Sample HCT199 Evidencing Learning in Specialist Professional Assignment

HCT199 Evidencing Learning in Specialist Professional Assignment Sample

Assignment aims:

1. To enable students to recognise and optimise professional learning opportunities in relation to the practice setting;

2. To enable students to critically evaluate their professional practice, synthesise this in relation to their on-going role and professional development; and

3. To articulate the critical evaluation of professional practice through oral and written presentation of reflections on practice/practice related issues.

On completion of the module a student should be able to:

• Knowledge and Understanding [K)
• Intellectual Skills [S 1]
• Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills. [S 2]
• Transferable Skills [T]

1. Define and articulate personal learning outcomes via a learning contract relating to an aspect of their professional practice (K).

2. Use case studies/specific examples of practice to engage in a structured process of individual, critical and dialogic reflection on their own advanced, professional decision making in relation to this aspect of practice (S1).

3. Recognise and articulate through formative and summative assessment personal and professional learning, linked to personalised learning outcomes (S1, S2).

4. Clarify issues which define generic versus specialist practice, acknowledging professional identity whilst understanding where skills merge and others’ roles supersede in practice (S2).

5. Synthesise understanding of the philosophy of the relevant profession in order to suggest future advancements/changes to their own professional practice and where appropriate, that of the profession (K, S2).

Syllabus content:

The majority of content will be directed by the chosen specialist study, but the following areas will be explored for all:

Concepts underpinning professional development in the workplace:

- Individual responsibility for professional development
- Identification of professional development needs reconciling individual professional development needs and organisational / service development needs
- Clarification of generic versus specialist practice
- Concept of reflection and processes of reflective practice
- Evidence-based practice / Evidence-based decision making.

Processes of formalising work-based learning:

- Defining and writing individual learning outcomes through learning contract design
- Approaches to evidencing learning through work-based practice e.g. portfolios, professional diaries and significant incidents
- Using case studies as an approach to critical, dialogic reflection
- Principles of accreditation of work-based learning, if applicable

Solution

A Critical Reflection on the Development in Management of Neurophysiological changes in Autism from the Perspective of an Aspiring Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner

Introduction

Most Forth Valley primary care surgeries now employ Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioners (APPs). To address any musculoskeletal issue, APPs serve as patients' first point of contact. Patients may bypass the doctor's office and schedule an appointment with the APP via the clinic's front desk (Tawiah et al. 2021). Advanced physiotherapy practitioner has a broader autonomy of practice, allowing them to triage, assess, evaluate independently, and diagnose patients with extremely complex illnesses and maybe numerous pathologies across the health and social care landscape to enable integrated treatment (McGowan et al. 2018).

While expert physiotherapists still strive to give their patients as much autonomy as possible, they also take on leadership and management roles, deal with complicated decision-making processes, and know how to mitigate risk. Expert physiotherapists have advanced knowledge and training in a narrow field of medicine, such as injectable therapy; some even have prescription skills and the ability to diagnose and treat complex capabilities (Tawiah et al. 2018). In addition to directing the client's rehabilitation, their duties include collaborating closely with medical experts and acting as the initial point of contact, with the power to request diagnostic practitioners such as x-rays, scans, and blood tests.

Discussion

My earnest goal is to become a successfully advanced physiotherapy practitioner whose main focus will be on the neurophysiological changes that occur from Autism. This paper is reflective in nature, discovering and broadening my continued professional development (CPD) perceptions to date, which has allowed me to broaden my clinical skills, knowledge, and comprehension of the topic of neurophysiological changes that occur from Autism. This paper is intended to be read by healthcare professionals. According to the Health and Care Professionals Council (2019), continuing professional development may be broken down into the following four categories. These are self-directed learning, work-based learning, formal education and professional activity. Reflection is at the core of all continuing professional development (CPD), and doing so is necessary in order to make sense of my experiences and advance my work for assignment help.

Self-reflection is analogous to explaining what one sees while staring into one's own eyes. It is a method for gauging how I operate in the world and how I study. To think about something is to engage in "reflection," in the simplest sense. Writing a reflective essay or study on one's own experiences is a vital part of the educational self in modern times (Roy and Uekusa, 2020). Instead of doing things with the same effectiveness I always have, reflecting may help me improve my skills and review how well they work. Positivity in this context refers to asking oneself whether there is a better or more efficient way to accomplish something and then acting on that inquiry (Chen et al. 2019). The ability to reflect on oneself is personal for development. Without it, we respond automatically to our surroundings and to our own selves. If I have ever had an intense reaction to something or said something that I have since come to regret, then I may acknowledge how reflection can assist me to use the better nutritious feedback and modification lifestyles (even opinions) which are not providing me. If this is the case, then I may also comprehend how it can support me in changing behaviours that are not serving me. We all self-reflect regularly, almost subconsciously, and we also do it on purpose when we want to learn something new about ourselves (Stefan and Cheie, 2022). What we see when we reflect on our own activities or routines is usually not a skewed reflection of reality but rather a minor distortion.

