Effects of music therapy in the treatment of children with delayed speech development - results of a pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Language development is one of the most significant processes of early childhood development. Children with delayed speech development are more at risk of acquiring other cognitive, social-emotional, and school-related problems. Music therapy appears to facilitate speech development in children, even within a short period of time. The aim of this pilot study is to explore the effects of music therapy in children with delayed speech development.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 18 children aged 3.5 to 6 years with delayed speech development took part in this observational study in which music therapy and no treatment were compared to demonstrate effectiveness. Individual music therapy was provided on an outpatient basis. An ABAB reversal design with alternations between music therapy and no treatment with an interval of approximately eight weeks between the blocks was chosen. Before and after each study period, a speech development test, a non-verbal intelligence test for children, and music therapy assessment scales were used to evaluate the speech development of the children.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared to the baseline, we found a positive development in the study group after receiving music therapy. Both phonological capacity and the children's understanding of speech increased under treatment, as well as their cognitive structures, action patterns, and level of intelligence. Throughout the study period, developmental age converged with their biological age. Ratings according to the Nordoff-Robbins scales showed clinically significant changes in the children, namely in the areas of client-therapist relationship and communication.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that music therapy may have a measurable effect on the speech development of children through the treatment's interactions with fundamental aspects of speech development, including the ability to form and maintain relationships and prosodic abilities. Thus, music therapy may provide a basic and supportive therapy for children with delayed speech development. Further studies should be conducted to investigate the mechanisms of these interactions in greater depth.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>The trial is registered in the German clinical trials register; Trial-No.: DRKS00000343</p

Quantification of Rapid Myosin Regulatory Light Chain Phosphorylation Using High-Throughput In-Cell Western Assays: Comparison to Western Immunoblots

Quantification of phospho-proteins (PPs) is crucial when studying cellular signaling pathways. Western immunoblotting (WB) is commonly used for the measurement of relative levels of signaling intermediates in experimental samples. However, WB is in general a labour-intensive and low-throughput technique. Because of variability in protein yield and phospho-signal preservation during protein harvesting, and potential loss of antigen during protein transfer, WB provides only semi-quantitative data. By comparison, the "in-cell western" (ICW) technique has high-throughput capacity and requires less extensive sample preparation. Thus, we compared the ICW technique to WB for measuring phosphorylated myosin regulatory light chain (PMLC(20)) in primary cultures of uterine myocytes to assess their relative specificity, sensitivity, precision, and quantification of biologically relevant responses.ICWs are cell-based microplate assays for quantification of protein targets in their cellular context. ICWs utilize a two-channel infrared (IR) scanner (Odyssey(R)) to quantify signals arising from near-infrared (NIR) fluorophores conjugated to secondary antibodies. One channel is dedicated to measuring the protein of interest and the second is used for data normalization of the signal in each well of the microplate. Using uterine myocytes, we assessed oxytocin (OT)-stimulated MLC(20) phosphorylation measured by ICW and WB, both using NIR fluorescence. ICW and WB data were comparable regarding signal linearity, signal specificity, and time course of phosphorylation response to OT.ICW and WB yield comparable biological data. The advantages of ICW over WB are its high-throughput capacity, improved precision, and reduced sample preparation requirements. ICW might provide better sensitivity and precision with low-quantity samples or for protocols requiring large numbers of samples. These features make the ICW technique an excellent tool for the study of phosphorylation endpoints. However, the drawbacks of ICW include the need for a cell culture format and the lack of utility where protein purification, concentration or stoichiometric analyses are required

Vision Impairs the Abilities of Bats to Avoid Colliding with Stationary Obstacles

Background: Free-flying insectivorous bats occasionally collide with stationary objects they should easily detect by echolocation and avoid. Collisions often occur with lighted objects, suggesting ambient light may deleteriously affect obstacle avoidance capabilities. We tested the hypothesis that free-flying bats may orient by vision when they collide with some obstacles. We additionally tested whether acoustic distractions, such as ‘‘distress calls’ ’ of other bats, contributed to probabilities of collision. Methodology/Principal Findings: To investigate the role of visual cues in the collisions of free-flying little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) with stationary objects, we set up obstacles in an area of high bat traffic during swarming. We used combinations of light intensities and visually dissimilar obstacles to verify that bats orient by vision. In early August, bats collided more often in the light than the dark, and probabilities of collision varied with the visibility of obstacles. However, the probabilities of collisions altered in mid to late August, coincident with the start of behavioural, hormonal, and physiological changes occurring during swarming and mating. Distress calls did not distract bats and increase the incidence of collisions. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings indicate that visual cues are more important for free-flying bats than previously recognized, suggesting integration of multi-sensory modalities during orientation. Furthermore, our study highlight

Influence of Landscape Structure and Human Modifications on Insect Biomass and Bat Foraging Activity in an Urban Landscape

