Achieving Successful Outcomes In a TeleIntervention Program

For well over a decade, family-centered early intervention services have been delivered through models of teleintervention (TI) to children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) and their families. Ongoing outcome data continue to demonstrate the viability, effectiveness, and positive impacts these services provide to both the service providers and the families served. However, to establish a successful TI program, careful planning is required, and barriers and potential roadblocks must be reduced or eliminated. When these challenges are adequately addressed, TI programs are more likely to achieve its primary goal of delivering appropriate family-centered early intervention

A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists on Facilitating Support Groups for those with Communication Disorders

Support groups are used in a variety of settings and can be helpful for group members to develop coping strategies. This research aims to evaluate Ohio Speech-Language Pathologists’ perceived knowledge of planning and implementing support groups. Another goal for this research is to gain information on how many Speech-Language Pathologists are using this knowledge to conduct a support group, what type of populations are benefiting, and in what setting type utilizes support groups

Training the Next Generation of Practitioners In Early Intervention and Telepractice: Three University Models

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape the provision of family-centered early intervention services for children who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing and their families. In programs, schools, and centers, direct in-person contact with families have been significantly curtailed as a means to limit the exposure to and spead of the virus. Emergency remote learning has lead to an increase in telepractice, also referred to as teleintervention, as the designated model of service provision. Most early interventionists, speech-language pathologists, and teachers of the Deaf were not sufficiently trained to suddenly implement emergency remote teaching or telepractice services, but service providers had no option but to forge ahead, often with limited or no prior knowledge and experience with the provision of services using only telecommunications technology. Fortunately, however, some university training programs have integrated telepractice into their curricula and practica experiences for many years, and three of those programs are profiled here

Telepractice-Based Assessment of Children who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing: Focus on Family-Centered Practice

Ongoing assessment and progress monitoring is considered best practice to serve children who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) yet logistics related to provider shortages, distances between families, and illness make regular assessment difficult if not impossible. In the last ten years, telepractice has become a more commonly used service delivery model for serving children who are DHH and their families, however, many providers lack the training needed to adequately assess this population (Behl & Kahn, 2015). With explicit planning of the assessments and tools needed on both sides of the camera, providers can create a shared framework to collect the information needed to create a family-centered, comprehensive assessment plan that empowers families to engage collaborative decision-making needed to optimize the outcomes of their child. This paper outlines a tutorial of provider considerations to incorporate family-centered practices as a central aspect of assessment via telepractice and provides an example of how assessments can be administered with the use of technology

Active children through incentive vouchers – evaluation (ACTIVE): a mixed-method feasibility study

BackgroundAdolescents face many barriers to physical activity, demonstrated by the decline in physical activity levels in teenage populations. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of overcoming such barriers via the implementation of an activity-promoting voucher scheme to teenagers in deprived areas.MethodsAll Year 9 pupils (n = 115; 13.3 ± 0.48 years; 51 % boys) from one secondary school in Wales (UK) participated. Participants received £25 of activity vouchers every month for six months for physical activity or sporting equipment. Focus groups (n = 7), with 43 pupils, and qualitative interviews with teachers (n = 2) were conducted to assess feasibility, in addition to a process evaluation utilising the RE-AIM framework. Quantitative outcomes at baseline, five months (during intervention) and twelve months (follow-up) included: physical activity (accelerometer), aerobic fitness (12 min Cooper run) and self-reported activity (PAQ-A). Motivation to exercise (BREQ-2) was measured three months post-baseline and at follow-up.ResultsQualitative findings showed that vouchers encouraged friends to socialise through activity, provided opportunities to access local activities that pupils normally could not afford, and engaged both those interested and disinterested in physical education. Improvements in weekend moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and reductions in sedentary behaviour were observed in both sexes. Boys’ fitness significantly improved during the voucher scheme. ‘Non-active’ pupils (those not meeting recommended guidelines of 60 mins∙day−1) and those with higher motivation to exercise had higher voucher use.ConclusionsAdolescents, teachers and activity providers supported the voucher scheme and felt the vouchers enabled deprived adolescents to access more physical activity opportunities. Voucher usage was associated with improved attitudes to physical activity, increased socialisation with friends and improved fitness and physical activity; presenting interesting avenues for further exploration in a larger intervention trial

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN