A Systematic Review of the Effects of LENA-based Feedback on Parent-Child Language Interactions in Families with Young Children

Enhancing parent language interactions with children beginning in infancy is important because it results in better language abilities, social skills, and academic outcomes in children. A number of researchers have suggested that parent language interactions with children could be enhanced by giving parents feedback about their language interactions using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. The LENA system records communication exchanges between a child and the adult caregiver and provides an automated analysis of adult word count, child vocalization count, and conversational turn count. We did a systematic review of the studies that investigated the use of LENA-based feedback to enhance parent language interactions with children. Although most previous studies have concluded that LENA-based feedback improves parental language interactions with children, methodological factors and confounding of treatment components in almost all of these studies make it impossible to know whether quantitative feedback from interactions recorded by the LENA system enhances parent language interactions with children. The designs and results of previous studies are discussed to suggest how future research can better address this important issue

Audiology Students’ Perception of Hybrid Simulation Experiences: Qualitative Evaluation of Debriefing Sessions

Simulation-based research is still new in the audiology field and requires more research to better understand students’ perspectives on standardized patients/parents (SPs) and manikins use. There is also limited research about debriefing practices in audiology. This qualitative study used a baby simulator and SPs to evaluate audiology students’ reflection during three debriefing sessions conducted at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science (UAMS) Simulation Center. Seventeen Doctor of Audiology (AuD) students participated in the simulation event, and the data were collected using the transcripts of videotaped debriefing sessions. The qualitative content analysis of the transcripts revealed eight sub-themes: support, compassion, respect, teamwork, limited academic knowledge and practice, insufficient communication skills, low self-confidence, and undesirable emotional reactions. These items, in turn, fell under two main themes of Qualification and Lack of Preparation. Both main themes were included in one core category named Professional Dispositions and Competencies. Study findings indicated that audiology students demonstrated both promising professional dispositions and competencies as well as characteristics that may hinder students from developing their professional abilities. Thus, audiology programs will benefit from simulation use, including debriefing sessions, to emphasize professional efficiency

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Auditory processing in children: Role of working memory and lexical ability in auditory closure.

We examined the relationship between cognitive-linguistic mechanisms and auditory closure ability in children. Sixty-seven school-age children recognized isolated words and keywords in sentences that were interrupted at a rate of 2.5 Hz and 5 Hz. In essence, children were given only 50% of speech information and asked to repeat the complete word or sentence. Children's working memory capacity (WMC), attention, lexical knowledge, and retrieval from long-term memory (LTM) abilities were also measured to model their role in auditory closure ability. Overall, recognition of monosyllabic words and lexically easy multisyllabic words was significantly better at 2.5 Hz interruption rate than 5 Hz. Recognition of lexically hard multisyllabic words and keywords in sentences was better at 5 Hz relative to 2.5 Hz. Based on the best fit generalized "logistic" linear mixed effects models, there was a significant interaction between WMC and lexical difficulty of words. WMC was positively related only to recognition of lexically easy words. Lexical knowledge was found to be crucial for recognition of words and sentences, regardless of interruption rate. In addition, LTM retrieval ability was significantly associated with sentence recognition. These results suggest that lexical knowledge and the ability to retrieve information from LTM is crucial for children's speech recognition in adverse listening situations. Study findings make a compelling case for the assessment and intervention of lexical knowledge and retrieval abilities in children with listening difficulties

Acoustic field assisted demixing of aqueous two-phase systems

Acoustic field assisted demixing was employed to decrease the demixing time in aqueous two-phase systems (polyethylene glycol–maltodextrin and polyethylene glycol–potassium phosphate). Application of acoustic field has decreased the demixing time in polyethylene glycol–maltodextrin by around twofold and up to about 3.2-fold in polyethylene glycol–potassium phosphate systems. Ultrasonication has induced mild circulation currents in the phase dispersion, which has enhanced the rate of droplet coalescence, eventually resulting in decreased demixing time. In the polyethylene glycol–maltodextrin system, phase demixing was found to depend greatly on which of the phases is continuous and viscosity of the continuous phase was observed to have a strong influence on the movement of the droplets and hence controlling the phase demixing rate. In case of the polyethylene glycol–potassium phosphate system, droplet coalescence was found to play a critical role in phase demixing. Addition of NaCl increased the demixing time and presence of Escherichia coli cells did not seem to have any influence on phase demixing

