September 3, 2025 • 15 mins
From the Doctor's Desk today we unpack three studies relevant to parents and families.
First, an intervention that could decrease the likelihood of developing a peanut allergy by 71% (N.B. we are not sharing medical advice!). The second study - another intervention involving a 2-week screen-free media reduction for participants, with fantastic results! And the third, a study looking at differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent responses to touch, and some helpful tips for parents of neurodivergent children when it comes to understanding and navigating these responses.
In this episode:
- Peanut allergies
- The danger of becoming risk-adverse
- Screen Media Use and Mental Health of Children and Adolescents: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial | Media and Youth | JAMA Network Open
- A happier child in 2 weeks?
- Emotional dysregulation
- Parental responsibility with screens
- Follow-up to Adolescence after Early Peanut Introduction for Allergy Prevention | NEJM Evidence
- Why touch matters
- Sensory issues, autism
- Differences in neurodivergent vs neurotypical response to touch
- Consent
- Autonomic and hedonic response to affective touch in autism spectrum disorder - Capiotto - 2024 - Autism Research - Wiley Online Library
Relevant Links:
- Tech giants are ANTI-kids
- Unplug Childhood - join the village today
- #1016 – From The Doctor’s Desk: Touch Good, Anger Bad
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today's podcast, we're diving into the latest research and talking
about what can help us as parents to raise happier families.
But I am doctor Justin Coulson and who with my
wife and mum to our six kids, missus happy families.
Kylie Coulson Kylie three studies. Today we're going to talk
about peanut algies. We're talking about social media screens because
it's just the enduring, never ending conversation if you're a
(00:27):
parent of a child. And also a really fascinating study
that I wanted to share for our neurodivergent friends, Autism
and Touch, a new study out of Italy looking at
how touch affects those who are neurodivergent with an autism
diagnosis versus those who are neurotypical no diagnosis at all.
Let's dive into it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's interesting when I think about my upbringing, I don't
remember ever hearing about a peanut allergy. Neither do I
didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone to a peanut butter.
We had to tell her, Like you just I'd never
heard of it. And yet in today's world, it feels
like every second kid is allergic to something and it's
(01:05):
altered what our kids can even put in their lunchboxes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, So an important note as we have this conversation.
I mean, some schools are completely peanut free. There are
bands all over the place. We're going to talk about
a psychological intervention, but I want to be really clear,
if your child has a peanut allergy, please follow the
medical advice of your practitioner. We're speaking about an intervention
and some research. We're not giving advice when it comes
to your child and peanuts.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So what did they actually find?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Let me give you the I'm not going to bury
the lead here. It is right now peanut allergies could
drop by seventy one percent with a brand new intervention
developed by some researchers at King's College in London.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Seventy one percent. That's huge.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the intervention feeding kids peanuts, I know,
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Can I just say it's interesting when we hear about
whether it's a peanut allergy or you know, someone's been
heard in a car accident, or it changes the way
we live.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Life, right, so you have it become really risk averse.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, you hear that there's peanut allergies and all of
a sudden, all the peanuts get banned, right, or there's
a car accident down this particular road, Well that's an
unsafe road to travel on. We just we go so
polar extreme and this research studies suggesting that that may
be the case.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, here's what they did. What they basically said was
feed kids peanuts regularly from four months of age to
five years, and they're less likely to show up with
the with the allergy. Now, I need to note very
clearly when they're saying feed kids peanuts regularly from four months,
they're not saying give your four month old a peanut.
(02:42):
That would be potentially life altering, it could be catastrophic.
What they're saying is peanuts and peanut products. So consider
the developmental appropriateness of handing your child a peanut. If
they're too young to be able to chew, bite, swallow
a peanut, give them peanut paste, give them peanut butter,
give them some other nut oriented product, the things that
(03:03):
contain things that they're okay. And as they get older
and can suddenly and can chew those nuts, that's when
you start to give them the full monty, the whole nut. Basically,
what they found this is fascinating. This method works even
if your child never eats another peanut after the age
of five. I love this. So if you can get
(03:24):
your kid exposed to nuts in those first five years
and you don't have any reactions, which typically you won't
after the age of five, they made decide I don't
like peanuts, I never want to eat another nut again,
and they'll still be okay.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So how did they actually figure this out?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Okay? Professor Gideon Lack is a King's College, London research
He published this research of the New England Journal of
Medicine and what he found basically is avoiding so old.
