Coupling online control and inhibitory systems in children with developmental coordination disorder: goal-directed reaching

For children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), the real-time coupling between frontal executive function and online motor control has not been explored despite reported deficits in each domain. The aim of the present study was to investigate how children with DCD enlist online control under task constraints that compel the need for inhibitory control. A total of 129 school children were sampled from mainstream primary schools. Forty-two children who met research criteria for DCD were compared with 87 typically developing controls on a modified double-jump reaching task. Children within each skill group were divided into three age bands: younger (6-7 years), mid-aged (8-9), and older (10-12). Online control was compared between groups as a function of trial type (non-jump, jump, anti-jump). Overall, results showed that while movement times were similar between skill groups under simple task constraints (non-jump), on perturbation (or jump) trials the DCD group were significantly slower than controls and corrected trajectories later. Critically, the DCD group was further disadvantaged by anti-jump trials where inhibitory control was required; however, this effect reduced with age. While coupling online control and executive systems is not well developed in younger and mid-aged children, there is evidence of age-appropriate coupling in older children. Longitudinal data are needed to clarify this intriguing finding. The theoretical and applied implications of these results are discussed.

Rapid on-line control to reaching is preserved in children with congenital spastic hemiplegia: evidence from double-step reaching performance

This study aimed to investigate the integrity of on-line control of reaching in congenital spastic hemiplegia in light of disparate evidence. Twelve children with and without spastic hemiplegia (11-17 years old) completed a double-step reaching task requiring them to reach and touch a target that remained stationary for most trials (viz nonjump trial) but unexpectedly displaced laterally at movement onset for a minority of trials (20%: known as jump trials). Although children with spastic hemiplegia were generally slower than age-matched controls, they could account for target perturbation at age-appropriate levels shown by a lack of interaction effect on movement time and nonsignificant group difference for time to reach trajectory correction on jump trials. Our data suggest that at a group level, on-line control of reaching may be age-appropriate in spastic hemiplegia. However, our data also highlight the need to experimentally acknowledge the considerable heterogeneity of the spastic hemiplegia population when investigating motor cognition.

The use of ground rules in investigative interviews with children : a synthesis and call for research

Guidelines for conducting investigative interviews with children often include instructions that explain the conversational rules of the interview. Despite the widespread and international use of such instructions (also referred to as "ground rules"), the body of research characterizing children's understanding of these rules and documenting the impact of instruction on memory reports is relatively small. We review the use of ground rules in investigative interviews, the developmental differences that likely underlie children's ability to make sense of these rules, and research pertaining to the effects of the ground rules commonly included in interview guidelines on the reports of 3- to 13-year-old children. We then present a study space analysis concerning the five ground rules reviewed: (a) a statement about interviewer naïveté regarding the target events, (b) instructions to tell the interviewer when a mistake has been made, (c) cautions that some questions may be repeated, and instructions to say (d) "I don't understand" and (e) "I don't know." The results demonstrate obvious gaps in this body of literature, with only the "I don't know" ground rule having received significant attention. In addition to exploring how individual rules impact interview performance, we encourage more process-oriented studies that relate developmental differences in ground rules benefits to the cognitive processes that underlie rule understanding and implementation. Optimally, this research should identify the most suitable format and placement of instruction in interviews and broaden to more often include field studies of child witnesses.

Symptoms and distress in children with advanced cancer: prospective patient-reported outcomes from the PediQUEST Study

PURPOSE: Thousands of children are living with advanced cancer; yet patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have rarely been used to describe their experiences. We aimed to describe symptom distress in 104 children age 2 years or older with advanced cancer enrolled onto the Pediatric Quality of Life and Evaluation of Symptoms Technology (PediQUEST) Study (multisite clinical trial evaluating an electronic PRO system).

