Response Shift and Glycemic Control in Children With Diabetes.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to investigate the scale recalibration construct of response shift and its relationship to glycemic control in children with diabetes. METHODS: At year 1, thirty-eight children with type 1 diabetes attending a diabetes summer camp participated. At baseline and post-camp they completed the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) questionnaire. Post-camp, the PAID was also completed using the 'thentest' method, which requires a retrospective judgment about their baseline functioning. At year 2, fifteen of the original participants reported their HbA1c. RESULTS: PAID scores significantly decreased from baseline to post-camp. An even larger difference was found between thentest and post-camp scores, suggesting scale recalibration. There was a significant positive correlation between year 1 HbA1c and thentest scores. Partial correlation analysis between PAID thentest scores and year 2 HbA1c, controlling for year 1 HbA1c, showed that higher PAID thentest scores were associated with higher year 2 HbA1c. CONCLUSION: Results from this small sample suggest that children with diabetes do show scale recalibration, and that it may be related to glycemic control.

The Challenges of Living with Disabilities in Connecticut

The UCONN Master of Public Health Program’s Practicum Project The Practicum Project is a supervised service-learning experience that integrates curriculum with hands-on experience in a public health setting. All 2nd year students are expected to work collaboratively in assessing the extent, causes and public health responses to a selected public health problem confronting citizens of Connecticut. The focal topic for the 2007 Project was The Challenges of Living with Disabilities in Connecticut. During this past spring, 17 students of our program, working alongside 50 communitybased stakeholders across Connecticut, completed 1,800 hours of service-learning in pursuit of answers to the following questions: • How is the concept of disability defined by various health and social service providers? • What are the estimated numbers of persons living with disabilities in Connecticut and what is the range of their disabling conditions? • What arrays of services are in place to facilitate the full integration of persons with disabilities into their communities? • What opportunities exist to expand our understanding of the challenges faced by persons living with disabilities and promote public policy on their behalf? This occasion and the accompanying report marks the completion of the 3rd in a series of practicum project reports by UCONN MPH students. Through their combined efforts, students gained experience and skill addressing one of the most significant public health issues of our time; they gained insight into the breadth and capacity of our public health system and established invaluable relationships with public health practitioners, agencies and institutions around the state. Their report documents a rich campus-community partnership to advance public health goals.

Joint Attention in Young Children with Autism

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are classified as pervasive developmental disorders characterized by social, communicative, and behavioral impairments. According to formal and informal reports, children with ASD present with receptive and expressive language delay. Joint attention (JA: the behavior that occurs when two individuals focus on the same object or event) has been identified as a possible marker of delayed language development in children with ASD. In this study, the JA behaviors in children with ASD were contrasted with initially language-matched typically developing (TYP) children across three visits. Measures of language, the frequency, duration, and source of initiation of JA episodes, and the choice of toy during those episodes, were coded. Across visits and groups, mothers initiated more JA episodes than children; however, typical children also initiated more JA episodes than ASD children at visits 1 and 2. Also, the total duration of typically developing children’s JA episodes was generally longer than that of the ASD children’s, significantly so at Visit 2. Significant associations emerged between children’s vocabulary and two measures of JA: frequency and number of maternal initiations. Teaching parents to incorporate JA training in their interactions with their children may likely help children with ASD acquire language.