Functional assessment and care of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities

Objectives: To determine the relationship between pediatric assessment scores and ratings by parents and teachers regarding the amount of assistance required to complete basic activities of daily living; and to examine the relationship among scores for three commonly used pediatric assessments. Design: Prospective correlational study. 205 children with developmental disabilities. The children ranged in age from 11 to 87 mo and included 72 females and 133 males of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. The children were evaluated by using the Battelle Developmental Inventory Screening Test, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Functional Independence Measure for Children (WeeFIM(TM) instrument), and the Amount of Assistance Questionnaire, Results: The test-retest reliability coefficients for items on the Amount of Assistance Questionnaire were found to range from 0.82 to 0.97. Correlations among subscale scores and amount of assistance ratings were highest for the WeeFIM instrument and Battelle Developmental Inventory Screening Test. The highest correlation was between WeeFIM total rating and total amount of assistance rating (r = 0.91). Conclusion: Total WeeFIM instrument ratings and severity of disability were the best predictors of amount of assistance ratings provided by parents and teachers.

Synthesis and structure elucidation of kappa-casein (45-87) - A two dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance study

We have shown that 44 amino acid residues N-terminal segment of kappa-casein exhibits considerable a-helical structure. This prompted us to investigate the structures of the remaining segments of kappa-casein. Thus, in this study the chemical synthesis and structure elucidation of the peptide 45-87 amino acid residues of kappa-casein is reported. The peptide was assembled using solid phase peptide synthesis methodology on pam resin, cleaved via HF, freeze dried and, after purification, characterised by mass spectrometry (observed m/z 4929; calculated mit 4929.83). The amino acid sequence of the peptide is: CKPVALINNQFLPYPYYAKPAAVRSPAQILQWQVLSNTVPAKA Its structure elucidation has been carried out using circular dichroism (CD) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. CD spectrum of the peptide shows it to be a random structure in water but in 30% trifluoroethanol the peptide exhibits considerable structure. The 1D and 2D NMR spectra corroborated the results of CD. The structure elucidation of the peptide using TOCSY and NOESY NMR techniques will be discussed.