METHODS: Symptom data were collected using age- and respondent-adapted versions of the PediQUEST Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (PQ-MSAS) at most once per week. Clinical and treatment data were obtained from medical records. Individual symptom scores were dichotomized into high/low distress. Determinants of PQ-MSAS scores were explored using linear mixed-effects models.

RESULTS: During 9 months of follow-up, PQ-MSAS was administered 920 times: 459 times in teens (99% self-report), 249 times in children ages 7 to 12 years (96% child/parent report), and 212 times in those ages 2 to 6 years (parent reports). Common symptoms included pain (48%), fatigue (46%), drowsiness (39%), and irritability (37%); most scores indicated high distress. Among the 73 PQ-MSAS surveys administered in the last 12 weeks of life, pain was highly prevalent (62%; 58% with high distress). Being female, having a brain tumor, experiencing recent disease progression, and receiving moderate- or high-intensity cancer-directed therapy in the prior 10 days were associated with worse PQ-MSAS scores. In the final 12 weeks of life, receiving mild cancer-directed therapy was associated with improved psychological PQ-MSAS scores.

CONCLUSION: Children with advanced cancer experience high symptom distress. Strategies to promote intensive symptom management are indicated, especially with disease progression or administration of intensive treatments.

Reduced motor imagery efficiency is associated with online control difficulties in children with probable developmental coordination disorder

Recent evidence indicates that the ability to correct reaching movements in response to unexpected target changes (i.e., online control) is reduced in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Recent computational modeling of human reaching suggests that these inefficiencies may result from difficulties generating and/or monitoring internal representations of movement. This study was the first to test this putative relationship empirically. We did so by investigating the degree to which the capacity to correct reaching mid-flight could be predicted by motor imagery (MI) proficiency in a sample of children with probable DCD (pDCD). Thirty-four children aged 8 to 12 years (17 children with pDCD and 17 age-matched controls) completed the hand rotation task, a well-validated measure of MI, and a double-step reaching task (DSRT), a protocol commonly adopted to infer one's capacity for correcting reaching online. As per previous research, children with pDCD demonstrated inefficiencies in their ability to generate internal action representations and correct their reaching online, demonstrated by inefficient hand rotation performance and slower correction to the reach trajectory following unexpected target perturbation during the DSRT compared to age-matched controls. Critically, hierarchical moderating regression demonstrated that even after general reaching ability was controlled for, MI efficiency was a significant predictor of reaching correction efficiency, a relationship that was constant across groups. Ours is the first study to provide direct pilot evidence in support of the view that a decreased capacity for online control of reaching typical of DCD may be associated with inefficiencies generating and/or using internal representations of action.

Children's play in the Australian Indigenous context: the need for a contemporary view

Despite an extensive search, very little literature was found on Australian Indigenous children’s play, and more specifically pretend play. Most of the literature found was written in the period from 1840 to the 1950s and was primarily descriptive. We argue that the literature found on Australian Indigenous children’s play could be interpreted through the prominent classical theories of the day. These theories emphasized the value of play in preparing children for adulthood. The literature is silent in regard to the value and significance of play in Indigenous Australian culture and on the contribution of play to children’s developmental skills such as language, cognition, problem-solving, literacy and learning. This paper presents a review of the available literature and argues for an analysis of contemporary Australian Indigenous children’s play which values play in the development of the child and interprets play behavior within an Indigenous cultural framework.

Treating children with psychosis: an integrative play therapy approach

Children affected by psychosis often endure unresolved mental health and psychosocial disturbances that impede social, academic, and behavioral functioning (Algon, Yi, Calkins, Kohler, & Borgmann-Winter, 2012). This article provides clinicians with a discussion of play therapy and empirically informed techniques to improve treatment outcomes for children diagnosed with psychosis. The literature review comprises various aspects of this unique pediatric population, including prevalence, assessment/evaluation, symptoms, and psychosocial treatment. Additionally, an integrative play therapy approach is highlighted, comprising (a) family interventions (McFarlane, Dixon, Lukens, & Lucksted, 2003), (b) psychosocial approaches (Green & Drewes, 2013; Stewart & Green, 2015), and (c) school-based support (Flanagan, Allen, & Henry, 2010). The article concludes with a case study depicting the psychological challenges a typical child with psychosis encounters and the associated treatment options available to play therapy practitioners from an integrative standpoint.

