Linked randomised controlled trials of face-to-face and electronic brief intervention methods to prevent alcohol related harm in young people aged 14–17 years presenting to Emergency Departments (SIPS junior)

Background: Alcohol is a major global threat to public health. Although the main burden of chronic alcohol-related disease is in adults, its foundations often lie in adolescence. Alcohol consumption and related harm increase steeply from the age of 12 until 20 years. Several trials focusing upon young people have reported significant positive effects of brief interventions on a range of alcohol consumption outcomes. A recent review of reviews also suggests that electronic brief interventions (eBIs) using internet and smartphone technologies may markedly reduce alcohol consumption compared with minimal or no intervention controls. Interventions that target non-drinking youth are known to delay the onset of drinking behaviours. Web based alcohol interventions for adolescents also demonstrate significantly greater reductions in consumption and harm among ‘high-risk’ drinkers; however changes in risk status at follow-up for non-drinkers or low-risk drinkers have not been assessed in controlled trials of brief alcohol interventions

Speech and Non-Speech Audio-Visual Illusions: A Developmental Study

It is well known that simultaneous presentation of incongruent audio and visual stimuli can lead to illusory percepts. Recent data suggest that distinct processes underlie non-specific intersensory speech as opposed to non-speech perception. However, the development of both speech and non-speech intersensory perception across childhood and adolescence remains poorly defined. Thirty-eight observers aged 5 to 19 were tested on the McGurk effect (an audio-visual illusion involving speech), the Illusory Flash effect and the Fusion effect (two audio-visual illusions not involving speech) to investigate the development of audio-visual interactions and contrast speech vs. non-speech developmental patterns. Whereas the strength of audio-visual speech illusions varied as a direct function of maturational level, performance on non-speech illusory tasks appeared to be homogeneous across all ages. These data support the existence of independent maturational processes underlying speech and non-speech audio-visual illusory effects