The old story was avoid nuts. As you said, avoidance
is necessary. What he found in his study was that
avoiding nuts increases the risk of allergy. Doesn't reduce the risk.
It increases the risk of allergy. They had six hundred
(04:00):
and forty participants. They gave half of them nuts during
the first five years of their life. They gave the
other half nut all that Sorry, they didn't give the
kids nuts. They instructed parents to either give or not
give their children peanuts, and then they tested them at
age five to see if they had the allergy. There
was an eighty one percent reduced risk of allergy in
the nut group versus the no nut group. What's fascinating
(04:21):
to me though, is that they followed up at the
age of thirteen, So from this point on there's no
direction given whatsoever about whether you should or should not
eat nuts. Fifteen point four percent fifteen and a half
percent of those people who were avoided nuts in those
first five years were allergic to nuts. Wow, whereas only
four point four percent of nut eaters were allergic. So
(04:45):
to be clear, feeding your child nuts in the first
five years does not absolutely guarantee they will not have
the nut allergy, but it reduces the likelihood of the
peanut allergy by seventy one percent. That's huge, It's enormous.
So that's our study Number one, Feed your kids nuts.
Nuts are good.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I couldn't imagine living life without nuts. Get into nuts.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
All right. Study number two, Social Media Use and the
Mental Health of Children and Adolescents.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I feel like every doctor's desk has a social media
or screen aspect to it. What's different about this study.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
This is a smart study. It's been preregistered. There's a
control group who lives life as normal, and then there's
an intervention group in the intervention group. We've got one
hundred and eighty one children and adolescents in a Danish
study and their job is to do a two week
screen media reduction intervention. Okay, so basically the children and
(05:50):
adolescents hand in their smartphones and their tablets and they're
not allowed more than three hours of screens per week
per person.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know that, and that just sounds like bliss it honest, you.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Were the most fluttered away. As you said it, your
eyes started to flutter and you're like, ah, so would
you like me to tell you what they found? Of course,
of course, fewer emotional symptoms. That is, children were better regulated.
There was less disregulation in the intervention group compared to
the control group.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I kind of want to say, d I know, I
really like this is it's so obvious.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Fewer peer problems. In other words, the children were just
better at social stuff and I won't say it again,
and more pro social behavior. Ah, kids are nice to
each other and they manage their emotions better when they
don't have as much access to screen.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is amazing. I feel like we got a really huge
sense of this during COVID when everything shut down and
we just were able to kind of really tap into
family life together.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Well, some people did, but when the other direction and
screens became their lives, especially around schooling right, and some
people said this is killing us, got to get off
the screens. Whereas as you said, for us, we were
really conscious of bringing it down.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So what's your take on this?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
My take, in a nutshell, Mike Zuckerberg and his colleagues
are colleagues. That's just far too polite a word for
who they are and what they are. Are responsible for
more unhappiness in our young people, and on a larger
scale than perhaps anyone else in human history. That's my take.
I absolutely cannot comprehend the pure mendacity, the deceitfulness, and
(07:42):
their ongoing manipulation of our families and our children and
young people's lives in search of attention economy dollars. They
are just absolutely, absolutely disgraceful. I blame the system, I
blame the politicians, But because nothing is happening unfortun as parents,
it lands on us, and if we're not doing something
(08:03):
about it, we are also unfortunately responsible. I was at
an event just the other day. I was giving a
talk and somebody told me that they're seven year olds
on Snapchat. Why because they're big brothers and sisters are
on Snapchat, And I just said no, Like, as a parent,
you've got a responsibility. Get your seven year old off Snapchat.
They don't need to be on roadblocks, they don't need
(08:24):
to be on Minecraft. More and more evidence is coming
out telling us that we at the very least need
to be breathtakingly cautious. But I think when you look
at a study like this one out of Denmark, we're
seeing really clearly. Just get the kids outside, get them
being physically active, have them involved in play, especially risky play,
and get them involved with other people. Children outside, not
(08:47):
in the house, not with a screen. They're going to
be so much better off, better emotionally regulated, more physically capable,
and they're also going to be more pro social as
a general rule.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, I'm going to lower your blood pressure because I
feel like it's our last study. We're talking about autism
and touch. This is quite intriguing.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah, so most people, most people do better with touch.
