What do we know about preventing drug-related harm through social developmental intervention with children and young people

This chapter examines the evidence for the effectiveness of interventions aiming to reduce drug-related harm by improving conditions for healthy develeopment in the earliest years through adolescence. Of the interventions beginning prior to birth, there is efficacy evidence that family home visitation is a feasible strategy for implementation with disadvataged families and can reduce risk factors for early developmental deficits and thereby improve childhood development outcomes. There is efficacy evidence for strategies such as parent education and school preparation through the pre-school age period. Some of the strongest evidence for efficacy in reducing developmental pathways to drug-related harm comes from interventions delivered through the early school years to improve educational environments. Of the interventions targeting the high school age period, school drug education has been the most commonly evaluated. The evidence suggests that short term reduction in both drug use and progression to frequent drug use may be achievable through this strategy, but the prospects for longer-term and population-level behaviour change is still unclear. In overview, a range of prevention strategies have been developed and evaluated. Most of the exisiting evidence is restricted to efficacy studies and there are future challenges to progress evaluation through to studies of effectiveness. In general, prevention programmes appear more successful where they maintain intervention activities over a number of years and incorporate more than one strategy. Much of the existing research has been based in North America and evaluates discrete programmes. Future research should test effects in other countries, in different social contexts and seek to better understand the interrelated effects of combining interventions within the community. Developmental prevention programmes target different age periods and social settings, hence communities have the challenge of coordinating a mixture of programmes that address the local conditions that adversely influence child and youth development. There are opportunities in this work to coordinate prevention activities using funding from different jurisdictions (e.g., crime prevention, health promotion, mental health, education, substance abuse prevention).

Individual differences in children's suggestibility : a comparison between intellectually disabled and mainstream samples

This study examined whether age, gender, intelligence, communication ability and shyness predict intellectually disabled children’s susceptibility to an interviewer’s misleading suggestions. Further, the study examined whether the relative influence of these factors differs between intellectually disabled and mainstream samples. Participants included 75 children with mild and borderline intellectual disabilities (aged 77–158 months) and 83 mainstream children (aged 68–152 months). All children were individually administered the Yield and Shift subscales of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (Form 2) as well as standardised measures of IQ, shyness and communication ability. For the intellectually disabled children, multiple regression analyses revealed that age, IQ and communication inversely predicted Yield suggestibility, however, none of the factors predicted Shift suggestibility. For the mainstream children, age made a significant independent contribution to both Yield and Shift suggestibility, while IQ was a significant predictor of Shift suggestibility. When comparing the relative impact of these factors across the samples, age had a significantly greater impact on mainstream (compared with intellectually disabled) children’s Shift suggestibility, while IQ had a significantly greater influence on intellectually disabled (compared with mainstream) children’s Yield scores. These findings highlight the limited generalisability of previous findings involving mainstream children’s suggestibility to intellectually disabled samples.

An ecobehavioural analysis of interactive engagement of children with developmental disabilities with their peers in inclusive preschools

Ecobehavioural analysis procedures were used to examine the interactive engagement of children with developmental disabilities due to Down syndrome who attended inclusive preschools for 2 years. Compared with typical children, the children with disabilities displayed infrequent interactions with peers for the duration of the study. For the children with disabilities, interactive engagement was largely unrelated to the characteristics of class activities, while typical children responded positively to activities expected to promote peer interaction. The results are discussed in terms of the inadequacy of informal strategies commonly applied in inclusive preschool settings to promote interactive engagement in children with disabilities.

Integrating errors into developmental assessment: 'time' for ages 8-13

It is widely agreed that measurement is of paramount importance to students’ overall development in mathematics. This paper describes a developmental ‘map’ of students’ understanding and skills in measurement, focussed on the topic of Time, that integrates correct and incorrect student ideas. The map is based on a Rasch analysis of data from a large-scale UK national survey for standardising assessment for children from 5 to 14 years of age. It is demonstrated how a partial credit strategy enables a developmental map to be constructed to show students’ strengths and weaknesses in a meaningful and useful summative and formative manner. This map provides evidence, of both a summative and a formative nature, which may enable teachers to craft appropriate and successful learning experiences for children.

Parents' perception of the quality of life of preschool children at risk or having developmental disabilities.

Despite increased concern for the health related quality of life (HRQOL) of people with disabilities, little is known about the HRQOL of children with developmental disabilities. The present study aimed to explore the HRQOL of children who were at risk or having developmental disabilities in Hong Kong. Using the parent-reported Chinese Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), the HRQOL of 173 children (2–4 years) with signs of delays in development was contrasted with that of 132 children with typical development. We found that those who exhibited high risk of developing a developmental disability had significantly lower overall well-being (76.3 ± 13.7 vs. 84.2 ± 11.3; p<0.001) and psychosocial health (71.3 ± 15.6 vs. 82.5 ± 12.9; p<0.001) but not necessarily physical health. The findings are consistent with previous findings in children with different disabilities and chronic illnesses. They suggest children at risk or having DDs need help in restoring their quality of life up to the standard experienced by their healthy peers, particular in psychosocial aspects such as social functioning, emotion functioning, and school functioning.

