Effect of motivation on teaching conversational skills to children with autism

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on August 28, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisors: Dr. Rebecca McCathren and Dr. Craig FrisbyIncludes bibliographical references.Vita.Ph. D. University of Missouri-Columbia 2012."May 2012"Deficits in conversational skills of children with ASD are persistent and are particularly evident in settings where there are greater opportunities for social and peer interaction (MacKay, Knott, & Dunlop, 2007). These deficits pose difficulty in these children's learning and developing social relations and interactions with other peers/individuals (Loveland & Landry, 1986). The present study examined the role of motivation on the acquisition of conversational skills in three children with the diagnosis of autism. All the participants possessed good imitation skills but had difficulties in asking or responding to questions, initiating and maintaining conversation. Intervention used the procedure of scripts and script fading. Scripts were based on the participants' preferred and non-preferred items. The results of the study indicated that the role of motivation was mixed. For the majority of the hypothesis, the participants did not show an increase in initiation, increase in scripted conversation, faster learning or better generalization in the high motivation conditions when compared to the low motivation conditions. However, motivation did seem to play a role in the unscripted conversation and the participants showed an increase in unscripted conversation in the high motivation conditions when compared to the low motivation conditions.Includes bibliographical reference

Using Prevention Science to Promote Children's Mental Health

This poster was presented at the International Counseling Psychology Conference in Chicago, IL, in March 2008.In a recent issue of The Counseling Psychologist, Hage et al. (2007) encouraged greater involvement of counseling psychologists in prevention related activities. To support these efforts, the authors described 15 principles of prevention science and provided aspirational guidelines to counseling psychologists. Although the call for counseling psychology participation in prevention activities is not new, the article was unique in connecting counseling psychology to the emerging field of prevention science and in offering suggestions for applying these principles. The present poster is intended to highlight the prevention science principles articulated by Hage et al. (2007) by describing the activities of the Missouri Prevention Center, a program that uses these principles of prevention science within counseling research to enhance children's mental health

The Role of Prevention Science in Promoting Children's Mental Health: A Model for School Psychologists

This poster was presented at the American Psychological Association Conference in Boston, MA, in August 2008.Research has shown that early and focused prevention efforts can greatly reduce the costs, economic, psychological and social, borne by families and societies afflicted by poor mental health. With the help of a model program, the poster highlights school psychologists' involvement in prevention science activities to enhance children's mental health. Specifically, the Missouri Prevention Center exemplifies such a model and it is described in detail

Profile of Clients & HIV positive patients attending the ICTC of a tertiary care center of Bihar: A situational analysis

Background: The services provided in an ICTC help in awareness about HIV and help the clients to undergo HIV test in a comfortable and confidential environment. Periodical evaluation of counseling, testing, and referral services is mandatory to find out any existing deficits and barriers of all functions of ICTCs. Objectives: To study the socio-demographic profile of ICTC attendees and to find out sero-positivity of these clients. Methods: The present study was carried out among ICTC attendees in the ICTC unit, at All India Institute of Medical Sciences of Patna district. A retrospective collection of data from available records of all clients who attended ICTC of our hospital between January 2019 and December 2019 was carried out after approval from institutional research and ethics committee. Results: A total of 28876 clients were tested during January-December 2019 and among them all (100%) of tests were provider initiated. Out of the total attendees, 223 (0.77%) were found to be positive. It was also observed that the number of clients attending the ICTC has increased every month. Conclusion: It shows a high illiteracy and high spouse positive rate among the reactive cases. The young age group was found to be affected more and it definitely raises a cocern

Molecular profiling of ETS and non‐ETS aberrations in prostate cancer patients from northern India

BACKGROUNDMolecular stratification of prostate cancer (PCa) based on genetic aberrations including ETS or RAF gene‐rearrangements, PTEN deletion, and SPINK1 over‐expression show clear prognostic and diagnostic utility. Gene rearrangements involving ETS transcription factors are frequent pathogenetic somatic events observed in PCa. Incidence of ETS rearrangements in Caucasian PCa patients has been reported, however, occurrence in Indian population is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of the ETS and RAF kinase gene rearrangements, SPINK1 over‐expression, and PTEN deletion in this cohort.METHODSIn this multi‐center study, formalin‐fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) PCa specimens (n = 121) were procured from four major medical institutions in India. The tissues were sectioned and molecular profiling was done using immunohistochemistry (IHC), RNA in situ hybridization (RNA‐ISH) and/or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).RESULTSERG over‐expression was detected in 48.9% (46/94) PCa specimens by IHC, which was confirmed in a subset of cases by FISH. Among other ETS family members, while ETV1 transcript was detected in one case by RNA‐ISH, no alteration in ETV4 was observed. SPINK1 over‐expression was observed in 12.5% (12/96) and PTEN deletion in 21.52% (17/79) of the total PCa cases. Interestingly, PTEN deletion was found in 30% of the ERG‐positive cases (P = 0.017) but in only one case with SPINK1 over‐expression (P = 0.67). BRAF and RAF1 gene rearrangements were detected in ∼1% and ∼4.5% of the PCa cases, respectively.CONCLUSIONSThis is the first report on comprehensive molecular profiling of the major spectrum of the causal aberrations in Indian men with PCa. Our findings suggest that ETS gene rearrangement and SPINK1 over‐expression patterns in North Indian population largely resembled those observed in Caucasian population but differed from Japanese and Chinese PCa patients. The molecular profiling data presented in this study could help in clinical decision‐making for the pursuit of surgery, diagnosis, and in selection of therapeutic intervention. Prostate 75:1051–1062, 2015. © 2015 The Authors. The Prostate, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111808/1/pros22989.pd