Clinical criteria for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) include deficits in the ability to communicate, engage socially, and adapt communication (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). As per my understanding, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is defined as the process that encompasses the whole group of effects from the most severe form of the condition, autism, to the milder forms, such as pervasive developmental disorder and Asperger syndrome (AS) not elsewhere defined (PDD-NOS) (PDD, NOS). A broad variety of IQs may coexist inside a single autism diagnosis. In other words, there is no universal ASD diagnosis (Miyazaki et al. 2007). Also, I realised that there are several potential causes of the ASD phenotype, including genetic disorders and ecological exposures and preterm delivery.

Variation in phenotype is also shown in areas such as the rate of language acquisition, the prevalence of epilepsy, and the spectrum of cognitive capacity. Nonetheless, abnormal responses to sensory information seem to be shared by those on all ends of the spectrum (Coskun et al. 2009). I came to know that over ninety-six per cent of children with ASD report both hyper- and hypo-sensitivities. There is a broad range of severity throughout the spectrum for sensory and behavioural impairments, just as there is for communication and social deficiencies, and these differences may persist into adulthood (Minshew et al. 2002).

From the two original fundamental findings by Asperger (1994) and Kanner (1943) through first-person experiences, sensory processing difficulties have been a consistent theme in clinical diagnoses of ASD (Asperger, 1994). I acquired that those who are unable to express their discomfort when confronted by certain sensory inputs may resort to self-harm or violent conduct. Hyper- and hyporesponsiveness to sensory input are not limited to those with ASD, although they do seem to be more common in this community than in those with other developmental disabilities (Leekam et al. 2007). It is less well known how these sensory abnormalities are distributed in individuals with ASD. In the past, it was believed that the more local senses were more susceptible to damage and served as indications of immaturity in development (Baranek et al. 2006). According to my understanding, despite increased evidence for disturbance in auditory and visual processing pathways and a renaissance in interest in multimodal integration, these individuals ’ experience are frequently the ones that get the least amount of research. This is the case in many cases (MSI).

There is evidence in the literature that points to observable changes occurring in early auditory circuitry, especially in response to increasingly complex stimuli. However, anomalies in the cerebellum do not appear to be sufficient to explain the inadequacies for all individuals who fall within the autism spectrum (Roberts et al. 2010). I realised that the ability to take in and make sense of a variety of incoming sounds is the fundamental prerequisite for both language and effective communication. Therefore, it is very necessary to have an understanding of the characteristics of this preliminary stage in the auditory sensory stream. Ordinarily, event-related potentials (ERPs) obtained using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) have been utilised in order to explore cortical auditory sensory processing that occurs further than the brainstem (Koh et al. 2010). I learned that brain responses are gathered across numerous trials to simple auditory stimuli and averaged to produce information on the temporal and spatial resolution of responses.

The main and association auditory cortices are assumed to be responsible for the abnormally late peaks seen in both EEG and MEG investigations (150 ms). These findings, unfortunately, disclosed to me that there are directional disparities in delay. Cortical latencies were shown to be shorter for longer tones at 1000 Hz in two separate investigations. Tone durations of 100 and 4 milliseconds were utilised, respectively, by Ferri et al. (2003) and Martineau et al. (1984). Delays in onset and latency in others have been observed compared to controls. Bruneau et al. (2003) demonstrated late auditory evoked potentials using a tone with a frequency of 750 Hz and a duration of 200 milliseconds. MEG was employed by Roberts et al. (2010) to report a delay in the M100 response of the right hemisphere to tones of various frequencies lasting 300 milliseconds (200, 300, 500, and 1000 Hz).

Whitehouse and Bishop (2008) observed, in instance, that the early peak latencies of the typical repeating tones varied across vowel sounds, sophisticated nonspeech sounds, and complex tones. This was the case regardless of whether the sounds were speech or nonspeech. This was the case despite the fact that each of the noises was considered to be a tone that repeated itself. Researchers Bruneau et al. (2003) and Oram Cardy et al. (2008) observed that stronger language ability was reflected in this area of low-level processing by greater and earlier right hemisphere cortical peaks. This discovery was made by the researcher Martineau et al. (1984). Differences in age, diagnosis and research paradigms may account for contradictory results. The future of this study is expected to benefit from the incorporation of behavioural phenotyping and correlations.

When Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler developed the term "autism" to describe an individual who withdrew into their own world, he drew inspiration from the Greek word for "self" (Blatt, 2012). As per my knowledge, due to sensory processing difficulties, autistic youngsters may seem to be living in a separate universe from their peers. These kids won't stop talking about the same thing, do the same things again and over (such as wring their hands or rock their bodies), say the same words over and over, and refuse to change to new situations. Psychiatrist Leo Kanner analysed the cases of 11 very bright kids who all showed characteristics of autism, including an intense need for isolation and sameness (Kanner, 1968). Kanner hypothesised that these children lacked the capacity for social-emotional development from birth (Grandin and Panek, 2013).

The frequency of the autism phenotype has remained consistent, but the number of people who are clinically diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder has grown significantly, according to a 2015 study conducted in Sweden that looked back over a 10-year period (Lundstrom et al. 2015). Because it is based on the observation of gene expression in people and their relationships to genetic variables, phenotyping is a valid method for evaluating autism neurophysiology. I understood that the significant rise in autism diagnoses is due to the fact that phenotyping has been largely abandoned in favour of a subjective checklist of symptoms, with little to no knowledge of the probable origins of these symptoms.

According to a nationwide study conducted in the United States in 2015, many children who were first labelled with autism spectrum disorder were subsequently determined not to be autistic (Bloomberg et al. 2016). I acquired that children who were given an incorrect diagnosis were less likely to be sent to a professional for further evaluation and treatment, and they were also less likely to have ever been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or Asperger syndrome. According to a study published in Psychology Today in 2015, many children initially labelled with autism really suffer from a mix of language delay, sensory difficulties, and apraxia (Schrader, 2015). If a kid has apraxia, it means that he or she (a) understands language conceptually but has trouble expressing it vocally and (b) has trouble blending sounds in words to make meaningful communication. I also learned that it is true that some of these youngsters have trouble paying attention during tests. Others have difficulties digesting information and hence cannot reply in time to be assessed.

From an article published in 2016, I witnessed that Between 2006 and 2012, the number of people in Germany who were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder rose by almost 70 per cent. The authors of this study clearly imply (Bachman, 2018) that a substantial percentage of this huge rise was attributable to an incorrect diagnosis. Some researchers speculate that rather than having autism, many of these kids just had a low IQ, learning problems, or ADHD (Knight, 2017). Overdiagnosis of autism is common, according to the results of a 2019 thorough study published in JAMA Psychiatry (Rodgaard et al. 2019). There has been an over-expansion of the autism umbrella. I understood how autism is increasingly used as a catchall term for a wide range of conditions in neurology and child psychology that have just a superficial relationship with autism. In many cases, medical professionals will diagnose autism symptoms in people whose presenting symptoms are really just ADHD and poor social skills.

Many youngsters with sensory processing disorder (SPD) are given a diagnosis with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a story in the Irish Times from 2019 (McDonagh, 2019). I acquired that poor eye contact, disliking hugs, poor play, and meltdowns are being used to label children with autism.

The German government provides financial assistance to autistic children and their families and provides special services in the classroom for autistic students. However, the vast majority of kids who have autism can succeed in a traditional classroom setting without any additional support. In Ireland, children with an autism diagnosis have better access to special care and education programmes tailored to their unique needs than children with other diagnoses. Due to this advantage, doctors are more likely to identify a kid with autism rather than another disorder (Rose, 2016).

Autistic children who live in the United Kingdom and need special assistance get a Disability Living Allowance. I learned that in order for the parents to obtain this benefit, neither a diagnosis nor proof of financial need is necessary. In the United States, parents may have Risperidone and Aripiprazole prescribed for their children if they have been diagnosed with autism. The antipsychotic medications approved for use in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression cannot possibly help those with autism. The only reason parents give their kids medication is so they can behave (Talsma et al. 2010).

As per my research, children who are antisocial, struggle with anxiety and refuse education are often incorrectly classified as autistic in the United Kingdom. To the mother's benefit, a fraudulent diagnosis of autism might be used in custody proceedings (Garber, 2011). The autistic brain has the same basic neurological structure as any other brain. The neurophysiology of the autistic brain is what sets it apart. The cingulate gyrus (CG) is like an automated transmission that smoothly shifts focus between the frontal lobes in a neurotypical brain. However, in autism, a dysfunctional CG prevents access to the emotional/creative processing right frontal lobe, which is pivotal in spontaneity, social behaviour, and nonverbal abilities. While some neurotypical individuals are primarily right-brain thinkers, others tend to favour the left side of the brain. However, autistic individuals can't function well without using their left brain exclusively (Rolland, 2020). This may take up to a day. Anxiety is a distressing physiological reaction (not an emotion) that goes straight to the body and ignores the brain.

