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Services are increasingly exploring the use of remote conferencing to deliver psychological interventions, which have become particularly important given the COVID-19 pandemic and infection control guidelines. This paper aims to explore the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of delivering psychological therapy remotely to adults with intellectual disabilities (ID).

As part of routine practice within an adult ID community health service, this paper develops a six-session programme based on compassion-focused therapy (CFT) and delivered it to six clients. Clients completed the psychological therapy outcome scale for ID 2nd edition, at assessment, pre- and post-therapy, as well as a feasibility and acceptability measure.

Six clients engaged in telephone therapy; four clients individually, while the remaining two were supported by their caregiver. Most clients found the intervention helpful, enjoyable and were pleased that they received telephone-delivered psychological therapy. A reduction was observed at post-therapy in distress (g = 0.33) and risk (g = 0.69). No difference was reported in psychological well-being. Five clients were subsequently discharged from psychological therapy.

To the knowledge, this is the first study examining the use of telephone therapy (including CFT) for individuals with ID. Findings add to the growing evidence suggesting individuals with ID can benefit from receiving adapted psychological therapies. Research is required to further explore the effectiveness of remote-therapies, who would most likely benefit from this approach and how remote treatments could be used within existing pathways.

This chapter explores communication processes within online support groups. Online support group researchers have drawn upon a variety of theories in the decades of empirical research that has been conducted within this context. The chapter focuses on motivations for using online support groups, key theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of online support groups, supportive messages and communication processes within these groups, and the relationship between social support and health outcomes for online support group participants. The chapter concludes with several key limitations of previous work as well as a number of areas for theory development and future research studies.

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in the treatment of social anxiety with a 19-year-old man with intellectual disabilities (ID) and autistic spectrum disorders.

The intervention was evaluated using an A-B single case design. An idiosyncratic measure was developed to measure anxiety symptoms on a daily basis. The brief symptom inventory (BSI; Derogatis, 1975) measured symptom patterns across nine psychological dimensions and was administered at initial assessment, pre-intervention and post-intervention.

Visual and statistical analysis of the data showed that anxiety severity dramatically reduced throughout the course of therapy, reaching and maintaining zero and this was statistically significant. Data seemed to show that sudden gains in the reduction of anxiety severity occurred during the relaxation and cognitive phases of intervention. This sudden gain coincided with an increase in daily activities, and exposure to more anxiety provoking events which was also statistically significant. Global anxiety scores, as measured by the BSI, showed a notable reduction at post-treatment.

This paper demonstrates that CBT can bring about meaningful improvements in the treatment of anxiety in people with ID and autism and suggests that further exploration with the wider population is needed.

A federal district court injunction in Illinois will reverberate beyond the Land of Lincoln by reaffiriming policy and law for local phone competition in the USA. Chief District Judge Charles P. Kocoras reminded legislators, regulators and telecommunications executives that state regulators are to employ federal telecommunications law and policy, specifically total element long run incremental pricing (TELRIC) for unbundled network elements (UNE‐s), to administer markets for local telephone services. The genius of the decision resides in its fidelity to sedulous implementation of telecommunications statute and precedents, and by so doing, in sustaining public policy that enhances consumer welfare, stimulates investment and spurs innovation.

On October 31st 1985, 48 members of the ISHM‐Benelux Chapter met at the Delft University of Technology for the Autumn 1985 meeting.

After many very successful years as a researcher and manager at British Telecommunications Research Laboratories, Nihal Sinnadurai has moved over to consultancy with BPA (Technology & Management) Ltd.