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This paper aims to present data about access to and use of health and social care services by adults with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Data were collected in three waves between December 2020 and September 2021 and concerned the use of health and social care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected at one or more time-points directly from 694 adults with learning disabilities and through separate proxy reports by family carers and paid support staff of another 447 adults with learning disabilities.

Many people with learning disabilities who reported regularly accessing services/supports pre-pandemic were not receiving them during the timeframe of this study. There were indications of increasing access to some services and supports between Wave 2 and 3, but this was not universal.

People in Cohort 2, who were likely to have severe/profound learning disabilities, were less frequently reported to access online community activities than people in Cohort 1, which is likely to exacerbate existing social isolation for this cohort and their family carers. Service providers should seek to ensure equitable access to services and activities for all people with learning disabilities in the event of future lockdowns or pandemics.

This is the largest longitudinal study about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and social care services for adults with learning disabilities in the UK. We primarily collected data directly from adults with learning disabilities and worked with partner organisations of people with learning disabilities and family members throughout the study.

Fiction has the potential to dispel myths and helps improve public understanding and knowledge of the experiences of under-represented groups. Representing the diversity of the population allows individuals to feel included, connected with and understood by society. Whether women and girls with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are adequately and accurately represented in fictional media is currently unknown. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Internet and library searches were conducted to identify female characters with ASD in works of fiction. Examples of such works were selected for further discussion based on their accessibility, perceived historical and cultural significance and additional characteristics that made the work particularly meaningful.

The search highlighted a number of female characters with ASD across a range of media, including books, television, film, theatre and video games. Many were written by authors who had a diagnosis of the condition themselves, or other personal experience. Pieces largely portrayed characters with traits that are highly recognised within the academic literature. However, some also appeared to endorse outdated myths and stereotypes. Existing works appear to preferentially portray high functioning autistic women, with limited representation of those whom also have intellectual disability.

This is the first exploration of the depiction of ASD in females within fiction. There is a need for more works of fiction responsibly depicting females with ASD, as this can help reduce stigma, develop public awareness and recognition and increase representation.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself.

Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s.

Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits.

This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.