Parenting a child with Down syndrome:A qualitative study on parents' experiences and behaviors from a self-determination theory perspective

Purpose: Raising a child with Down syndrome (DS) brings unique challenges to parents' psychological functioning. Extensive quantitative research has shown that these parents tend to experience higher levels of parental stress and lower well-being. However, a more in-depth and balanced insight is essential to fully grasp the complexity of parenting a child with DS. To address this gap, this study uses a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and behaviors of parents raising a child with DS. Design and methods: By adopting the Self-Determination Theory as a comprehensive theoretical framework, this study attends to both opportunities and challenges for parents' psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, and provides insights into how they support the psychological needs of their child with DS. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with parents of a child with DS (aged 4 to 23 years). Results: Through thematic analysis, six themes of parental experiences and three themes of parenting behaviors were distinguished. Conclusions: The findings indicated that parents experience many opportunities for need satisfaction, predominantly in their need for relatedness. However, raising a child with DS also involves challenges for the parents' family relationships, personal freedom, professional ambitions, and feelings of competence. Regarding their parenting behaviors, parents considered stimulating independence, tuning into the child's mental world, and being patient as essential practices when raising a child with DS. Practical implications: This study provides important clues to promote parents' well-being as well as their engagement in need-supportive parenting practices towards their child with DS.</p

Parenting a child with Down syndrome:A qualitative study on parents' experiences and behaviors from a self-determination theory perspective

Purpose: Raising a child with Down syndrome (DS) brings unique challenges to parents' psychological functioning. Extensive quantitative research has shown that these parents tend to experience higher levels of parental stress and lower well-being. However, a more in-depth and balanced insight is essential to fully grasp the complexity of parenting a child with DS. To address this gap, this study uses a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and behaviors of parents raising a child with DS. Design and methods: By adopting the Self-Determination Theory as a comprehensive theoretical framework, this study attends to both opportunities and challenges for parents' psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, and provides insights into how they support the psychological needs of their child with DS. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with parents of a child with DS (aged 4 to 23 years). Results: Through thematic analysis, six themes of parental experiences and three themes of parenting behaviors were distinguished. Conclusions: The findings indicated that parents experience many opportunities for need satisfaction, predominantly in their need for relatedness. However, raising a child with DS also involves challenges for the parents' family relationships, personal freedom, professional ambitions, and feelings of competence. Regarding their parenting behaviors, parents considered stimulating independence, tuning into the child's mental world, and being patient as essential practices when raising a child with DS. Practical implications: This study provides important clues to promote parents' well-being as well as their engagement in need-supportive parenting practices towards their child with DS.</p

La reintegración política y económica: la clave para el éxito del retorno

Los refugiados y los desplazados internos necesitan que los actores nacionales e internacionales realicen esfuerzos conjuntos para garantizar una reintegración exitosa en el panorama económico, social y político de sus países de origen

Gut microbiota, metabolism and psychopathology:A critical review and novel perspectives

Psychiatric disorders are often associated with metabolic comorbidities. However, the mechanisms through which metabolic and psychiatric disorders are connected remain unclear. Pre-clinical studies in rodents indicate that the bidirectional signaling between the intestine and the brain, the so-called microbiome-gut-brain axis, plays an important role in the regulation of both metabolism and behavior. The gut microbiome produces a vast number of metabolites that may be transported into the host and play a part in homeostatic control of metabolism as well as brain function. In addition to short chain fatty acids, many of these metabolites have been identified in recent years. To what extent both microbiota and their products control human metabolism and behavior is a subject of intense investigation. In this review, we will discuss the most recent findings concerning alterations in the gut microbiota as a possible pathophysiological factor for the co-occurrence of metabolic comorbidities in psychiatric disorders

Application of liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry to measure urinary cortisol in loose housed sows

Cortisol is the most common physiological parameter used to measure welfare in pigs. In field studies evaluating stress in individual pigs which are group housed, the collection of spontaneously voided urine is practical. The purpose of the study was to apply a liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry approach to observe the patterns of diurnal urinary cortisol excretion among loose sows of three herds. We applied the analytical method in spontaneously voided urine of thirty, repeatedly sampled within a day, multiparous sows of three Greek herds. We found the level of urinary cortisol being highest before morning feeding [geometric mean of urinary cortisol to creatinine ratio being 2.72 (95% confidence interval: 1.17, 6.30), 5.65 (3.15, 10.14) and 2.60 (1.50, 4.50) in sows of herds A, B, and C, respectively] and lowest at 19: 00 h [0.56 (0.27, 1.18), 1.24 (0.74, 2.07), 0.88 (0.55, 1.44)]. However, the patterns of diurnal urinary cortisol excretion appeared different among herds

Measuring the evolution of contemporary western popular music

Popular music is a key cultural expression that has captured listeners' attention for ages. Many of the structural regularities underlying musical discourse are yet to be discovered and, accordingly, their historical evolution remains formally unknown. Here we unveil a number of patterns and metrics characterizing the generic usage of primary musical facets such as pitch, timbre, and loudness in contemporary western popular music. Many of these patterns and metrics have been consistently stable for a period of more than fifty years, thus pointing towards a great degree of conventionalism. Nonetheless, we prove important changes or trends related to the restriction of pitch transitions, the homogenization of the timbral palette, and the growing loudness levels. This suggests that our perception of the new would be rooted on these changing characteristics. Hence, an old tune could perfectly sound novel and fashionable, provided that it consisted of common harmonic progressions, changed the instrumentation, and increased the average loudness.Comment: Supplementary materials not included. Please see the journal reference or contact the author

The SASSCAL contribution to climate observation, climate data management and data rescue in Southern Africa

A major task of the newly established "Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management" (SASSCAL; www.sasscal.org) and its partners is to provide science-based environmental information and knowledge which includes the provision of consistent and reliable climate data for Southern Africa. Hence, SASSCAL, in close cooperation with the national weather authorities of Angola, Botswana, Germany and Zambia as well as partner institutions in Namibia and South Africa, supports the extension of the regional meteorological observation network and the improvement of the climate archives at national level. With the ongoing rehabilitation of existing weather stations and the new installation of fully automated weather stations (AWS), altogether 105 AWS currently provide a set of climate variables at 15, 30 and 60 min intervals respectively. These records are made available through the SASSCAL WeatherNet, an online platform providing near-real time data as well as various statistics and graphics, all in open access. This effort is complemented by the harmonization and improvement of climate data management concepts at the national weather authorities, capacity building activities and an extension of the data bases with historical climate data which are still available from different sources. These activities are performed through cooperation between regional and German institutions and will provide important information for climate service related activities