We had a Doctor's Desk episode where we talked about
the importance of touch. You got very excited in that one.
You got because if you're neurotypical and you get touched
as so long as it's consensual and it's the kind
of touch that you would like, Oh gosh, it just
feels good. Right. Italian researchers have looked at the difference
(09:27):
between neurotypical responses to touch and neurodivergent responses to touch
with people who are diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Autistic and what did they find?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
In a nutshell, lower physiological responses to touch, but higher
ratings for both pleasant and unpleasant touch. So, in other words,
it's really complicated. There's a lot of sensory issues around this,
and I think we probably need to dig deeper, especially
for any parent of an autistic child, or maybe maybe
even for any autistic parents who listen to the pod,
this will probably resonate and there'll be a few ah
(10:00):
kind of moments.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So why does touch actually matter?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Okay, so touch matters. We did discuss this briefly in
that last podcast, but let's talk about it. Number one,
it's really important to help establish and maintain relationships before
verbal skills have developed. Okay, so when you've got a
brand new baby, it's all about touch. Crucial role in
human communication, crucial role in social interaction, and it conveys
so much emotional and social meaning that promotes attachment, social affiliation, bonding,
(10:30):
and we know, especially if touch is consensual and it's
the kind of touch that somebody wants, there are really
pleasant effects like we feel we just feel really.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Good about that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The question about autism though not particularly well answered, and
this study helps us to answer it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So what did they do in the study?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, forty eight participants, twenty four with ASD and twenty
four typically developing controls participants.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
With they it's quite a small group.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, it is twenty four inch, but that's enough. That
is enough for us to get something meaningful here. Essentially,
participants they sat down, put their left arm on a table.
It was hidden from view by wooden panel so they
couldn't see it, and then each participant was touched on
their left forearm different types of touch. There was what's
called affective touch, which is slow gentle strokes and controlling
(11:25):
kinds of touch. So that was lots of tapping. That's
how you would characterize it, just tap tap, tap, tap tap.
So I'm in kind of annoying and not at all
like the affective slow gentle strokes. The experimenter delivered the
held I say, the experimental delivered the touch stimuli and record.
They had it all set up so they could record
(11:47):
the physiological responses of the participant using a device that
measured skin conductance, which is a pretty good way of
identifying whether or not there's any autonomic nervous system activity.
And in addition to having that skin conductance recorded, each
participant also rated the touch on how pleasant or unpleasant
it was, just using a numerical scale, so pretty basic,
(12:08):
really flexible. Allows participants to applause if they don't like it,
if they're overwhelmed, if they're feeling fatigued, and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And what was the outcome of the study?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
In a nutshell, individuals with ASD showed lower overall skin
conductance compared to neurotypical participants, which means that there's a
lower autonomic response. And this is where I think it
gets really interesting. Well, typically developing participants had a higher
physiological response to affective touch compared to the controlling tapping touch.
(12:43):
That wasn't shown in the ASD group. In other words,
people with ASD did not show a distinct autonomic response
to the two different kinds of touch. It was basically,
you're touching me, full stop end, Sorry, you're touching me. Yes,
there is difference, but you are touching me. Whereas neurotypical
people were like, I like that one, I don't like
(13:04):
that one. Here's something really interesting though, despite the lack
of that physiological differentiation, individuals with ASD rated both the
affective and the control touch higher than typically developing participants
by our neurotypical participants, which means that they subjectively are
(13:29):
experiencing the touch more intensely on both the positive and
the negative scale. I think this is fascinating to look
at and it highlights.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But not at a physiological level like this is.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's really curious, isn't it. So if you're a parent
of an autistic kid, I think what I would be
saying really is do you like it when I touch you?
How do you like to be touched? I think that
it just requires exploration with an acknowledgment that touch can
for a child who has any kind of sensory issues,
It can be overwhelming and frustrating and just too much.
