Guidelines for Selecting Professional Development for Early Childhood Teachers

Engaging teachers of young children in effective in-service professional development is a critical component of establishing high quality early childhood education. However, not all professional development offerings are effective in imparting new knowledge, enhancing teacher practice, or improving child outcomes, making it difficult for teachers and directors to select professional development that will benefit their centers. This paper critically reviews the research literature on professional development for early childhood education to identify what features of professional development make a difference for teacher interactions and children’s learning and development. Guidance is provided for selecting professional development opportunities which meet the needs of children and teachers. Recommendations for how to create an ongoing professional development program within an early childhood center by creating a professional learning community are also made. Such an approach supports the center to become a place that values learning and continued education for all professionals

Intelligence in offspring born to women exposed to intimate partner violence: a population-based cohort study

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a risk factor for developmental problems in offspring. Despite a high prevalence of IPV in the UK and elsewhere, the longer-term outcomes of offspring born to exposed mothers remain under-researched. Methods: Population-based cohort study. We assessed IPV prevalence by type and timing for 3,153 mother-child pairs with complete data within our study population and examined associations between IPV and offspring IQ. We used multiple-imputation to evaluate bias due to our exclusion of observations with missing covariate data. Results: Nearly one in five mothers reported IPV during the study period, with 17.6% reporting emotional violence and 6.8% reporting physical violence. Taking into account potential confounders, the IQ scores of children born to mothers exposed to physical violence remained lower than those of maternally unexposed children (full-scale IQ = −2.8 points [95%CI −4.9 to −0.7], verbal IQ = −2.2 [95%CI −4.4 to −0.1], performance IQ = −2.7 [95%CI  −5.0 to −0.5]) and odds of below-average intelligence (IQ<90) remained increased for full-scale (OR 1.48 [95%CI 1.03 to 2.14] and performance IQ (OR 1.48 [95%CI 1.08 to 2.04]) but not verbal IQ (OR 1.06 [95%CI 0.69 to 1.64]). Most physical violence occurred postnatally, and relative odds were most substantial when mothers were exposed to violence across pre-/perinatal and postnatal study periods (OR performance IQ<90 = 2.97 [95%CI 1.30 to 6.82]). Conclusions: Maternal exposure to physical IPV is associated with lower offspring IQ at age 8. Associations persisted after adjusting for potential confounders and were driven by violence occurring postnatally

Development and validation of a short form psychometric tool assessing the caregiving Challenge of Living with Cystic Fibrosis (CLCF-SF) in a child.

Caring for a child with cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rigorous daily commitment for caregivers and treatment burden is a major concern. We aimed to develop and validate a short form version of a 46-item tool assessing the Challenge of Living with Cystic Fibrosis (CLCF) for clinical or research use. A novel genetic algorithm based on 'evolving' a subset of items from a pre-specified set of criteria, was applied to optimise the tool, using data from 135 families. Internal reliability and validity were assessed; the latter compared scores to validated tests of parental well-being, markers of treatment burden, and disease severity. The 15-item CLCF-SF demonstrated very good internal consistency [Cronbach's alpha 0.82 (95%CI 0.78-0.87)]. Scores for convergent validity correlated with the Beck Depression Inventory (Rho = 0.48), State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-State, Rho = 0.41; STAI-Trait, Rho = 0.43), Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised, lung function (Rho = -0.37), caregiver treatment management (  = 0.48) and child treatment management (  = 0.45), and discriminated between unwell and well children with CF (Mean Difference 5.5, 95%CI 2.5-8.5,  < 0.001), and recent or no hospital admission (MD 3.6, 95%CI 0.25-6.95,  = 0.039). The CLCF-SF provides a robust 15-item tool for assessing the challenge of living with a child with CF

The Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the St. Louis Region of Missouri

The Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the St. Louis Region of Missouri documents efforts by St. Louis Missouri’s local public health agencies along with other stakeholders to leverage their partnerships, resources, and expertise to respond to COVID-19. Along with professional stakeholder accounts, the report includes residents’ perspectives and experiences during the COVID-19 response. Professional and resident findings helped identify lessons that could strengthen the public health system’s ability to continue responding to COVID-19 and face future crisis with greater resources, coordination, equitable strategies, modernized infrastructure and public trust. The findings in this report center on the period of the pandemic from March 2020 through May 2021, before the proliferation of the Delta and Omicron variants. The Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the St. Louis Region of Missouri along with The Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the Northeast Region of Missouri and The Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the Southwest Region of Missouri are part of a series of regional reports that were used to inform the state-level recommendations in the report Missouri’s Public Health Response to COVID-19: Key Findings and Recommendations for State Action and Investment

Development and validation of a short form psychometric tool assessing the caregiving Challenge of Living with Cystic Fibrosis (CLCF-SF) in a child.