Enhancing linguistic and cultural proficiency through Chinese children’s literature

This paper addresses the issue of selecting high-quality materials for teaching Chinese to non-native-speaker students. The paper argues that the unique nature of literary texts for children and adolescents written in simple and standard language reflecting the rich social fabric of China make them valuable materials for teaching foreign learners of the modern Chinese language. The special value of these materials to non-native learners lies not only in their linguistic aptness, but also in their informative connection between the modern Chinese language and the history and culture of China. The paper demonstrates how to effectively use these materials in a cooperative Chinese language classroom.

Effects of parent and child behaviours on overweight and obesity in infants and young children from disadvantaged backgrounds: systematic review with narrative synthesis

BACKGROUND: Despite the crucial need to develop targeted and effective approaches for obesity prevention in children most at risk, the pathways explaining socioeconomic disparity in children's obesity prevalence remain poorly understood.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that investigated causes of weight gain in children aged 0-5 years from socioeconomically disadvantaged or Indigenous backgrounds residing in OECD countries. Major electronic databases were searched from inception until December 2015. Key words identified studies addressing relationships between parenting, child eating, child physical activity or sedentary behaviour and child weight in disadvantaged samples.

RESULTS: A total of 32 articles met the inclusion criteria. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool quality rating for the studies ranged from 25 % (weak) to 100 % (strong). Studies predominantly reported on relationships between parenting and child weight (n = 21), or parenting and child eating (n = 12), with fewer (n = 8) investigating child eating and weight. Most evidence was from socio-economically disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in the USA. Clustering of diet, weight and feeding behaviours by socioeconomic indicators and ethnicity precluded identification of independent effects of each of these risk factors.

CONCLUSIONS: This review has highlighted significant gaps in our mechanistic understanding of the relative importance of different aspects of parent and child behaviours in disadvantaged population groups.

Cecília Meireles e a lírica pedagógica em Criança meu amor (1924)

The research Cecília Meireles and the Pedagogical Lyric in Children My Love (1924) consists in a critical analysis, a cultural and historical approach to the pedagogical intentionalities and to the social and educational functionalities expressed in the childish literary work of the poetess and educator Cecília Meireles (1901-1964), in Brazil, during the first decades of XX century. The author s conceptions of the literary art, the philosophical and educational foundations, the Christian and liberal ideologies and values pertinent to her work for children and the relations between her texts and the ideals of the Brazilian intellectuals to effect changes in the every day life based on the child formation and on the teaching feminization process were examined in the work. This paper shows a content analysis with the intention of offering signification to the work Children My Love (1924) according to the investigation of specific categories: child, motherhood and schooling; through the exploration of synonymous and bipolar key-words found in Cecília s documents: child/adult, teacher/mother; school/home, ignorance/intelligence. The research intends to understand how the author articulates, in her informal pedagogical action in Children s Literature, science, literary and Christian faith knowledge, in order to expand her social and educational ideal concentrated in children, guided by the maternal hand and aimed at constructing a New Man, New Civilization and a New Social Order

Occurrence of consonant production errors in liquid phonemes in children with operated cleft lip and palate

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in children with obstructive sleep apnea and primary snoring

