Sibling interaction of children with autism: development over 12 months

While deficits in social interaction are central to autism, the sibling relationship has been found to provide a key medium for the development of such skills. Naturalistic observations of sibling pairs including children with autism and controls with Down syndrome were made across two time periods, twelve months apart. Consistent with the evidence on typically developing children, the amount and rate of initiations of both prosocial and agonistic interaction increased, but further analysis suggested that these interactions were stage-managed by the typically developing children. Results show social interaction and imitation in children with autism and the special role that sibling interactions can play. Longitudinal research on the acquisition of social skills in children with developmental disabilities is needed.

Securing provision for children with autistic spectrum disorders: the views of parents

An original questionnaire was designed to seek the perspectives of parents about the process of securing appropriate educational provision for their child with autism spectrum disorder. In total, 738 responses were analysed using both quantative and qualitative data. Although a broad range of opinion was evidenced and a clear majority of families were happy with the end decision of placement, most families were significantly less happy with the process to determine that provision. Most families found this process difficult to navigate and frustrating. This caused a high level of stress for a significant proportion of families. Implications for practice are discussed.

Parsing the passive: comparing children with Specific Language Impairment to sequential bilingual children

25 monolingual (L1) children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), 32 sequential bilingual (L2) children, and 29 L1 controls completed the Test of Active & Passive Sentences-Revised (van der Lely, 1996) and the self-paced listening task with picture verification for actives and passives (Marinis, 2007). These revealed important between-group differences in both tasks. The children with SLI showed difficulties in both actives and passives when they had to reanalyse thematic roles on-line. Their error pattern provided evidence for working memory limitations. The L2 children showed difficulties only in passives both on-line and off-line. We suggest that these relate to the complex syntactic algorithm in passives and reflect an earlier developmental stage due to reduced exposure to the L2. The results are discussed in relation to theories of SLI and can be best accommodated within accounts proposing that difficulties in the comprehension of passives stem from processing limitations.

Serotonin transporter [corrected] methylation and response to cognitive behaviour therapy in children with anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders that are the most commonly occurring psychiatric disorders in childhood, are associated with a range of social and educational impairments and often continue into adulthood. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment option for the majority of cases, although up to 35-45% of children do not achieve remission. Recent research suggests that some genetic variants may be associated with a more beneficial response to psychological therapy. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation work at the interface between genetic and environmental influences. Furthermore, epigenetic alterations at the serotonin transporter (SERT) promoter region have been associated with environmental influences such as stressful life experiences. In this study, we measured DNA methylation upstream of SERT in 116 children with an anxiety disorder, before and after receiving CBT. Change during treatment in percentage DNA methylation was significantly different in treatment responders vs nonresponders. This effect was driven by one CpG site in particular, at which responders increased in methylation, whereas nonresponders showed a decrease in DNA methylation. This is the first study to demonstrate differences in SERT methylation change in association with response to a purely psychological therapy. These findings confirm that biological changes occur alongside changes in symptomatology following a psychological therapy such as CBT.

Faith and protection: the construction of hope by parents of children with leukemia and their oncologists

Background. Oncologists are criticized for fostering unrealistic hope in patients and families, but criticisms reflect a perspective that is oversimplified and “expert” guidance that is ambiguous or impractical. Our aim was to understand how pediatric oncologists manage parents' hope in practice and to evaluate how they address parents' needs. Methods. Participants were 53 parents and 12 oncologists whom they consulted across six U.K. centers. We audio recorded consultations approximately 1–2, 6, and 12 months after diagnosis. Parents were interviewed after each consultation to elicit their perspectives on the consultation and clinical relationship. Transcripts of consultations and interviews were analyzed qualitatively. Results. Parents needed hope in order to function effectively in the face of despair, and all wanted the oncologists to help them be hopeful. Most parents focused hope on the short term. They therefore needed oncologists to be authoritative in taking responsibility for the child's long-term survival while cushioning parents from information about longer-term uncertainties and being positive in providing information about short-term progress. A few parents who could not fully trust their oncologist were unable to hope. Conclusion. Oncologists' pivotal role in sustaining hope was one that parents gave them. Most parents' “faith” in the oncologist allowed them to set aside, rather than deny, their fears about survival while investing their hopes in short-term milestones. Oncologists' behavior generally matched parents' needs, contradicting common criticisms of oncologists. Nevertheless, oncologists need to identify and address the difficulty that some parents have in fully trusting the oncologist and, consequently, being hopeful.

