Mastery Motivation in Children with Down Syndrome : Promoting and Sustaining Interest in Learning

Motivation is central to children’s learning. Without persistent effort, especially in the face of failure, and an eagerness to engage in challenging tasks, individuals are unlikely to learn as effectively as they might. Because of their cognitive impairments, children with Down syndrome will almost certainly have difficulties with learning. These difficulties will be ameliorated somewhat by strong engagement with learning activities whereas problems with motivation are likely to further jeopardise their academic progress as well as potentially limiting achievements in other areas of life. In this chapter we begin with a general overview of motivation. Using the framework of mastery motivation, we review the relatively small amount of research about children with Down syndrome. We identify the individual characteristics and features of children’s environments that are likely to be related to lower or higher levels of mastery motivation. In the final section, we consider implications for educators and then draw together the findings to provide a set of recommendations for future research.

The Scored Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) and its Association with Quality of Life in Ambulatory Patients Receiving Radiotherapy

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the scored Patient-generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) tool as an outcome measure in clinical nutrition practice and determine its association with quality of life (QoL). DESIGN: A prospective 4 week study assessing the nutritional status and QoL of ambulatory patients receiving radiation therapy to the head, neck, rectal or abdominal area. SETTING: Australian radiation oncology facilities. SUBJECTS: Sixty cancer patients aged 24-85 y. INTERVENTION: Scored PG-SGA questionnaire, subjective global assessment (SGA), QoL (EORTC QLQ-C30 version 3). RESULTS: According to SGA, 65.0% (39) of subjects were well-nourished, 28.3% (17) moderately or suspected of being malnourished and 6.7% (4) severely malnourished. PG-SGA score and global QoL were correlated (r=-0.66, P<0.001) at baseline. There was a decrease in nutritional status according to PG-SGA score (P<0.001) and SGA (P<0.001); and a decrease in global QoL (P<0.001) after 4 weeks of radiotherapy. There was a linear trend for change in PG-SGA score (P<0.001) and change in global QoL (P=0.003) between those patients who improved (5%) maintained (56.7%) or deteriorated (33.3%) in nutritional status according to SGA. There was a correlation between change in PG-SGA score and change in QoL after 4 weeks of radiotherapy (r=-0.55, P<0.001). Regression analysis determined that 26% of the variation of change in QoL was explained by change in PG-SGA (P=0.001). CONCLUSION: The scored PG-SGA is a nutrition assessment tool that identifies malnutrition in ambulatory oncology patients receiving radiotherapy and can be used to predict the magnitude of change in QoL.

Integrating health and sustainability in life cycle assessment

Until now health impact assessment and environmental impact assessment are two different issues, often not addressed together. Both issues have to be dealt with for sustainable building. The aim of this paper is to link healthy and sustainable housing in life cycle assessment. Two strategies are studied: clean air as a functional unity and health as a quality indicator. The strategies are illustrated with an example on the basis of Eco-Quantum, which is a Dutch whole-building assessment tool. It turns out that both strategies do not conflict with the LCA methodology. The LCA methodology has to be refined for this purpose.