Executive Function Characteristics of Younger Adolescents Identified with Special Educational Needs

Executive functioning (EF) was investigated in 134 young adolescents with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in comparison to 141 students not requiring additional support (Non-SEN peers). These students (11-14 years) completed standardized assessments of vocabulary, decoding and non-verbal reasoning, and verbal and non-verbal EF assessments of inhibition, executive working memory, switching and fluency. Significant group differences were found in all these measures (verbal switching excepted), but no significant differences were found between three SEN subgroups (school action, school action plus, and those with statements) apart from non-verbal inhibition. Cluster analyses suggested that despite significant group differences, both SEN and Non-SEN students were often included in the same clusters. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the best model of EF performance for the SEN group involved an immature organisation. Parents, teachers and students completed the BRIEF questionnaire for ‘inhibit’, ‘working memory’ and ‘shift’. All three groups provided significantly different ratings for the SEN and Non-SEN groups, although the ratings varied for each group. Teachers also completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and analyses revealed significantly higher concerns for the SEN group. Binary logistic regressions were conducted to identify predictors of SEN status. Significant predictors from just the EF variables included inhibition, switching/shift and fluency. In the final analysis which included the three standardized assessments the significant predictors were decoding and the BRIEF ‘shift’ construct. The findings have increased the limited knowledge about the characteristics of young adolescent students with SEN. These students were identified as having significantly lower EF abilities than their Non-SEN peers; the structural organization of the EF abilities appears similar to younger individuals, and the most important predictors of their SEN status were decoding and shift. Task management and inflexibility (‘shift’) were important issues for coping with the demands of early secondary school life

Effective communication and information provision in radiotherapy - the role of radiation therapists

Introduction: Health professionals have a duty of care to radiotherapy patients in providing them with adequate information before treatment. There is a lack of research that describes the roles of radiation therapists and radiation oncology nurses in providing information to patients. This study aimed to: (1) explore how radiation therapists communicate with breast cancer patients during a radiotherapy planning appointment; (2) determine what information is provided during this appointment and (3) explore radiation therapists perspectives on their role in providing patient information and support. Methods: The following methodologies were used: self-report questionnaires; simulated radiotherapy planning sessions and joint interpretive forums. Statistical analysis was used to analyse the questionnaires and the simulated planning sessions and forums were analysed qualitatively. Results: A total of 110 radiation therapists participated in the survey. We simulated two radiotherapy planning appointments and held two forums. Four themes emerged: role definitions, reducing patient anxiety and distress, barriers and strategies for effective communication and confidence in patient communication. Conclusion: Radiation therapists play an important role in communicating with patients and providing information, particularly if patients exhibit anxiety and distress. Further research is required to determine whether patients information needs can be met with additional information provided by radiation therapists

Lived Experience of Caregivers of Family-Centered Care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: “Evocation of Being at Home

Background: In recent decades, family-centered care (FCC) has come to be known, accepted, and reported as the best care strategy for admitted children and their families. However, in spite of the increasing application of this approach, the experiences of the caregivers have not yet been studied. Objectives: The present study aimed at the description and interpretation of the FCC experience in two neonatal intensive care units (NICU) at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This study was conducted through the hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 professional and familial caregivers, and their interactions were observed in three work shifts. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. After observations, field notes were also written. Finally, the data were analyzed through van Manen’s methodology. Results: One of the essential themes that emerged in this study was the “evocation of being at home” among familial and even professional caregivers. This theme had three subthemes: i.e., “meta-family interaction,” “comprehensive support,” and “reconstruction of a normal family.” Accordingly, FCC eliminated borders between professional and non-professional caregivers and built close relationships among them in the NICU. It also provided for the needs of neonates, their families, and even professional caregivers through perceived and received support. Conclusions: Parents of the neonates admitted to the NICU experience hard moments. They not only play the role of primary caregivers, but they also receive the care. Focusing on the different meanings of this care from the caregivers’ points of view and having managers provide certain requirements can guarantee the establishment of comprehensive care for clients and proper support for the staff in this uni