The use and usefulness of a parent questionnaire to help schools identify disability

The Equality Act 2010 will be implemented in full in 2011, and schools in the UK will have to provide special aids or services for children with disabilities where this provision is considered reasonable. This paper reports on staff perspectives on the use and usefulness of a parental questionnaire on disability from a sample of 49 schools (mainstream and special) located in 12 local authorities. Most schools found the process of administering the parent questionnaire undemanding; just under half of the sample indicated that they would take some action as a result of the data collected from the parental questionnaire (e.g., to inform plans for targeting or monitoring support for children, and to contact parents and follow-up issues they had mentioned); and about one-third of schools recorded unanticipated findings from the parental questionnaire, that is, the identification of children whose disabilities were not previously known to the school. Implications for schools are discussed.

Missing out? Challenges to hearing the views of all children on the barriers and supports to learning

Children's views are essential to enabling schools to fulfil their duties under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 and create inclusive learning environments. Arguably children are the best source of information about the ways in which schools support their learning and what barriers they encounter. Accessing this requires a deeper level of reflection than simply asking what children find difficult. It is also a challenge to ensure that the views of all children contribute including those who find communication difficult. Development work in five schools is drawn on to analyse the ways in which teachers used suggestions for three interview activities. The data reveals the strengths and limitations of different ways of supporting the communication process.

Counting in Egyptian children with Down Syndrome

This exploratory study is concerned with the performance of Egyptian children with Down syndrome on counting and error detection tasks and investigates how these children acquire counting. Observations and interviews were carried out to collect further information about their performance in a class context. Qualitative and quantitative analysis suggested a notable deficit in counting in Egyptian children with Down syndrome with none of the children able to recite the number string up to ten or count a set of five objects correctly. They performed less well on tasks which added more load on memory. The tentative finding of this exploratory study supported previous research findings that children with Down syndrome acquire counting by rote and links this with their learning experiences.

Da acusação às professoras pelo aprisionamento do sujeito em um diagnóstico a uma interrogação acerca da posição do analista

This study arises with two questionings: what is the usefulness of a diagnosis in school? And what moves that demand for diagnosis? Such questions were drawn up in answer to a diagnostic demand produced in the context of our internship in Scholar/Educational Psychology. On the perspective of working these issues, we conducted a literature research on diagnosis, with regard to its history, as a review of the psychoanalytic literature about the subject. This venture led us to a new interrogation: what are the elaborations that teachers produce from the child diagnosis, which place her as having special educational needs? The need of deciding the method that would lead us to answer such question, taking as reference the psychoanalytic theory, led us to an incursion to the subject research in psychoanalysis. This tracking points us that, according to Freud, on what comes to psychoanalysis, theory and research go together and that psychoanalysis is not a totalitarian world vision. On Lacan, the research is from the analysand, research that always implies the analyst and its praxis. Such path forced us to position a change to question the positions we occupy, in this experience, guided by an analytical listening. To discuss our position, we started from two cases and submitted them to construction and analysis. As a result, we found out that there is no way to know in advance what will be done from a diagnosis, which will be its uses. Point we used to considerate devastating to a child. So, to us, all children that received a diagnosis would be destined to a tragedy and what the research has shown us is that not always, not all of them. Thus, more than knowing what moves the demand, the important is the subject uses and our position towards it so they can generate a work