(14:03):
So again, my main emphasis based on what this study
is showing is consent. Consent and conversation around touch are
going to be your best friends.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So three big studies today, we've talked about how to
lower our kids possibility of having a nut allergy by
actually exposing them to it from as four months.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Early as we just don't give them whole nuts at
four months.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Please, reducing screen use with our families is going to
deeply enhance.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We're going to have better kids, your.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Family connections and everything else that goes with it, right
and autistic children in touch.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This is a really intriguing I'm so glad that you
enjoyed our doctor's desk you normally complain about it, looks
like you actually got something out of this one. Each
of these studies will be linked in the show notes
so that you can get the details. For those of
you who are curious about learning more, we will link
to the actual scholarly article. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides research,
(15:05):
admin and other support. If you would like to make
your family happier, check out the Parenting Revolution. It's available
wherever you buy your books, or visit us at Happy
families dot com. Do au
Today's podcast, we're diving into the latest research and talking
about what can help us as parents to raise happier families.
But I am doctor Justin Coulson and who with my
wife and mum to our six kids, missus happy families.
Kylie Coulson Kylie three studies. Today we're going to talk
about peanut algies. We're talking about social media screens because
it's just the enduring, never ending conversation if you're a
(00:27):
parent of a child. And also a really fascinating study
that I wanted to share for our neurodivergent friends, Autism
and Touch, a new study out of Italy looking at
how touch affects those who are neurodivergent with an autism
diagnosis versus those who are neurotypical no diagnosis at all.
Let's dive into it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's interesting when I think about my upbringing, I don't
remember ever hearing about a peanut allergy. Neither do I
didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone to a peanut butter.
We had to tell her, Like you just I'd never
heard of it. And yet in today's world, it feels
like every second kid is allergic to something and it's
(01:05):
altered what our kids can even put in their lunchboxes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, So an important note as we have this conversation.
I mean, some schools are completely peanut free. There are
bands all over the place. We're going to talk about
a psychological intervention, but I want to be really clear,
if your child has a peanut allergy, please follow the
medical advice of your practitioner. We're speaking about an intervention
and some research. We're not giving advice when it comes
to your child and peanuts.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So what did they actually find?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Let me give you the I'm not going to bury
the lead here. It is right now peanut allergies could
drop by seventy one percent with a brand new intervention
developed by some researchers at King's College in London.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Seventy one percent. That's huge.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the intervention feeding kids peanuts, I know,
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Can I just say it's interesting when we hear about
whether it's a peanut allergy or you know, someone's been
heard in a car accident, or it changes the way
we live.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Life, right, so you have it become really risk averse.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, you hear that there's peanut allergies and all of
a sudden, all the peanuts get banned, right, or there's
a car accident down this particular road, Well that's an
unsafe road to travel on. We just we go so
polar extreme and this research studies suggesting that that may
be the case.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, here's what they did. What they basically said was
feed kids peanuts regularly from four months of age to
five years, and they're less likely to show up with
the with the allergy. Now, I need to note very
clearly when they're saying feed kids peanuts regularly from four months,
they're not saying give your four month old a peanut.
(02:42):
That would be potentially life altering, it could be catastrophic.
What they're saying is peanuts and peanut products. So consider
the developmental appropriateness of handing your child a peanut. If
they're too young to be able to chew, bite, swallow
a peanut, give them peanut paste, give them peanut butter,
give them some other nut oriented product, the things that
(03:03):
contain things that they're okay. And as they get older
and can suddenly and can chew those nuts, that's when
you start to give them the full monty, the whole nut. Basically,
what they found this is fascinating. This method works even
if your child never eats another peanut after the age
of five. I love this. So if you can get
(03:24):
your kid exposed to nuts in those first five years
and you don't have any reactions, which typically you won't
after the age of five, they made decide I don't
like peanuts, I never want to eat another nut again,
and they'll still be okay.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So how did they actually figure this out?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Okay? Professor Gideon Lack is a King's College, London research
He published this research of the New England Journal of
Medicine and what he found basically is avoiding so old.
The old story was avoid nuts. As you said, avoidance
is necessary. What he found in his study was that
avoiding nuts increases the risk of allergy. Doesn't reduce the risk.
