2017 was another good year for the IJDD and we continued to publish landmark papers in the field of intellectual disabilities (ID) that have practical advice for those with ID as well as those caring for people with ID. Looking forward to 2018, we are pleased to announce that the number of IJDD issues will increase from four to five issues per year, due to the continued success of the Journal, increased demand from subscribers, and the increase in accepted submissions of high-quality papers. This is a testament to the hard work of the authors, reviewers and all the other stakeholders in the IJDD as well as our publisher, Taylor and Francis (T&F).
This time of year is also traditionally accompanied by a retrospective view of the previous 12 months. Looking back at 2017, the IJDD had a major involvement in two key successful conferences. The first was a meeting organized around the 2017 special issue on assistive technology and disabilities that was expertly edited by Giulio Lancioni. ‘The First International Conference on Assistive Technology and Disabilities’ was organized by Rossano Bartoli and Patrizia Ceccarani from the Lega Del Filo D’Oro and Giulio Lancioni as well as the IJDD editors Arturo Langa and Brian Salmons. It took place in Rome, Italy on the 4 to the 6 October 2017 at the Università Pontificia Salesiana and bought together authors from special issue articles and Italian experts in the field with great success. The event, which was financed and co-organized by the Liga Del Filo D’Oro, also culminated in the British Society for Developmental Disabilities (the owner of the IJDD) signing a memorandum of understanding with the Liga Del Filo D’Oro on future co-operation. The special issue of the journal was released to coincide with the start of the meeting and the articles were made freely available by T&F, our publisher.
The second meeting attended by the IJDD was the 2017 IASSIDD Fourth Asia-Pacific Regional Congress, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 13 until the 16 November. The event was attended by Editorial Board member, Dr. John Rose and IJDD editor Brian Salmons who co-chaired a session on ‘How to get your Research Published: Guidance and Steps Involved in Getting a Paper Published’.
We believe that our increasing presence and activities at such international conferences will not only serve to promote the IJDD among new authors but will also have an important educational role in training a new generation of researchers in the field as well as provide transparency as to the process how papers get published.
Looking forward to 2018, in addition to the increase in the number of issues from four to five issues per year, there will be a new special issue entitled ‘Qualitative work with people who have developmental disabilities’ that will be edited by John Rose and Biza Kroese and will tentatively be published in June.
The current issue of the IJDD contains a number of interesting publications.
In a study reported by Castro and Grande, the Early Development Instrument (EDI) is linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) to identify essential functioning dimensions for children of the 3–5 years age group. They conclude that in order to facilitate a holistic description of the child, the EDI should be complemented with other measures such as body functions and environmental factors.
The publication by Gore Langton and Frederickson reveals what parents of extremely demanding children about practitioners, namely that they listen to their experiences, make efforts to understand the child, and provide or organize help. Comprehensive assessment, appropriate intervention, practical advice and management strategies, and a focus on the well-being of all family members was found to be especially helpful.
Cheng and colleagues point out that recognizing facial expression is likely one of the earliest facilitators of social engagement, yet it is a core deficit for individuals with ASD to build social relationships. They developed and used the 3D Complex Facial Expression Recognition (3CFER) system to help the realization of facial expression for the ASD. The results showed that the system improved the ability of those with ASD to recognize facial expressions, with surprise and shyness being mostly easily identified.
The prevailing views and perceptions of teachers and parents with children with ASD towards the organization and management of approaches to their efficient collaboration and communication was empirically investigated by Syriopoulou-Delli and Polychronopoulou. Critical factors found to play a fundamental role in teachers’ views include the work unit, previous ASD experience and relevant postgraduate studies.
The paper by Gur examines the correlations between challenging behaviors (CB), difficulties in functioning and quality of life in institutionalized adults with ID. The study found no significant correlation between CB and quality of life, although more CB seems to correlate with greater difficulties in functioning and a weak correlation was found between difficulties in functioning and quality of life. No significant associations were found between personal characteristics such as gender, age, level of ID and CB, difficulties in functioning, and quality of life.
Pandya reports the effect of spirituality and spiritual training on resilience in primary caregiver parents of children with ASD. The study findings reinforce the resilience-promoting potential of spirituality/spiritually sensitive interventions for parents of children with ASD. However, this is contingent on country of domicile, religion, the number of rounds of spiritual lessons, and self-practice as critical predictors, with gender and economic class as secondary predictors.
The IJDD editors would like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors of articles as well as the voluntary reviewers of papers and the IJDD editorial board members who continue to ensure the high quality of papers published by the journal. We also would like to thank our readership and subscribers for their continued support. Finally, we also thank the team at T&F, for publishing the journal and also for enthusiastically supporting our future plans and the increase in publication frequency to five issues per year. We look forward to another exciting year at the IJDD!