Psycholinguistic abilities of children with Williams syndrome

The objective of this study was to investigate the psycholinguistic abilities of children with Williams syndrome (WS) and typically developing children using the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). Performance on the ITPA was analysed in a group with WS (N = 20, mean age = 8.5 years, SD = 1.62) and two typically developing groups, matched in mental (MA, N = 20, mean age = 4.92 years, SD = 1.14) and chronological age (CA, N = 19, mean age = 8.35 years, SD = 3.07). Overall, within-group analyses showed that individuals with WS displayed higher scalar scores on the visual reception and visual association subtests. When groups were compared, we observed inferior performance of the WS group on all ITPA subtests when compared with typically developing groups. Moreover, an interaction between reception and group was found, only the WS group demonstrated superior performance on the visual reception subtest when compared to the auditory reception subtest. Evidence from this study offers relevant contributions to the development of educational intervention programs for children with WS. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Echocardiographic abnormalities in children with obstructive breathing disorders during sleep

Objectives: To assess cardiac morphology and function by means of echocardiograms of children with obstructad breathing while asleep.Methods: the study enrolled 40 children of both sexes, aged from 3 to 11 years; 30 of them had obstructed breathing during sleep (group I) and 10 children were healthy controls (group II). The two groups were similar in terms of sex, age, weight and height. The 40 children underwent echocardiogram, viewing all four chambers during systole and diastole, paying special attention to the right ventricle (RV). These data were compared by means of Student's t test (p < 0.05).Results: In group I, increased diameter and area of the right ventricle were observed during both systole and diastole. There was less variation in RV area between systole and diastole. Reduced left ventricle (LV) diastolic diameter was also observed, together with reduced ejection fraction and reduced contraction.Conclusions: the morphological and functional cardiac abnormalities observed in the RV and LV suggest that, in children, obstructed breathing during sleep can lead to cardiovascular repercussions. These abnormalities may expose these children to increased anesthetic and surgical risks.

Socio-behavioral factors influence prevalence and severity of dental caries in children with primary dentition

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Percepção de professores de educação infantil sobre a inclusão da criança com deficiência

A educação infantil é importante para o desenvolvimento da criança com necessidades especiais. Nesse processo educacional, o professor e sua percepção de educação inclusiva são fatores primordiais. Este trabalho objetivou analisar a percepção de professores de educação infantil, que quanto à prática educativa atual, diferem em relação à presença de alunos com deficiências em seus ambientes de trabalho, sobre a educação da criança com deficiência na faixa etária de 3 a 6 anos. Foram sujeitos da pesquisa 12 professores de educação infantil divididos eqüitativamente em três grupos: de escolas especiais; de escolas comuns que trabalham com crianças com deficiências inseridas em suas classes e de escolas comuns que não possuem em suas classes crianças com deficiências. A coleta de dados foi realizada através de entrevistas semi-estruturadas, gravadas em fita cassete. Foi realizada análise de conteúdo e os dados mostraram que os professores vêem como a principal contribuição do processo de inclusão a socialização da criança com deficiências, restringindo-o, porém, a crianças com possibilidades de independência. Quanto à aprendizagem, acreditam que a criança com deficiência mental é a que encontra maiores dificuldades, contrariamente à com deficiência física. Ressaltam problemas com o espaço físico, recursos materiais e humanos e relativos à formação do professor. Pôde se concluir que é preciso possibilitar aos professores uma formação que abranja conhecimentos sobre as diferentes deficiências e as necessidades educacionais relativas a estas, propiciar a adequação do espaço físico e dos recursos materiais, além de assistência técnica específica.

Arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction for fingerprinting the genotype identification of mutans streptococci in children with Down syndrome

This study investigated the possible intrafamilial similarity of mutans streptococcal strains in some families with a child with Down syndrome using chromosomal DNA fingerprinting. The isolates were genotyped using arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction with the OPA 02 and OPA 03 primers. The results showed that five children with Down syndrome harbored mutans streptococci genotypes different from those of their mothers. A matching of genotypes was observed within the control pair (mother/child without Down syndrome). After six months, new samples were collected from all participants. Analysis showed that samples from children with Down syndrome were colonized by a new strain of Streptococcus mutans that did not match the previously collected one. The results suggest the S. mutans indigenous bacteria change more than once in children with Down syndrome.