It increases the risk of allergy. They had six hundred
(04:00):
and forty participants. They gave half of them nuts during
the first five years of their life. They gave the
other half nut all that Sorry, they didn't give the
kids nuts. They instructed parents to either give or not
give their children peanuts, and then they tested them at
age five to see if they had the allergy. There
was an eighty one percent reduced risk of allergy in
the nut group versus the no nut group. What's fascinating
(04:21):
to me though, is that they followed up at the
age of thirteen, So from this point on there's no
direction given whatsoever about whether you should or should not
eat nuts. Fifteen point four percent fifteen and a half
percent of those people who were avoided nuts in those
first five years were allergic to nuts. Wow, whereas only
four point four percent of nut eaters were allergic. So
(04:45):
to be clear, feeding your child nuts in the first
five years does not absolutely guarantee they will not have
the nut allergy, but it reduces the likelihood of the
peanut allergy by seventy one percent. That's huge, It's enormous.
So that's our study Number one, Feed your kids nuts.
Nuts are good.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I couldn't imagine living life without nuts. Get into nuts.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
All right. Study number two, Social Media Use and the
Mental Health of Children and Adolescents.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I feel like every doctor's desk has a social media
or screen aspect to it. What's different about this study.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
This is a smart study. It's been preregistered. There's a
control group who lives life as normal, and then there's
an intervention group in the intervention group. We've got one
hundred and eighty one children and adolescents in a Danish
study and their job is to do a two week
screen media reduction intervention. Okay, so basically the children and
(05:50):
adolescents hand in their smartphones and their tablets and they're
not allowed more than three hours of screens per week
per person.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know that, and that just sounds like bliss it honest, you.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Were the most fluttered away. As you said it, your
eyes started to flutter and you're like, ah, so would
you like me to tell you what they found? Of course,
of course, fewer emotional symptoms. That is, children were better regulated.
There was less disregulation in the intervention group compared to
the control group.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I kind of want to say, d I know, I
really like this is it's so obvious.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Fewer peer problems. In other words, the children were just
better at social stuff and I won't say it again,
and more pro social behavior. Ah, kids are nice to
each other and they manage their emotions better when they
don't have as much access to screen.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is amazing. I feel like we got a really huge
sense of this during COVID when everything shut down and
we just were able to kind of really tap into
family life together.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Well, some people did, but when the other direction and
screens became their lives, especially around schooling right, and some
people said this is killing us, got to get off
the screens. Whereas as you said, for us, we were
really conscious of bringing it down.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So what's your take on this?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
My take, in a nutshell, Mike Zuckerberg and his colleagues
are colleagues. That's just far too polite a word for
who they are and what they are. Are responsible for
more unhappiness in our young people, and on a larger
scale than perhaps anyone else in human history. That's my take.
I absolutely cannot comprehend the pure mendacity, the deceitfulness, and
(07:42):
their ongoing manipulation of our families and our children and
young people's lives in search of attention economy dollars. They
are just absolutely, absolutely disgraceful. I blame the system, I
blame the politicians, But because nothing is happening unfortun as parents,
it lands on us, and if we're not doing something
(08:03):
about it, we are also unfortunately responsible. I was at
an event just the other day. I was giving a
talk and somebody told me that they're seven year olds
on Snapchat. Why because they're big brothers and sisters are
on Snapchat, And I just said no, Like, as a parent,
you've got a responsibility. Get your seven year old off Snapchat.
They don't need to be on roadblocks, they don't need
(08:24):
to be on Minecraft. More and more evidence is coming
out telling us that we at the very least need
to be breathtakingly cautious. But I think when you look
at a study like this one out of Denmark, we're
seeing really clearly. Just get the kids outside, get them
being physically active, have them involved in play, especially risky play,
and get them involved with other people. Children outside, not
(08:47):
in the house, not with a screen. They're going to
be so much better off, better emotionally regulated, more physically capable,
and they're also going to be more pro social as
a general rule.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, I'm going to lower your blood pressure because I
feel like it's our last study. We're talking about autism
and touch. This is quite intriguing.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah, so most people, most people do better with touch.
We had a Doctor's Desk episode where we talked about
the importance of touch. You got very excited in that one.