Internal representation of movement in children with developmental coordination disorder : a mental rotation task

Recent studies show that children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have difficulties in generating an accurate visuospatial representation of an intended action, which are shown by deficits in motor imagery. This study sought to test this hypothesis further using a mental rotation paradigm. It was predicted that children with DCD would not conform to the typical pattern of responding when required to imagine movement of their limbs. Participants included 16 children with DCD and 18 control children; mean age for the DCD group was 10 years 4 months, and for controls 10 years. The task required children to judge the handedness of single-hand images that were presented at angles between 0° and 180° at 45° intervals in either direction. Results were broadly consistent with the hypothesis above. Responses of the control children conformed to the typical pattern of mental rotation: a moderate trade-off between response time and angle of rotation. The response pattern for the DCD group was less typical, with a small trade-off function. Response accuracy did not differ between groups. It was suggested that children with DCD, unlike controls, do not automatically enlist motor imagery when performing mental rotation, but rely on an alternative object-based strategy that preserves speed and accuracy. This occurs because these children manifest a reduced ability to make imagined transformations from an egocentric or first-person perspective.

Procedural learning in children with developmental coordination disorder

Despite the fact that developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is characterised by a deficit in the ability to learn or automate motor skills, few studies have examined motor learning over repeated trials. In this study we examined procedural learning in a group of 10 children with DCD (aged 8–12 years) and age-matched controls without DCD. The learning task was modelled on that of Nissen and Bullemer [Cognitive Psychology 19 (1987) 1]. Children performed a serial reaction time (SRT) task in which they were required to learn a spatial sequence that repeated itself every 10 trials. Children were not aware of the repetition. Spatial targets were four (horizontal) locations presented on a computer monitor. Children responded using four response keys with the same horizontal mapping as the stimulus. They were tested over five blocks of 100 trials each. The first four blocks presented the same repeating sequence, while the fifth block was randomised. Procedural learning was indexed by the slope of the regression of RT on blocks 1–4. Results showed that most children displayed strong procedural learning of the sequence, despite having no explicit knowledge about it. Overall, there was no group difference in the magnitude of learning over blocks of trials – most children performed within the normal range. Procedural learning for simple sequential movements appears to be intact in children with DCD. This suggests that cortico-striatal circuits that are strongly implicated in the sequencing of simple movements appear to be function normally in DCD.

Characterization of the zebrafish matrix metalloproteinase 9 gene and its developmental expression pattern

Members of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family are important for the remodeling of the extracellular matrix in a number of biological processes including a variety of immune responses. Two members of the family, MMP2 and MMP9, are highly expressed in specific myeloid cell populations in which they play a role in the innate immune response. To further expand the repertoire of molecular reagents available to study zebrafish myeloid cell development, the matrix metalloproteinase 9 (mmp9) gene from this organism has been identified and characterized. The encoded protein is 680 amino acids with high homology to known MMP9 proteins, particularly those of other teleost fish. Maternal transcripts of mmp9 are deposited in the oocyte and dispersed throughout the early embryo. These are replaced by specific zygotic transcripts in the notochord from 12 h post fertilization (hpf) and also transiently in the anterior mesoderm from 14 to 16 h post fertilization. From 24 h post fertilization, mmp9 expression was detected in a population of circulating white blood cells that are distinct from macrophages, and which migrate to the site of trauma, and so likely represent zebrafish heterophils. In the adult, mmp9 expression was most prominent in the splenic cords, a site occupied by mature myeloid cells in other species. These results suggest that mmp9 will serve as a useful marker of mature myeloid cells in the zebrafish.

Developmental language disorders and adolescent risk: a public-health advocacy role for speech pathologists?

Within the multi-disciplinary team concerned with child and adolescent development, speech pathologists are uniquely positioned to understand the nature and overall developmental significance of language acquisition in childhood and adolescence. Other disciplines contribute valuable insights about psychosocial development during the childhood and adolescent years. The field of developmental psychology, for example provides a large and convincing body of evidence about the role of academic success as a protective factor against a range of psychosocial harms, in particular substance misuse, truancy, early school leaving, and juvenile offending. In this paper, we argue that juvenile offending embodies the notion of "adolescent risk", but in Australia in particular, has been under-investigated with respect to possible associations with developmental language disorders and subsequent academic failure. We present findings pertaining to a sample of 30 male juvenile offenders completing community based orders. Performance on a range of oral language processing and production skills was poorer than that of a demographically similar comparison group. Our results confirm the need to conceptualize language within a broader risk and protective framework. We therefore emphasize the public health importance of early language competence, by virtue of the psychosocial protection it confers on young people with respect to the development of prosocial skills, transition to literacy and overall academic achievement. We argue that speech pathologists are best positioned to advocate at a policy level about the broader public health importance of oral language competence.

An insight into implementing person-centred active support

This paper provides reflections on the implementation of an active support staff training programme for staff working in community residential facilities for adults with an intellectual disability. Outcomes for the people with an intellectual disability were consistent with recent research findings indicating that active support can lead to improved opportunities for participation in everyday activities within the home. We propose that the success of the training programme was largely influenced by three key elements: ensuring that there is expertise in, and support for, this approach to service provision among key service managers, provision of in vivo one-to-one practical staff training in addition to classroom-based theoretical input, and inclusion of elements of person-centred planning approaches in combination with active support. Future research should focus on how best to maximise the effectiveness of active support staff training.