Objective: To evaluate the systemic blood pressure (BP) during daytime and nighttime in children with sleep breathing disorders (SBD) and compare parameters of BP in children with diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) to those one with primary snoring (PS).Methods: Children, both genders, aged from 8 to 12 years, with symptoms of SBD realized an overnight polysomnography followed by a 24 h recording of ambulatory BP.Results: All subjects presented with a history of snoring 7 nights per week. Children who have apnea/hipoapnea index >= four or a apnea index >= one presented a mean BP of 93 +/- 7 mmHg and 85 +/- 9 mmHg diurnal and nocturnal respectively whereas children who have a apnea/hipoapnea < four or a apnea index < one presented 90 +/- 7 mmHg and 77 +/- 2 mmHg. Eight children out of fourteen, from OSA group, lost the physiologic nocturnal dipping of the blood pressure. Among OSA children 57% were considered non-dippers. Two (16%) have presented absence of nocturnal dipping among children with primary snoring. The possibility of OSA children loosing physiologic blood pressure dipping was 6.66 higher than the possibilities of patients from PS group.Discussion: Our results indicate that children with sleep apnea syndrome exhibit a higher 24 h blood pressure when compared with those of primary snoring in form of decreased degree of nocturnal dipping and increased levels of diastolic and mean blood pressure, according to previous studies in literature. OSA in children seems to be associated to the development of hypertension or other cardiovascular disease. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Long-Term Safety and Efficacy of Abatacept in Children With Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

Objective. We previously documented that abatacept was effective and safe in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who had not previously achieved a satisfactory clinical response with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs or tumor necrosis factor blockade. Here, we report results from the long-term extension (LTE) phase of that study.Methods. This report describes the long-term, open-label extension phase of a double-blind, randomized, controlled withdrawal trial in 190 patients with JIA ages 6-17 years. Children were treated with 10 mg/kg abatacept administered intravenously every 4 weeks, with or without methotrexate. Efficacy results were based on data derived from the 153 patients who entered the open-label LTE phase and reflect >= 21 months (589 days) of treatment. Safety results include all available open-label data as of May 7, 2008.Results. of the 190 enrolled patients, 153 entered the LTE. By day 589, 90%, 88%, 75%, 57%, and 39% of patients treated with abatacept during the double-blind and LTE phases achieved responses according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Pediatric 30 (Pedi 30), Pedi 50, Pedi 70, Pedi 90, and Pedi 100 criteria for improvement, respectively. Similar response rates were observed by day 589 among patients previously treated with placebo. Among patients who had not achieved an ACR Pedi 30 response at the end of the open-label lead-in phase and who proceeded directly into the LTE, 73%, 64%, 46%, 18%, and 5% achieved ACR Pedi 30, Pedi 50, Pedi 70, Pedi 90, and Pedi 100 responses, respectively, by day 589 of the LTE. No cases of tuberculosis and no malignancies were reported during the LTE. Pneumonia developed in 3 patients, and multiple sclerosis developed in 1 patient.Conclusion. Abatacept provided clinically significant and durable efficacy in patients with JIA, including those who did not initially achieve an ACR Pedi 30 response during the initial 4-month open-label lead-in phase.

Perseveration in congenitally blind children: Effects of luminous and acoustic targets on a modified A-not-B task

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not blind children perseverate during a modified Piagetian A-not-B reaching task, with conditions that employ luminous AB targets and acoustic AB targets. Ten congenitally blind children, ages 1-4 years, with residual vision for light, took part in this study. Behavioral and kinematic data were computed for participants' reaches, performed in six A trials and in two B trials, in both stimulus conditions. All of the children perseverated in the luminous condition, and none of them perseverated in the condition using acoustic targets. The children tilted their heads in the direction of the target as they reached towards it. However, this coupling action (head-reaching) occurred predominantly in the A trials in the acoustic condition. In the luminous condition, in contrast to the acoustic condition, the children took longer times to initiate the reaching movement. Also, in the luminous condition, the children explored the target surroundings, unlike the acoustic condition, in which they reached straight ahead. For these blind children, sound was more relevant to reaching than was the luminous stimulus. The luminous input caused perseveration in congenitally blind children in a similar way that has been reported in the literature for typically-developing, sighted infants, ages 8-12 months, performing A-not-B tasks with visual inputs. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.