Enhancing oral comprehension and emotional recognition skills in children with autism: A comparison of video self modelling with video peer modelling

Video modelling has been shown to be an effective intervention with autistic individuals as it takes into account autistic characteristics of those individuals. Research on video self modelling and video peer modelling with this population has shown both are effective. The purpose of this study was to replicate past findings that video modelling is an effective strategy for autistic individuals, and to compare video self modelling with video peer modelling, to determine which is more effective. The studies here used multiple baselines with alternating treatments designs with 6 participants across two target behaviours; emotional recognition and oral comprehension. The first compared the video modelling methods and found neither method increased the target behaviours to criterion, for 5 out of the 6 participants. For 1 participant the criterion was only reached for the video self modelling condition for the target behaviour 'oral comprehension'. The second study first examined the effectiveness of video self modelling and video peer modelling with supplementary assistance for 4 participants. Second, it examined a new peer video for a 5th participant, and third, it compared the two video modelling methods (with supplementary assistance). Results indicated 1 participant reached the criterion in both video modelling conditions, 1 participant showed improvements and 2 participants never increased responding. This study indicated that clarity of speech produced by the peer participant in the peer video, may have contributed to a participant's level of correct responding. This is because a new peer video used during the second study dramatically increased this participants responding. Intervention fidelity, generalisation and follow-up data were examined. Measures of intervention fidelity indicated procedural reliability. Generalisation was unsuccessful across three measures and follow-up data indicated similar trends to intervention. Only video self modelling effects remained at criterion during follow-up. Results are discussed with reference to limitations, future research and implications for practice

Self-Monitoring Assessments for Educational Accountability Systems

Test-based accountability is now the cornerstone of U.S. education policy, and it is becoming more important in many other nations as well. Educators sometimes respond to test-based accountability in ways that produce score inflation. In the past, score inflation has usually been evaluated by comparing trends in scores on a high-stakes test to trends on a lower-stakes audit test. However, separate audit tests are often unavailable, and their use has several important drawbacks, such as potential bias from motivational differences. As an alternative, we propose self-monitoring assessments (SMAs) that incorporate audit components into operational high-stakes assessments. This paper provides a framework for designing SMAs. It describes five specific SMA designs that could be incorporated into the non-equivalent groups anchor test linking approaches used by most large-scale assessments and discusses analytical issues that would arise in their use

Sensitivity of School-Performance Ratings to Scaling Decisions

Policymakers usually leave decisions about scaling the scores used for accountability to their appointed technical advisory committees and the testing contractors. However, scaling decisions can have an appreciable impact on school ratings (Briggs & Weeks, 2009). Using middle-school data from New York State, we examined the consistency of school ratings based on two scaling approaches that differed in scaling decisions that are important in high-stakes testing contexts. We found that, depending on subject, grade, and year, a switch in scaling approach led to (1) average absolute shifts in ranks of between 50 and 132 positions (median = 69), which are appreciable shifts for a listing of 1,243 schools; and (2) between 7% and 45% (average = 20%) of schools experiencing shifts in assigned performance bands, depending on the classification scheme. Further, the effect of scaling approach was larger when the raw-score distribution has more severe ceiling effect, and in these cases, it was driven primarily by the difference in the location of the highest obtainable scale score from the two scaling approaches.

Does enternal nutrition affect clinical outcome? A systematic review of the randomized trials

Background: Both parenteral nutrition (PN) and enteral nutrition (EN) are widely advocated as adjunctive care in patients with various diseases. A systematic review of 82 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of PN published in 2001 found little, if any, effect on mortality, morbidity, or duration of hospital stay; in some situations, PN increased infectious complication rates. Objective: To assess the effect of EN or volitional nutrition support (VNS) in individual disease states from available randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Design: We conducted a systematic review. RCTs comparing EN or VNS to untreated controls, or comparing EN to PN, were identified and separated according to the underlying disease state. Meta-analysis was performed when at least 3 RCTs provided data. The evidence from the RCTs was summarized into one of five grades. A or B indicated the presence of strong or weak (low quality RCTs) evidence supporting the use of the intervention. C indicated a lack of adequate evidence to make any decision about efficacy. D indicated that limited data could not support the intervention. E indicated either that strong data found no effect, or that either strong or weak data suggested that the intervention caused harm. Patients and settings: RCTs could include either hospitalized or non-hospitalized patients. The EN or VNS had to be provided as part of a treatment plan for an underlying disease process. Interventions: The RCT had to compare recipients of either EN or VNS to controls not receiving any type of artificial nutrition or had to compare recipients of EN with recipients of PN. Outcome measures: Mortality, morbidity (disease-specific), duration of hospitalization, cost, or interventional complications. Summary of grading: A – No indication was identified. B – EN or VNS in the perioperative patient or in patients with chronic liver disease; EN in critically ill patients or low birth weight infants (trophic feeding); VNS in malnourished geriatric patients. (The low quality trials found a significant difference in survival favoring the VNS recipients in the malnourished geriatric patient trials; two high quality trials found non-significant differences that favored VNS as well.) C – EN or VNS in liver transplantation, cystic fibrosis, renal failure, pediatric conditions other than low birth weight infants, well-nourished geriatric patients, non-stroke neurologic conditions, AIDS; EN in acute pancreatitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, non-malnourished geriatric patients; VNS in inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, cardiac disease, pregnancy, allergic patients, preoperative bowel preparation D – EN or VNS in patients receiving non-surgical cancer treatment or in patients with hip fractures; EN in patients with inflammatory bowel disease; VNS in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease E – EN in the first week in dysphagic, or VNS at any time in non-dysphagic, stroke patients who are not malnourished; dysphagia persisting for weeks will presumably ultimately require EN. Conclusions: There is strong evidence for not using EN in the first week in dysphagic, and not using VNS at all in non-dysphagic, stroke patients who are not malnourished. There is reasonable evidence for using VNS in malnourished geriatric patients. The recommendations to consider EN/VNS in perioperative/liver/critically ill/low birth weight patients are limited by the low quality of the RCTs. No evidence could be identified to justify the use of EN/VNS in other disease states

Optical Coherence Tomography Reveals Sigmoidal Crystalline Lens Changes during Accommodation

This study aimed to quantify biometric modifications of the anterior segment (AS) during accommodation and to compare them against changes in both accommodative demand and response. Thirty adults, aged 18–25 years were rendered functionally emmetropic with contact lenses. AS optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) images were captured along the 180° meridian (Visante, Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany) under stimulated accommodative demands (0–4 D). Images were analysed and lens thickness (LT) was measured, applying a refractive index correction of 1.00. Accommodative responses were also measured sequentially through a Badal optical system fitted to an autorefractor (Shin Nippon NVision-K 5001, Rexxam, Japan). Data were compared with Dubbelman schematic eye calculations. Significant changes occurred in LT, anterior chamber depth (ACD), lens centroid (i.e., ACD + LT/2), and AS length (ASL = ACD + LT) with accommodation (all p < 0.01). There was no significant change in CT with accommodation (p = 0.81). Measured CT, ACD, and lens centroid values were similar to Dubbelman modelled parameters, however AS-OCT overestimated LT and ASL. As expected, the accommodative response was less than the demand. Interestingly, up until approximately 1.5 D of response (2.0 D demand), the anterior crystalline lens surface appears to be the primary correlate. Beyond this point, the posterior lens surface moves posteriorly resulting in an over-all sigmoidal trajectory. he posterior crystalline lens surface demonstrates a sigmoidal response with increasing accommodative effort