The Intersection of Culture and ICF-CY Personal and Environmental Factors for Alternative and Augmentative Communication

Clinicians facilitate successful use of Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC). The most clinically competent providers, however, address needs that extend beyond technical AAC use to help clients experience full participation. This can only be achieved for all clients by considering individual cultural factors that affect their participation. This article describes how Personal and Environmental Factors of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children & Youth Version (ICF-CY; WHO, 2007) encompass how cultural characteristics (e.g., family/ home, school, recreational, social, or spiritual) impact participation. The ICF-CY can provide a structured way for Speech-Language Pathologists to consider culture to maximize children’s full participation in activities

Reporting of underrepresented populations in autism treatment studies across 25 years

Purpose: Eight language and autism related journals published between 1993 and 2017 were analyzed to identify trends in the inclusion of underrepresented populations in empirical studies with social skill, play, joint attention, and expressive language outcomes. Relationships among treatment outcomes, treatment settings, and underrepresented population types were explored. Method: All articles (12,381) were searched to identify intervention studies that included participants with autism and were classified by treatment target and setting (N=291). The selected studies were then examined to determine if any participants were from underrepresented populations (n=138) and categorized by type of underrepresented population. Results: Most studies did not indicate demographic characteristics beyond disability, age, and gender; and few relationships between frequency of underrepresented population articles, treatment targets, or intervention setting emerged. Results indicated that demographic characteristics were often omitted, despite recommendations to report descriptive information. Conclusion: Although inclusion of underrepresented populations has increased since 1993, treatment study results cannot yet be generalized to a more diverse population, due to the disproportionately low number of participants from racial/ethnic minority, multilingual, and low socioeconomic status groups reported and/or included in studies. The dearth of underrepresented participants suggests that conscious efforts to recruit and report them are still necessary.Northern Illinois University Great Journeys Graduate Assistant Stipend Enhancement project, and the College of Health and Human Sciences Support for Research Consultancy

Communicative Function Use of Preschoolers and Mothers from Differing Racial and Socioeconomic Groups

Purpose: This study explores whether communicative function (CF: reasons for communicating) use differs by socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, or gender among preschoolers and their mothers. Method: Mother-preschooler dyads (N=95) from the National Center for Early Development and Learning’s (NCEDL, 2005) study of Family and Social Environments were observed during one structured learning and free play interaction. CFs were coded by trained independent raters. Results: Children used all CFs at similar rates but those from low SES homes produced fewer utterances and less Reasoning, while boys used less Self-maintaining and more Predicting. African American (AA) mothers produced more Directing and less Responding than European American (EA) and Latino American (LA) mothers, and LA mothers produced more utterances than EA mothers. Mothers from low SES homes did more Directing and less Responding. Conclusion: Mothers exhibited more socio-cultural differences in CFs than children; this suggests that maternal demographic characteristics may influence CF production more than child demographics at school entry. Children from low SES homes talking less and boys producing less Self-maintaining coincided with patterns previously detected in pragmatic literature. Overall, preschoolers from racial/ethnic minority and low SES homes were not less deft with CF usage, which may inform how their pragmatic skills are described.Royster Society of Fellows at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education Foundation for Child Development

Effects of Mothers' and Preschoolers' Communicative Function Use and Demographics on Concurrent Language and Social Skills

Purpose: Achievement gaps exist between children from racial/ethnic minority and low SES homes and their peers, yet clear explanations for the gap have been elusive. In addition to vocabulary, some are examining pragmatics to help understand the gap, as functional language can a) reflect how caregivers stimulate language; b) show how preschoolers communicate and; c) affect academic performance. The purpose of this study was to examine links between linguistic performance and the communicative functions (CFs) of typically developing African American, European American, and Latino American preschool boys and girls and their mothers. Method: CFs were coded from one learning and play mother-child interaction (N=95) from the National Center for Early Development and Learning’s (NCEDL, 2005) study of Family and Social Environments. Relationships among CFs, demographics and performance on standardized language, receptive vocabulary, and social competence measures were analyzed. Results: Mother Reporting, mother Reasoning, mother Total Utterances, gender, and poverty predicted performance, while Predicting was the only child CF to predict performance. Conclusion: Associations between gender, poverty, and mothers’ CFs suggest that lower performance for boys and children who are poor may reflect a lack of experience rather than a lack of basic communicative competence, as few child CFs were related to performance. By implication, determinations of language deficits in CLD children should consider that observed difficulty may be due to differences in early exposure to some CFs by their mothers or how teachers are measuring performance.Royster Society of Fellows at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education Foundation for Child Developmen

Communicative Functions of Preschoolers and their Mothers Across Cultures and Socioeconomic Status