ObjectiveCaring for a child with cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rigorous daily commitment for caregivers and treatment burden is a major concern. We aimed to develop and validate a short form version of a 46-item tool assessing the Challenge of Living with Cystic Fibrosis (CLCF) for clinical or research use.DesignA novel genetic algorithm based on 'evolving' a subset of items from a pre-specified set of criteria, was applied to optimise the tool, using data from 135 families.Main outcome measuresInternal reliability and validity were assessed; the latter compared scores to validated tests of parental well-being, markers of treatment burden, and disease severity.ResultsThe 15-item CLCF-SF demonstrated very good internal consistency [Cronbach's alpha 0.82 (95%CI 0.78-0.87)]. Scores for convergent validity correlated with the Beck Depression Inventory (Rho = 0.48), State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-State, Rho = 0.41; STAI-Trait, Rho = 0.43), Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised, lung function (Rho = -0.37), caregiver treatment management (r = 0.48) and child treatment management (r = 0.45), and discriminated between unwell and well children with CF (Mean Difference 5.5, 95%CI 2.5-8.5, p p = 0.039).ConclusionThe CLCF-SF provides a robust 15-item tool for assessing the challenge of living with a child with CF

Association of pregnancy complications/risk factors with the development of future long-term health conditions in women : overarching protocol for umbrella reviews

Acknowledgments Patient representatives and MuM-PreDiCT team. Funding This work was funded by the Strategic Priority Fund 'Tackling multimorbidity at scale' programme (grant number-MR/W014432/1) delivered by the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health and Care Research in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council and in collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence

Sociological and criminological views of domestic and gender-based violencegenerally either dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, or focus on specificgroups of offenders and victims (male youth gangs, partner violence victims). Inthis paper, we take a holistic approach to violence, extending the definition fromthat commonly in use to encompass domestic violence and sexual violence. Weoperationalize that definition by using data from the latest sweep of the CrimeSurvey for England and Wales. By so doing, we identify that violence is currentlyunder-measured and ubiquitous; that it is gendered, and that other forms of violence (family violence, acquaintance violence against women) are equally ofconcern. We argue that violence studies are an important form of activity forsociologists

Damage to Broca’s area does not contribute to long-term speech production outcome after stroke

Broca’s area in the posterior half of the left inferior frontal gyrus has long been thought to be critical for speech production. The current view is that long-term speech production outcome in patients with Broca’s area damage is best explained by the combination of damage to Broca’s area and neighbouring regions including the underlying white matter, which was also damaged in Paul Broca’s two historic cases. Here, we dissociate the effect of damage to Broca’s area from the effect of damage to surrounding areas by studying long-term speech production outcome in 134 stroke survivors with relatively circumscribed left frontal lobe lesions that spared posterior speech production areas in lateral inferior parietal and superior temporal association cortices. Collectively, these patients had varying degrees of damage to one or more of nine atlas-based grey or white matter regions: Brodmann areas 44 and 45 (together known as Broca’s area), ventral premotor cortex, primary motor cortex, insula, putamen, the anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus and frontal aslant tract. Spoken picture description scores from the ComprehensiveAphasia Test were used as the outcome measure. Multiple regression analyses allowed us to tease apart the contribution of other variables influencing speech production abilities such as total lesion volume and time post-stroke. We found that, in our sample of patients with left frontal damage, long-term speech production impairments (lasting beyond 3 months post-stroke) were solely predictedby the degree of damage to white matter, directly above the insula, in the vicinity of the anterior part of the arcuate fasciculus, with no contribution from the degree of damage to Broca’s area (as confirmed with Bayesian statistics). The effect of white matter damage cannot be explained by a disconnection of Broca’s area, because speech production scores were worse after damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus with relative sparing of Broca’s area than after damage to Broca’s area with relative sparing of the anterior arcuate fasciculus. Our findings provide evidence for three novel conclusions: (i) Broca’s area damage does not contribute to long-term speech production outcome after left frontal lobe strokes; (ii) persistent speech production impairments after damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus cannot be explained by a disconnection of Broca’s area; and (iii) the prior association between persistent speech production impairments and Broca’s area damage can be explained by co-occurring white matter damage, above the insula, in the vicinity of the anterior part of the arcuate fasciculus

Money, Love, and Fragile Reciprocity in Contemporary Havana, Cuba

Among low-income Havana residents, men frequently give money and other forms of material support to women in whom they have a romantic interest. For women, men's material contributions are expressions of responsibility and care. While men share this view to a degree, they sometimes have more ambiguous emotions regarding such practices. These tensions in different views of gendered reciprocity are influenced by large-scale changes that have taken place in Cuban society since the 1990s. Although, traditionally, state socialism has embraced ideas of gender egalitarianism and women's independent income, the post-Soviet period has seen the emergence of new inequalities, dependencies, and marginalizations that threaten earlier, socialist understandings of intimacy. The importance that women currently place on material wealth in terms of their views of a desirable partner highlights the gendered consequences of Cuba's contemporary economic transformations and their complex interplay with individuals' aspirations for love.Peer reviewe