Development of a tool to assess cognitive mastery of stress in children : a pilot study.

The process of mastery of major stressors in children has been much less studied than similar processes in adults. The purpose of this pilot study was to develop and to conduct beginning testing of a new psychological measure to assess the construct of cognitive mastery of stressful events in children, i.e., the Child Cognitive Mastery Scale (CCMS). First, 22 situations involving forced-choice responses were developed around three previously-identified domains: safety and security, just and controllable world, and self-view and pictures portraying these situations were drawn. Then, 56 children, ages 6 to 11 were tested with the CCMS and a depression measure. Twenty-one children were re-tested 7 to 10 days later with the CCMS. Teachers provided ratings of school achievement and parents provided information regarding stressful life events and the child\u27s overall behavior. Results showed evidence of overall test-retest reliability and beginning evidence of inter-administrator reliability. The results also identified some initial hints at discriminative and construct validity and seemed, for the most part, to confirm the projective assumption that the childrens\u27 responses would reflect their own views of the world and of themselves. This initial pilot study provided some encouraging information regarding the psychometric properties of the CCMS as well as information regarding needed revisions and some directions for further evaluation and development

Cup Feeding in the ICU: The Influence of Health Care Team Knowledge

Background: Preterm birth has significantly increased in the last two decades. Preterm infants lack synchrony and coordination in sucking, swallowing, and breathing necessary for oral feeding. Cup feeding has been identified as a safe alternative for preterm infants who are not able to fully breastfeed, yet the practice is limited. One potential reason this alternative is underutilized is lack of health care provider knowledge regarding cup feeding. Understanding health care provider knowledge will provide information to guide cup feeding education efforts. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between health care team knowledge and the use of cup feeding in neonatal intensive care units. Methods: A non-experimental cross-cultural correlational design will be used to evaluate study goals. A convenience sample of ~350 neonatal nurses and physicians from US and Jordan will be recruited to complete a web-based survey. Recruitment strategies will include Email, website links, and snowballing. To evaluate health care provider knowledge about cup feeding a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire includes items asking about demographic data (e.g. Age, ethnicity, occupation, and experience). A 7-point Likert scale ranging from Always to never was used to assess knowledge regarding feeding type (bottle, breast, NGT, and cup). Multivariate Regression analysis will be conducted to examine the relation between health care provider knowledge and cup feeding practices. Regressions will control for potential covariates (e.g., provider age, culture, experience, and education). Findings and Conclusions: Research still in process. Preliminary results will be available by May. Nurses and physicians have the authority to decide which feeding method to use for an infant. In addition, parents are influenced by health care provider advice. Identifying health care provider knowledge of cup feeding can identify misconceptions regarding cup feeding. These findings will lead to educational interventions aimed at improving feeding of preterm infants

Definitions of Violence: African-American and Iraqi Refugee Adolescents\u27 Perceptions

This article explores the perceptions of urban African-American and Iraqi refugee adolescents regarding community violence, school violence, family violence and dating/intimate partner violence. A subset of participants from a larger study on violence and trauma was selected to participate in the current study. Using a card-sort exercise, participants identified situations as violent or not violent. Iraqi youth identified noticeably more behaviors as violence than African-American youth. Few significant gender differences emerged. Findings of important cultural differences provide implications for violence prevention programming

Youth Coping with Oppression in Arab Spring and its Psychological and Socio-Political Dynamics: The Example of Palestinian Youth

Arab Spring exemplified how distress due to cumulative dynamics of oppression, poverty and chronic stress can result in mental health events that prime shared distress and trigger socio-political uprisings. Further, Islamist parties won the elections that followed the uprisings. Additionally resiliency of youth and will to survive is the source of their positive coping with oppression. Unfortunately, most of our understanding of and interventions with trauma are focused on past traumas perpetrated by individuals, current and ongoing traumas perpetrated by social groups, such as oppression and discriminations are mostly ignored. Why Arab Spring? And why religious groups became the dominant successors of the oppressors? Our goal of the present research is to build and test plausible theoretical models that explain the dynamics of such continuous collective identity trauma and investigate resiliency and coping strategies to related distress and suggest novel intervention strategies based on these tested models. The model we developed and tested on Palestinian adolescents assume that collective trauma of oppression prime collective identity to be more salient compared to other identities and trigger identity annihilation/ subjugation anxiety that drive mental health distress. On the other hand, will to survive drive different coping strategies with such distress. We tested the model on a sample of Palestinian adolescents. We measured all life traumas including oppression, poverty, as well as PTSD, Depression and complex PTSD. We used structural equation modeling. Results confirmed the general model and its alternatives and indicated that religious coping, political ideology, social support contributed to reducing mental distress, with religiosity the strongest predictor which may explain the electoral success of Islamists post Arab Spring. The implications of the results were discussed. We proposed new model of continuous trauma focused interventions for victims of such traumas