The purpose of this study was to describe the cognitive-communicative functions demonstrated by typically developing preschoolers and their mothers during teaching and play interactions with a focus on differences in these communicative functions across racial/ethnic group, socioeconomic status (SES), and gender. The relationship between mothers' and preschoolers' communicative functions, as well as the relationship between mothers' and preschoolers' communicative functions and children's vocabulary, language, and social skills was examined. Data from the Familial and Social Environments of Young Children study, a supplement to the National Center for Early Development and Learning's (NCEDL) Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten, were analyzed for this dissertation. Secondary analyses of race/ethnicity, SES, gender; and child outcomes variables of receptive and expressive language, vocabulary, and teacher ratings of the children's social skills were conducted using the NCEDL dataset. A coding system adapted from the work of Joan Tough (1982; 1984) and Ida Stockman (1996) was developed to calculate descriptive statistics for Means and Standard Deviations of frequencies of individual communicative functions per racial, SES, and gender group. Linear regression was utilized to analyze the relationship between communicative functions and children's language and social skills (N = 95), and whether the frequency and type of communicative functions differed by race/ethnicity, SES, and/or gender (N = 95). Pearson's correlations were conducted to identify any relationships between mothers' communicative functions and children's communicative functions. Results showed significant relationships between particular mother communicative functions and child communicative functions and outcomes. Few child communicative functions, however, predicted child outcomes. Rather, demographic factors such as SES, gender, and race/ethnicity, along with certain mother communicative functions, had a stronger link with the child outcomes. These results contribute to the literature on preschoolers' communicative function use, and the association among these communicative functions, academics, and social skills. Furthermore, the results provide data on how mothers' communicative function use might relate to their children's, and how culture and gender might play a role in a child's communicative function use. This information can be used to promote understanding of different pragmatic communication styles in preschoolers in order to improve assessment and intervention practices for all children

Longitudinal Analysis of QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube in Children with Adult Household Tuberculosis Contact in South Africa: A Prospective Cohort Study

QuantiFERON-TB Gold In Tube (QFT-GIT) is a tool for detecting M. tuberculosis infection. However, interpretation and utility of serial QFT-GIT testing of pediatric tuberculosis (TB) contacts is not well understood. We compared TB prevalence between baseline and 6 months follow-up using QFT-GIT and tuberculin skin testing (TST) in children who were household contacts of adults with pulmonary TB in South Africa, and explored factors associated with QFT-GIT conversions and reversions.Prospective study with six month longitudinal follow-up.Among 270 enrolled pediatric contacts, 196 (73%) underwent 6-month follow-up testing. The 6-month prevalence estimate of MTB infection in pediatric contacts increased significantly from a baseline of 29% (79/270, 95%CI [24-35]) to 38% (103/270, 95% CI [32-44], p<0.001) using QFT-GIT; prevalence increased from a baseline of 28% (71/254, 95%CI [23-34]) to 33% (88/263, 95%CI [21-32], p = 0.002) using TST. Prevalence estimates were influenced by thresholds for positivity for TST, but not for QFT-GIT. Among 134 children with a negative or indeterminate baseline QFT-GIT, 24 (18%) converted to positive at follow-up; conversion rates did not differ significantly when using more stringent thresholds to define QFT-GIT conversion. Older age >10 years (AOR 8.9 95%CI [1.1-72]) and baseline TST positivity ≥5 mm (AOR 5.2 95%CI [1.2-23]) were associated with QFT-GIT conversion. Among 62 children with a positive baseline QFT-GIT, 9 (15%) reverted to negative; female gender (AOR 18.5 95%CI [1.1-321]; p = 0.04] was associated with reversion, while children with baseline positive TST were less likely to have QFT-GIT reversion (AOR 0.01 95%CI [0.001-0.24]).Among pediatric contacts of adult household TB cases in South Africa, prevalence estimates of TB infection increased significantly from baseline to 6 months. Conversions and reversions occurred among pediatric TB contacts using QFT-GIT, but QFT-GIT conversion rates were less influenced by thresholds used for conversions than were TST conversion rates

A descriptive study of selected alternative education schools and programs

The purpose of this study was to make a detailed study and analysis of a selected number of alternative schools or programs. The institutions were studied in terms of their development, their offerings, and their successes or failures.The population of the study consisted of 156 program directors who returned usable questionnaires and five program directors whose programs were visited and studied by the investigator. Two instruments were used to secure the data for the study. Each of the two instruments contained thirty-two items with basically the same information. The first instrument was a questionnaire which was mailed to 200 program directors. One hundred fifty-six of the 200 program directors surveyed returned usable responses. The second instrument used to secure data from the directors of five programs identified for on-site visits was an interview guide. Selected findings derived from the questionnaire data included the following: 1. The majority of the 156 alternative programs whose directors responded reported that their 2 programs were for problem students mainly dropouts, potential dropouts, truants or pregnant girls. 2. Most programs whose directors responded were initially and currently funded by school districts in which they are located. 3. Forty-five and five-tenths percent had less than 99 students while 7.1 percent had more than 500 students in each. 4. Among some of the problems cited by directors were: absenteeism, students' lack of sense of direction, students' lack of future plans, lack of program funds, and lack of adequate facilities. Some of the findings derived from on-site data were summarized as follows: The five programs were controlled by the public school systems in which they were situated. In each of the five programs teachers and directors were in charge of the programs' daily governance. The five programs studied had a mixture of conventional and alternative education course offerings. 4. Directors reported an improved rate of school attendance among students. Some of the conclusions developed from the study included the following: Alternative schools or programs are a result of a need to provide options for students and parents. 2. Alternative education provides opportunities to students who cannot be accommodated by conventional public schools.3. Lack of adequate funds seems to be a common problem among alternative school programs. 4. Most chief administrators of alternative programs are responsible for hiring teaching staff members. Following are some of the recommendations made for further research in the area of alternative education: 1. There is need for further research in the area of program longevity to determine specifically why many programs are defunct after being in existence for less than five years. 2. Further research is needed to determine the unique qualities that an alternative program teacher should possess. 3. There is a need for further research in the area of alternative program success. 4. There is a need for further research regarding the desirable qualities of an effective alternative program director.Thesis (D. Ed.