Inhibitory Control Predicts Grammatical Ability

We present evidence that individual variation in grammatical ability can be predicted by individual variation in inhibitory control. We tested 81 5-year-olds using two classic tests from linguistics and psychology (Past Tense and the Stroop). Inhibitory control was a better predicator of grammatical ability than either vocabulary or age. Our explanation is that giving the correct response in both tests requires using a common cognitive capacity to inhibit unwanted competition. The implications are that understanding the developmental trajectory of language acquisition can benefit from integrating the developmental trajectory of non-linguistic faculties, such as executive control

Deleuze, Simondon, and Disability: A Transcendental-Empirical Approach to Disability and Disability Studies

This study looks at disability, disability research, and the of field Disability Studies in terms of processes productive of representation. Via the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Gilbert Simondon it makes the case that, in terms of these process, disability is in excess of representation, in a permanent state of becoming. Following this logic there is no single way of understanding disability. The study applies this logic to disability research and the field of Disability Studies, arguing that, in terms of processes effective of representation, disability research is in a constant state of becoming and is for this reason irreducible to any single methodology. Attending to conditions for experience as Deleuze and Simondon understand them, the study makes a transcendental-empirical approach to disability, disability research and the field of Disability Studies, looking, from Deleuzian and Simondonian points of view, to processes productive of the empirical. In this way the study makes a critique of representation. The study shows that while disability cannot be without representation, in terms of processes productive of representation, disability is in a constant state of becoming that impacts upon disability research. The study makes the case for an affective (force-related) orientation to disability and disability research, foregrounding conditions for experience and the becoming of experience. Turning to Spinoza, Nietzsche and Foucault via Deleuze and Simondon, the study shows that, understood in terms of force relations, affect is in excess of representation. Theorising the ‘affective becoming’ of disability and disability research, the study argues that disability research must be attuned to force relations that encompass experience and the field of Disability Studies. Attending to conditions for representation, we are poised to address the becoming of research and the impact of research on people with disability. Articulating the ‘affective becoming’ of disability, disability research and the field of Disability Studies, the study brings Deleuzian and Simondonian concepts into relation with ethics, social and political action. Taking up Deleuze’s understanding of desire and Simondon’s notion of the transindividual, the study shows how the personal is political and how transcendental empiricism bears on ethics, social and political action. The case is made that while such action cannot be without representation, conditions for representation are irreducible to what they produce. From this point of view the becoming of the social and the political encompasses the experiential. Attending to the experiential dimensions of social and political action, we are poised to address what the field of Disability Studies may become.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 202

Reduction of T-2 toxic activity by enzymes from Fusarium oxysporum

Fusarium oxysporum grown on natural media was believed not to produce mycotoxins of the trichothecene family. Using a defined chemical medium toxin production was investigated for and it was found that trichothecenes were produced. A yeast bioassay using Kluyveromyces fragilis, an organiam sensitive to such trichothecenes as T-2 toxin and verrucarin, was used for detection of toxin in culture filtrates. Detectable levels of toxin (0.2 $mu$g in litre of culture) were seen by day 4 and peaked around day 9 corresponding to maximum growth (measured by mycelial mass). After this time fluctuations in the level of toxin and growth became evident, suggesting a breakdown of the toxins by the organism for a carbon source. Search for an enzyme or enzyme system, capable of degrading T-2 toxin in snail gut enzyme digested F. oxysporum, was attempted using the esterase substrate para-nitrophenol acetate. Esterase activity was detected in all fractions including culture filtrate, soluble protein fraction and insoluble protein fraction, as well as solubilized insoluble proteins (digested by contents of the crude extract). The soluble protein fraction exhibited the highest level of activity. Cells digested with the detergent Lubrol followed by precipitation of the solubilized proteins with ammonium sulphate revealed the presence of an active component(s) in the high molecular weight portion of the soluble cell fraction collected at 50 and 75% saturation. Further purification by DEAE-sepharose failed to produce an active component