When Pandemics Collide: The Impact of COVID-19 on Childhood Obesity

• Children with obesity face increased biopsychosocial risks during COVID-19. • Stress exacerbates inflammation and immune response in obesity and COVID-19. • The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly interrupted children\u27s daily routines. • The health effects of the obesogenic environment are exacerbated by COVID-19. • Access to timely, comprehensive healthcare is critical during COVID-19

The Grizzly, October 5, 1979

Senior Fired From Snack Shop • Parking Regulations Explained • Bio Club Explores Pine Barrens • Craft Discusses Plans • Letters to the Editor: Faculty responds to censoring article • ERA Hits Dishroom • Dave Rebuck: A Close-up • The Best Of The Seventies • Music News • Joe Jackson - Moon Marten and The Ravens • Talking Heads - Fear Of Music • Fans Catch Fever At Bee Gees Concert • USGA Notes • Renovation Underway • Richter Accepts Advance Ursinus Donation • Bears\u27 Booters On Again • Fearless Friday Forecast • Victory Sparks Women\u27s Volleyball • Hard Work Pays Off For V & JV Hockey • Hockey\u27s Third Team Has Inconsistent Starthttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1022/thumbnail.jp

Visuospatial working memory in children and adolescents with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome; an fMRI study

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a genetic disorder associated with a microdeletion of chromosome 22q11. In addition to high rates of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, children with 22q11DS have a specific neuropsychological profile with particular deficits in visuospatial and working memory. However, the neurobiological substrate underlying these deficits is poorly understood. We investigated brain function during a visuospatial working memory (SWM) task in eight children with 22q11DS and 13 healthy controls, using fMRI. Both groups showed task-related activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and bilateral parietal association cortices. Controls activated parietal and occipital regions significantly more than those with 22q11DS but there was no significant between-group difference in DLPFC. In addition, while controls had a significant age-related increase in the activation of posterior brain regions and an age-related decrease in anterior regions, the 22q11DS children showed the opposite pattern. Genetically determined differences in the development of specific brain systems may underpin the cognitive deficits in 22q11DS, and may contribute to the later development of neuropsychiatric disorders

Increased Vascular Permeability in the Bone Marrow Microenvironment Contributes to Disease Progression and Drug Response in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

D.P. was supported by a non-clinical research fellowship from EHA. This work was supported by The Francis Crick Institute, which receives its core funding from Cancer Research UK (FC001045), The UK Medical Research Council (FC001045), and the Welcome Trust (FC001045)

The value of plantation forests for plant, invertebrate and bird diversity and the potential for cross-taxon surrogacy

As the area of plantation forest expands worldwide and natural, unmanaged forests decline there is much interest in the potential for planted forests to provide habitat for biodiversity. In regions where little semi-natural woodland remains, the biodiversity supported by forest plantations, typically non-native conifers, may be particularly important. Few studies provide detailed comparisons between the species diversity of native woodlands which are being depleted and non-native plantation forests, which are now expanding, based on data collected from multiple taxa in the same study sites. Here we compare the species diversity and community composition of plants, invertebrates and birds in Sitka spruce- (Picea sitchensis-) dominated and Norway spruce- (Picea abies-) dominated plantations, which have expanded significantly in recent decades in the study area in Ireland, with that of oak- and ash-dominated semi-natural woodlands in the same area. The results show that species richness in spruce plantations can be as high as semi-natural woodlands, but that the two forest types support different assemblages of species. In areas where non-native conifer plantations are the principle forest type, their role in the provision of habitat for biodiversity conservation should not be overlooked. Appropriate management should target the introduction of semi-natural woodland characteristics, and on the extension of existing semi-natural woodlands to maintain and enhance forest species diversity. Our data show that although some relatively easily surveyed groups, such as vascular plants and birds, were congruent with many of the other taxa when looking across all study sites, the similarities in response were not strong enough to warrant use of these taxa as surrogates of the others. In order to capture a wide range of biotic variation, assessments of forest biodiversity should either encompass several taxonomic groups, or rely on the use of indicators of diversity that are not species based