Urban landscapes are often located in biologically diverse, productive regions. As such, urbanization may have dramatic consequences for this diversity, largely due to changes in the structure and function of urban communities. We examined the influence of landscape productivity (indexed by geology), housing density and vegetation clearing on the spatial distribution of nocturnal insect biomass and the foraging activity of insectivorous bats in the urban landscape of Sydney, Australia. Nocturnal insect biomass (g) and bat foraging activity were sampled from 113 sites representing backyard, open space, bushland and riparian landscape elements, across urban, suburban and vegetated landscapes within 60 km of Sydney's Central Business District. We found that insect biomass was at least an order of magnitude greater within suburban landscapes in bushland and backyard elements located on the most fertile shale influenced geologies (both p<0.001) compared to nutrient poor sandstone landscapes. Similarly, the feeding activity of bats was greatest in bushland, and riparian elements within suburbs on fertile geologies (p = 0.039). Regression tree analysis indicated that the same three variables explained the major proportion of the variation in insect biomass and bat foraging activity. These were ambient temperature (positive), housing density (negative) and the percent of fertile shale geologies (positive) in the landscape; however variation in insect biomass did not directly explain bat foraging activity. We suggest that prey may be unavailable to bats in highly urbanized areas if these areas are avoided by many species, suggesting that reduced feeding activity may reflect under-use of urban habitats by bats. Restoration activities to improve ecological function and maintain the activity of a diversity of bat species should focus on maintaining and restoring bushland and riparian habitat, particularly in areas with fertile geology as these were key bat foraging habitats

Rietveld refinement of neutron, synchrotron and combined powder diffraction data of cement clinker

Ordinary Portland-cement clinkers were characterised using neutron and synchrotron powder diffraction. Rietveld analysis was performed using individual as well as combined data. Comparisons were made between phase quantifications made using these different data sets, and with published results from other methods. Neutron results showed difficulty in distinguishing between tri- and di-calcium silicate phases, whilst synchrotron results compared well to other methods. Refinements were performed with and without refinement of the atomic positions of some atoms in the two main phases of a sample, and the results compared. Less than 1% adjustment in the atomic positions was found to decrease Bragg R-factors by about 20%

Reversible uptake of CO2 by pincer ligand supported dimetallynes

We report on the reversible uptake of carbon dioxide by dimetallynes featuring ancillary hemi-labile pincer ligands. Insertion into the Ge-Ge/Sn-Sn bonds yields species containing an E(CO 2 )E unit, with the mode of ligation of the CO 2 fragment determined crystallographically being found to be dependent on the identity of the group 14 element. The thermodynamics of CO 2 uptake/loss can be established through VT-NMR (&#x394;H&#xB0; = +24.6(2.3) kJ mol -1 , &#x394;S&#xB0; = +64.9(3.8) J mol -1 K -1 , &#x394;G&#xB0; 298 = +5.3(1.9) kJ mol -1 for the loss of CO 2 in the Ge case), and the chemical consequences of reversibility demonstrated by thermodynamically-controlled exchange reactions

Controlling concatenation in germanium(I) chemistry through hemilability

We present a novel approach for constructing chains of Group 14 metal atoms linked by unsupported metal–metal bonds that exploits hemilabile ligands to generate unsaturated metal sites. The formation/nature of catenated species (oligo-dimetallynes) can be controlled by the use of (acidic/basic) “protecting groups” and through variation of the ligand scaffold. Reduction of ArNiPr2GeCl (ArNiPr2=2,6-(iPr2NCH2)2C6H3)—featuring hemilabile NiPr2 donors—yields (ArNiPr2Ge)4 (2), which contains a tetrameric Ge4 chain. 2 represents a novel type of a linear homo-catenated GeI compound featuring unsupported E−E bonds. Trapping experiments reveal that a key structural component is the central two-way Ge=Ge donor-acceptor bond: reactions with IMe4 and W(CO)5(NMe3) give the base- or acid-stabilized digermynes (ArNiPr2Ge(IMe4))2 (4) and (ArNiPr2Ge{W(CO)5})2 (5), respectively. The use of smaller N-donors leads to stronger Ge-N interactions and quenching of catenation behaviour: reduction of ArNEt2GeCl gives the digermyne (ArNEt2Ge)2, while the unsymmetrical system ArNEt2GeGeArNiPr2 dimerizes to give tetranuclear (ArNEt2GeGeArNiPr2)2 through aggregation at the NiPr2-ligated GeI centres

Comparison of durability measures of concrete as a function of cure times

This work forms part of a project for evaluating techniques of estimating concrete durability to improve service life. Here compressive strength, chloride diffusivity, void volume, and sorptivity from water cured concretes were measured at seven, 28 and 56 days to evaluate the concrete durability as a function of curing. It was concluded that while void volume and sorptivity were useful as quality control measures they did not reflect the increase in durability found when concrete was cured. This was in contrast to the chloride diffusivity and compressive strength results which showed marked differences during the curing of the concrete. For this study four concrete mixes were prepared using identical compositions of water, sand, and aggregates and having the same amount of cementitious materials with four different compositions: (1) Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) (2) OPC with 20% replacement of a commercial fly ash (3) OPC with 40% replacement of the same fly ash, and (4) OPC with 20% replacement by pitchstone fines. Pitchstone fines are a waste product made during the production of expandable perlite aggregate which previous work has shown to act as a supplementary cementitious material