I understood that an autistic person's hyperfocus is so strong that they are unable to juggle competing thoughts. An autistic individual will accept your every statement at face value since they lack the cognitive capacity to process two sets of information at once. Autistic persons are unable to monitor how they are being received or viewed by their audience when speaking at length about a favourite subject (Kallstrand et al. 2010). I learned that people on the autism spectrum need organised activities because they cannot focus on both the task at hand and the task of predicting what could happen next.

Different forms of sensory overload are also brought on by hyperfocus. As a result of their hyperfocus, autistic people hear loud or high-pitched noises with far more intensity than their neurotypical counterparts. An autistic individual may experience cognitive impairment and a frightening void of thought if exposed to too many words on a page (Jemel et al. 2010). From my knowledge, I understood that anxiety might be brought on by shopping for too long or by overhearing private conversations. Anxiety attacks are often triggered by hardware shop lighting displays. Some people find that their hyperfocus amplifies their sensation of touch, which may make wearing tight clothes or receiving a hug uncomfortable.

These 52 autistic characteristics are all attributable to autism's distinguishing feature: hyperfocus (Churches et al. 2010). The mental state of hyperfocus consists of undying, laser-like attention on a single thinking process to the exclusion of all others. My research says that about a third of the following characteristics may also be attributed to other factors. This is why collecting a list of symptoms isn't a reliable diagnostic tool. The categorization of symptoms leads to more questions than answers if we don't know what's causing them (Vlamings et al. 2010). Autism's distinctive symptoms result from hyperfocus, a condition that is causally unique. If I suffer from hyperfocus, I won't be able to process several inputs or thoughts at once. The autistic person on the other end of the line cannot sense anything you or I am saying to them right now.

The concept of an autism spectrum needs to be abandoned because it is unproductive. Many erroneous autism diagnoses may be traced back to this flawed idea. The condition of autism does not belong on any gradable spectrum (Monk et al. 2010). I understood that autism is not a spectrum disorder but rather only has one form. No autistic autism disorders exist, and neither do autistic tendencies. True autism exists at a one hundred per cent rate. The sole difference between people with autism is the degree to which they experience hyperfocus. Individuals with autism disorder (low functioning) tend to be completely inaccessible due to their intense attention (Annaz et al. 2010). While communicating with people with Asperger syndrome who are high functioning, I understood that they exhibit hyperfocus less severely. If a visual representation is to be of any use, it must take the form of a vertical bar chart, with the highest intensity (lowest functioning) at the bottom and the lowest intensity (maximum functioning) at the top.

Children with autism who are unable to communicate are especially vulnerable to being stuck in a state of hyperfocus from which they cannot be rescued. Some severely autistic youngsters, as Einstein did at age four, develop an interest in communication and begin speaking on their own (Iarocci et al. 2010). Children with developmental, learning, language, communication, or social disorders not associated with autism are the only ones who can be taught to talk. When compared to the clinical phenotypic approach that was the norm in the 1960s, the symptom survey method of autism diagnosis represents a huge step backwards. Phenotyping relies on studying gene expression in people and establishing links between circumstances and genetics.

Conclusion

Autism is a neurophysiological disorder that affects how the brain processes information and is not caused by external factors. The inability to react to external or social stimuli is a major problem for a brain that is stuck in hyperfocus. Similarly, it cannot be treated using behaviour change techniques. Autism-related hyperfocus cannot be reasoned away. Hyperfocus, or intense, single-minded attention on one thought pattern at a time, to the exclusion of everything else, including one's own emotions, is a defining characteristic of autism. It seems that the cingulate gyrus (CG), the brain region responsible for focusing attention, is malfunctioning in those with hyperfocus. When compared to the clinical phenotypic approach that was the norm in autism diagnosis in the 1960s, the symptom survey method has been a severe setback.

Phenotyping relies on studying gene expression in people and establishing links between circumstances and genetics. Autism is a neurophysiological disorder that affects how the brain processes information and is not caused by external factors. The inability to react to external or social stimuli is a major problem for a brain that is stuck in hyperfocus. Similarly, it cannot be treated using behaviour change techniques. Autism-related hyperfocus cannot be reasoned away. Hyperfocus, or intense, single-minded attention on one thought pattern at a time, to the exclusion of everything else, including one's own emotions, is a defining characteristic of autism. The brain of the attention-focusing cingulate gyrus (CG) seems to be at the root of hyperfocus. 

References