Access to Pediatric Audiological Evaluation Facilities for Infants and Young Children in the United States: Results from the EHDI-PALS System

Early Hearing Detection and Intervention - Pediatric Audiology Links to Services (EHDI-PALS) is a web-based national directory of pediatric audiology facilities in the United States, created by an expert committee and launched in October 2012. In this study, data from 1,232 audiology facilities were analyzed to identify the number of registered facilities, types of diagnostic hearing tests offered, and the number of children under 5 years of age who were diagnosed with hearing loss. Some states had almost 15 times as many registered facilities as other states, suggesting that access to quality diagnostic hearing testing for infants and young children is still a major public health problem in many states. Almost all registered facilities (approximately 90%) have diagnostic test equipment to assess and diagnose children over 7 months of age. However, less than 70% of facilities had appropriate Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) equipment needed for children 6 months of age or younger. The data suggest that steps need to be taken to increase the number of registered pediatric audiology facilities in each state to efficiently deal with the large number of infants and young children being referred from newborn hearing screening programs

Acoustic field-assisted osmotic membrane distillation

Osmotic membrane distillation (OMD) is a novel membrane process that facilitates the concentration of aqueous solutions under mild operating conditions. The main drawback of OMD, like any other membrane process, is relatively low flux. In the present work acoustic field has been applied for the enhancement of transmembrane flux. Acoustic field, using transducer, of the frequency 1.2 MHz was applied perpendicularly to the membrane. Encouraged by the initial results of reasonable enhancement in the transmembrane flux (by 20–30%), further experiments were carried out for 5 M NaCl/pure water, 5 M CaCl₂/pure water, NaCl/sugarcane juice and CaCl₂/sugarcane juice systems both in the presence and absence of acoustic field. It was observed that there was about 22–205% enhancement in transmembrane flux with the application of acoustic field. All the experiments have been carried out in a membrane cell using different hydrophobic membranes polytetrafluoroethylene and polypropylene). The effect of various parameters such as concentration (2, 3, 4, 5 M), stirring speed (0, 198, 250, 450 rpm) and temperature (40, 50, 60°C) was studied on transmembrane flux in the absence of acoustic field, and the effect of acoustic field was studied at the best conditions observed. PTFE and PP membrane fluxes for CaCl₂ were both higher in the case of sugarcane juice and water than those for NaCl and K₂HPO₄ solutions. Results obtained from these experiments were correlated using a modified Nernst film model

Mass transfer in osmotic membrane distillation

Osmotic membrane distillation is a novel athermal membrane process that facilitates the maximum concentration of liquid foods under mild operating conditions. In the present study, the effect of various process parameters such as type, concentration and flow rate of the osmotic agent; type (polypropylene membranes) and pore size (0.05 and 0.2 μm) of the membrane; temperature with respect to transmembrane flux was studied. Experiments were performed with real systems (pineapple/sweet lime juice) in a flat membrane module. Osmotic agents namely sodium chloride and calcium chloride at varying concentrations are employed. For both the osmotic agents, higher transmembrane flux was observed at maximum osmotic agent concentration. In comparison with sodium chloride, higher transmembrane flux was observed in case of calcium chloride. A mass transfer-in-series resistance model has been employed, considering the resistance offered by the membrane as well the boundary layers (feed and brine sides) in case of real systems for the first time. The model could predict the variation of transmembrane flux with respect to different process parameters