of brand licensing opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
In a vignette study, 121 brand licensing professionals evaluated the attractiveness of up to eight hypothetical brand licensing opportunities with different levels of risk and profitability.
Findings
From a licensor’s perspective, high brand quality and distribution risks decrease the attractiveness of a licensing opportunity, although the latter risks are more pronounced. High potential profitability has a positive and significant effect on attractiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The risks outlined in this study refer to licensee behaviour. The licensor may also behave opportunistically. The authors encourage research designs that enable a dyadic evaluation of licensing opportunities because a comparison of a licensor’s and a licensee’s assessments of the same scenario would be illuminating.
Practical implications
The findings enable the development of an evaluation template that directs brand owners’ attention to the risks and gains of brand licensing opportunities. It supports licensors in choosing the “best” opportunity.
Originality/value
This study identifies risks emanating from a licensee’s potential opportunism from a licensor’s perspective. It juxtaposes these risks with the potential profitability of brand licensing opportunities. It is thus one of the first studies to address a licensor’s decision-making trade-offs in a large-scale empirical setting.