You got because if you're neurotypical and you get touched
as so long as it's consensual and it's the kind
of touch that you would like, Oh gosh, it just
feels good. Right. Italian researchers have looked at the difference
(09:27):
between neurotypical responses to touch and neurodivergent responses to touch
with people who are diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Autistic and what did they find?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
In a nutshell, lower physiological responses to touch, but higher
ratings for both pleasant and unpleasant touch. So, in other words,
it's really complicated. There's a lot of sensory issues around this,
and I think we probably need to dig deeper, especially
for any parent of an autistic child, or maybe maybe
even for any autistic parents who listen to the pod,
this will probably resonate and there'll be a few ah
(10:00):
kind of moments.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So why does touch actually matter?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Okay, so touch matters. We did discuss this briefly in
that last podcast, but let's talk about it. Number one,
it's really important to help establish and maintain relationships before
verbal skills have developed. Okay, so when you've got a
brand new baby, it's all about touch. Crucial role in
human communication, crucial role in social interaction, and it conveys
so much emotional and social meaning that promotes attachment, social affiliation, bonding,
(10:30):
and we know, especially if touch is consensual and it's
the kind of touch that somebody wants, there are really
pleasant effects like we feel we just feel really.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Good about that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The question about autism though not particularly well answered, and
this study helps us to answer it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So what did they do in the study?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, forty eight participants, twenty four with ASD and twenty
four typically developing controls participants.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
With they it's quite a small group.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, it is twenty four inch, but that's enough. That
is enough for us to get something meaningful here. Essentially,
participants they sat down, put their left arm on a table.
It was hidden from view by wooden panel so they
couldn't see it, and then each participant was touched on
their left forearm different types of touch. There was what's
called affective touch, which is slow gentle strokes and controlling
(11:25):
kinds of touch. So that was lots of tapping. That's
how you would characterize it, just tap tap, tap, tap tap.
So I'm in kind of annoying and not at all
like the affective slow gentle strokes. The experimenter delivered the
held I say, the experimental delivered the touch stimuli and record.
They had it all set up so they could record
(11:47):
the physiological responses of the participant using a device that
measured skin conductance, which is a pretty good way of
identifying whether or not there's any autonomic nervous system activity.
And in addition to having that skin conductance recorded, each
participant also rated the touch on how pleasant or unpleasant
it was, just using a numerical scale, so pretty basic,
(12:08):
really flexible. Allows participants to applause if they don't like it,
if they're overwhelmed, if they're feeling fatigued, and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And what was the outcome of the study?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
In a nutshell, individuals with ASD showed lower overall skin
conductance compared to neurotypical participants, which means that there's a
lower autonomic response. And this is where I think it
gets really interesting. Well, typically developing participants had a higher
physiological response to affective touch compared to the controlling tapping touch.
(12:43):
That wasn't shown in the ASD group. In other words,
people with ASD did not show a distinct autonomic response
to the two different kinds of touch. It was basically,
you're touching me, full stop end, Sorry, you're touching me. Yes,
there is difference, but you are touching me. Whereas neurotypical
people were like, I like that one, I don't like
(13:04):
that one. Here's something really interesting though, despite the lack
of that physiological differentiation, individuals with ASD rated both the
affective and the control touch higher than typically developing participants
by our neurotypical participants, which means that they subjectively are
(13:29):
experiencing the touch more intensely on both the positive and
the negative scale. I think this is fascinating to look
at and it highlights.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But not at a physiological level like this is.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's really curious, isn't it. So if you're a parent
of an autistic kid, I think what I would be
saying really is do you like it when I touch you?
How do you like to be touched? I think that
it just requires exploration with an acknowledgment that touch can
for a child who has any kind of sensory issues,
It can be overwhelming and frustrating and just too much.
(14:03):
So again, my main emphasis based on what this study
is showing is consent. Consent and conversation around touch are
going to be your best friends.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So three big studies today, we've talked about how to
lower our kids possibility of having a nut allergy by
actually exposing them to it from as four months.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Early as we just don't give them whole nuts at
four months.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Please, reducing screen use with our families is going to
deeply enhance.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We're going to have better kids, your.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Family connections and everything else that goes with it, right
and autistic children in touch.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This is a really intriguing I'm so glad that you
enjoyed our doctor's desk you normally complain about it, looks
like you actually got something out of this one. Each
of these studies will be linked in the show notes
so that you can get the details. For those of
you who are curious about learning more, we will link
to the actual scholarly article. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides research,
(15:05):
admin and other support. If you would like to make
your family happier, check out the Parenting Revolution. It's available
wherever you buy your books, or visit us at Happy
families dot com. Do au
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