Glossary of Terms - E to H
Early intervention
Action taken utilising medical, family, school, social or mental health resources and aimed at infants or children at risk of, or in the early stages of mental, physical, learning or other disorders.
Elective mutism
Condition in which children talk in one situation, for example, at home, but remain silent elsewhere, eg, at school.
Emotion recognition
Ability to recognise how different expressions of particular emotions, such as facial expressions, gestures and sounds, are associated with each other.
Endorphins
A range of naturally produced opium-like substances found in the brain which act as neurotransmitters and affect natural pain control.
Epidemiology
The study of the distribution and determinants of diseases in populations.
Event-related potential
A specific burst of measurable electrical activity by the brain when it perceives a light or a noise.
Evoked potential
Evoked potential is an electrical potential recorded from the scalp in response to transient acoustic stimuli. Typically, voltage measurements are obtained for a period of about 10msec following acoustic stimulus, which is repeated and summed several hundred or thousand times to permit extraction of the response from ongoing non-auditory neural activity. The judgement about whether a response has been obtained is normally based on the pattern observed in a visual display of the waveform.
Executive function
Ability to plan complex cognitive tasks, this ability is interfered with by dysfunction in the frontal lobes of the brain.
Facial recognition
Disturbances in gaze and patterns of facial interaction are prominent aspects of social dysfunction in autism; facial recognition is an aspect of visual data processing. It simply relates to the ability to recognise faces for what and who they are.
Facilitated communication
Approach to assist people with no speech or with dysfunctional speech to find alternative means of communication. The facilitator normally supports a client's hand, wrist or arm while that person uses a communicator to spell out words, phrases or sentences.
False belief
Theory of mind is defined as the ability to infer other people's mental states (their thoughts, desires, intentions, etc) and the ability to use this information to interpret what they say, make sense of their behaviour and predict what they will do next. The acid test of whether an individual is able to mind-read arises in situations involving false belief.
False belief is simply believing something that is not true. A false belief test involves testing whether one person can understand whether another person has a false belief. This involves understanding that another's knowledge and perceptions may be different from one's own.
Fragile X syndrome
Learning disability due to a defect in a particular part of the X chromosome.
Functional analysis
Careful observation of a previously defined behaviour in a previously defined environment to understand the relationship between the behaviour and the environment.
Gaze
A gaze is a fixed look. It is used in social behaviour as part of the visual checking occurring during interpersonal interactions and usually involves looking at another person's face. Gaze aversion or abnormal eye contact have been reported in individuals with autism since Kanner's original paper in 1943.
Genetics
Branch of biology concerned with heredity and individual characteristics.
Gluten
Protein found in wheat.
Hand mouthing
Hand mouthing is a common and often chronic behaviour problem exhibited by individuals who have learning disabilities. The prevalence of hand mouthing is highest among individuals who have profound multiple disabilities.
Handedness
Learned or spontaneous differential dexterity with the tendency to use one hand rather than the other.
Hanen parent programme
A training programme for caregivers of children who have early language delay. The Hanen Centre in Toronto, Canada, first developed these family-focused, early language interventions to empower direct caregivers with the knowledge and experience they need to help children develop language use. They include interactive, experiential group sessions for caregivers (there are separate programmes for parents and early childhood teachers) using videotape analysis, group discussions, and simulated practice activities, in combination with individual consultation through videotaping and feedback sessions.
Homoeopathy
A system of medicine based on the theory that diseases are curable by drugs which produce effects on the body similar to symptoms caused by the disease. In administering drugs, the theory is also held that their effect is increased by giving them in minute doses obtained by substantially diluting them.
Hormones
Chemical messengers that are dispersed by the blood and act on target organs to produce effects distant from their point of release.
Hyperactivity
A pattern of behaviour in children who have problems concentrating and who are always overreactive.
Hyperacusis
An abnormally acute sense of hearing.
Hyperkinesis
Excessive motor activity, voluntary or otherwise.
Hyperlexia
Mechanical reading skills developed in excess of comprehension and verbal expression skills.
Hypersensitivity
The abnormal immunological reaction produced in certain individuals when re-exposed to antigens that are innocuous to other individuals.
Hypothalamus
Part of the brain in which there are many nerve centres that are responsible for regulating vital functions such as hunger, thirst and sex.