Waiting for child developmental and rehabilitation services: an overview of issues and needs

Concern about the length of time that children, young people, and families may have to wait to access assessment, diagnostic, interventional, therapeutic, and supportive child developmental and rehabilitation (CDR) services is widespread, but adequate data collection and research on this issue remain limited. We review key concepts and issues relevant to waiting for CDR services from the published literature, a national workshop devoted to this topic, and international experience. We conclude that gaps in data, evidence, and consensus challenge our ability to address the issue of waiting for CDR services in a systematic way. A program of research coupled with actions based on consensus-building is required. Research priorities include acquiring evidence of the appropriateness and effectiveness of different models of intervention and rehabilitation services, and documenting the experience and expectations of waiting families. Consensus-building processes are critical to identify, categorize, and prioritize \u27sentinel\u27 components of CDR service pathways: (1) to reduce the inherent complexity of the field; (2) to create benchmarks for waiting for these respective services; and (3) to develop definitions for wait-time subcomponents in CDR services. Collection of accurate and replicable data on wait times for CDR services can be used to document baseline realities, to monitor and improve system performance, and to conduct comparative and analytic research in the field of CDR services

Developing a Proof-of-Concept Selection Test for Entry into Primary Teacher Education Programs

The purpose of this article is to report on the development of a proof-of-concept situational judgment test (SJT) to assist in the selection of candidates for primary teacher education (ITE) programs. Nine development steps involving practising teachers, teacher educators, and applicants to ITE programs were carried out to establish target attributes and to develop content for the test. The results from administering the test to 124 primary ITE candidates showed a near-normal distribution, high levels of reliability, and significant positive correlations with a range of concurrently administered interview scores. We conclude with a description of the necessary next steps needed to implement evidence-supported teacher education selection processes in a range of international settings

Stream dissolved organic matter in permafrost regions shows surprising compositional similarities but negative priming and nutrient effects

Permafrost degradation is delivering bioavailable dissolved organic matter (DOM) and inorganic nutrients to surface water networks. While these permafrost subsidies represent a small portion of total fluvial DOM and nutrient fluxes, they could influence food webs and net ecosystem carbon balance via priming or nutrient effects that destabilize background DOM. We investigated how addition of biolabile carbon (acetate) and inorganic nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) affected DOM decomposition with 28-day incubations. We incubated late-summer stream water from 23 locations nested in seven northern or high-altitude regions in Asia, Europe, and North America. DOM loss ranged from 3% to 52%, showing a variety of longitudinal patterns within stream networks. DOM optical properties varied widely, but DOM showed compositional similarity based on Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) analysis. Addition of acetate and nutrients decreased bulk DOM mineralization (i.e., negative priming), with more negative effects on biodegradable DOM but neutral or positive effects on stable DOM. Unexpectedly, acetate and nutrients triggered breakdown of colored DOM (CDOM), with median decreases of 1.6% in the control and 22% in the amended treatment. Additionally, the uptake of added acetate was strongly limited by nutrient availability across sites. These findings suggest that biolabile DOM and nutrients released from degrading permafrost may decrease background DOM mineralization but alter stoichiometry and light conditions in receiving waterbodies. We conclude that priming and nutrient effects are coupled in northern aquatic ecosystems and that quantifying two-way interactions between DOM properties and environmental conditions could resolve conflicting observations about the drivers of DOM in permafrost zone waterways