Neurodevelopmental outcomes in individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) with and without exposure to neglect : clinical cohort data from a national FASD diagnostic clinic

Disentangling the relative developmental impact of prenatal alcohol exposure from postnatal neglect is clinically valuable for informing future service provision. In this study developmental outcomes across groups are compared in a ‘natural experiment’. Methods: Clinical data from 99 persons with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) diagnoses were audited. Developmental outcomes (diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD; social and communication disorder, SCD; or autism spectrum disorder, ASD; Short Sensory Profile, SSP; Vineland II Adaptive Behaviour Scales) were compared across two exposure groups: prenatal alcohol only; and mixed prenatal alcohol and neglect. Results: ADHD (74%) and ASD/SCD (68%) were common, with no significant difference between groups (ADHD, P=0.924; ASD, P=0.742). Vineland age equivalence scores were lower than chronological age (11.1y—prenatal alcohol only—and 12.7y—neglect) across all domains, especially receptive language (3.7y for both groups). Age equivalence did not differ between groups, with the exception of domestic daily living (neglect: 7.7y vs prenatal alcohol only: 5.8y, P=0.027). A probable/definite difference on SSP was more common in the prenatal alcohol only (96% vs 67%, P=0.006). For the individual subscales of SSP, there were no significant differences by neglect category. Discussion: Postnatal neglect in this group did not make the developmental outcome any worse, suggesting that prenatal alcohol influences these outcomes independently. Professionals who support families looking after a child with both FASD and a history of neglect should be aware that the behavioural difficulties are likely to be related to prenatal alcohol exposure and not necessarily reflective of parenting quality

Assessing the educational potential and language content of touchscreen apps for preschool children

Touchscreen apps have the potential to teach children important early skills including oral language. However, there is little empirical data assessing the educational potential of children's apps in the app market or how apps link to theories of cognitive development to support learning. We compared popular children's apps with a learning goal (N=18) and without (N=26) using systematic evaluation tools to assess the educational potential and app features that may support learning. We also transcribed all utterances in the apps that included language with a learning goal (N=18) and without (N=12) in order to compare a number of psycholinguistic measures relating to accessibility of the language. Apps with a learning goal had higher educational potential, more opportunities for feedback, a higher proportion of ostensive feedback, and age-appropriate language to support learning and language development. Thus, we argue that selecting children's apps based on the presence of a learning goal is a good first step for selecting an educational app for pre-school age children. Nevertheless, app developers could do more to promote exploratory app use, adjust content to a child's performance, and make use of social interactions with characters onscreen in their apps to enhance the educational potential. Children's apps could also make better use of feedback to ensure that it is specific, meaningful and constructive to better facilitate learning

Accessibility of urban spaces for visually impaired pedestrians

An ageing demographic together with the predicted increase in visual impairment of older people calls for a renewed consideration of the accessibility and social inclusivity of urban spaces. This paper synthesises the evidence on this topic and highlights areas for future development relating to the accessibility of urban areas for older, blind and partially sighted pedestrians in the light of recommendations and statements by the World Health Organisation’s ‘Age friendly’ cities initiative, Guide Dogs UK and the Department of Transport’s shared spaces local transport note

Conceptual and lexical functioning in blind, severely visually impaired and sighted infants

This thesis examines the role of vision in language development by focusing on: first, the understanding blind infants have of objects, actions/events and the way they start to talk about these aspects of their environment; and, second, the ways visual information contributes to conceptual and lexical development in sighted infants. Until recently, research has predominantly focused on infants' understanding of objects and their understanding of actions/events has been neglected. Since individuals who are blind predominantly have access to temporal, rather than spatial infomation and so are better able to process information about actions and events rather than objects, this bias seems to have led to the conclusion that an absence of visual information results in a cognitive deficit. Six blind/severely visually impaired infants and their sighted controls were studied for around a year using a range of quasi-experimental, parental report and observational techniques. The studies found little difference between the blind and sighted infants in the age of onset or rate at which first words are produced. However, blind infants were found to be delayed in the age at which they were able to comprehend and produce labels for objects and they produced few words for concrete, discrete objects. The finding that the blind infants were able to categorize objects/actions as well as generalise and extend their words calls into question Dunlea's (1989) claim that an absence of visual information leads to a cognitive deficit. It is argued that blind infants can make their way into language using a route which is merely one end of a spectrum of routes used by sighted infants. Implications are discussed for theories of lexical development (multiroute model, developmental lexical principles framework and the social-pragmatic framework) as well as for possible strategies facilitate conceptual and lexical development in blind/SVI and sighted infants

Landmarks in tourist wayfinding : a review

Demographic trends project a significant expansion of European urban populations to 2030, leading to expanding cities being marketed as desirable tourist destinations, particularly for short city breaks. In turn, this renders the promotion of efficient, effective and satisfactory visitor wayfinding experiences as potentially lucrative to regional visitor economies, a point reflected in current UK government tourism policy. This paper reviews key outcomes from multidisciplinary research into wayfinding behaviours and acquired spatial knowledge in unfamiliar large-scale urban environments, placing emphasis on the importance of landmarks. The rationale is that understanding the relationships between wayfinding and the features of the urban built environment facilitates informed design of potential built interventions. For this purpose, those studies involving virtual urban environments are reviewed, to assess the role of landmarks as aids to navigation. In addition, given the emphasis on visual access to landmarks, issues impacting on tourists who are visually impaired are addressed. Implications for interventions in urban areas for tourists are considered

A critical analysis of IQ studies of adopted children

The pattern of parent-child correlations in adoption studies has long been interpreted to suggest substantial additive genetic variance underlying variance in IQ. The studies have frequently been criticized on methodological grounds, but those criticisms have not reflected recent perspectives in genetics and developmental theory. Here we apply those perspectives to recent IQ adoption studies and show how they further question two sets of problems: first, the assumption of additive gene and environmental effects; second, the assumption that the adoption situation approximates a randomized-effects design. We show how a number of possible factors having systematic effects in breach of those assumptions can produce the received pattern of correlations without appealing to unusual amounts of additive gene variance

Narrow lanes and their effect on drivers’ behaviour at motorway roadworks

In recent years, more use of narrow lanes as a temporary traffic management scheme (TTMS) on UK motorway roadwork sections has been made. The rationale is to free up carriageway space, especially for sites with high traffic demands needing repairs. What remains to be determined is the impact of this work on traffic operation. This is important due to the need to manage traffic operational turbulence which could affect the capacity as well as safety levels in roadwork sections. Site observations (mainly using camcorders from overhead bridges) were made which uncovered two discernible patterns of driving behaviour where narrow lanes are implemented at roadworks, especially when heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are present: (i) “avoiding” passing/overtaking HGVs travelling in the adjacent lanes and (ii) lane “repositioning” while passing/overtaking which might cause some turbulence to traffic operation. From one site, almost half of the passenger car drivers (including small vans) who were following a HGV on the adjacent lanes were avoiding passing that HGV. Also, nearly three quarters of the observed passenger cars, the passenger car drivers tried to position their vehicles as far away as possible, laterally, from the adjacent HGV while passing/overtaking that HGV in order to widen the lateral gap between their vehicles and the HGV. This resulted in driving too close to the edge of the road markings of their current lane away from the HGV. Therefore, this paper aims to report on the “avoiding” and lane “repositioning” behaviours to help inform traffic management teams/designers using narrow lanes as TTMS and make them aware of such behaviours (especially for motorway sections carrying high percentages of HGVs). Also, the finding from these observations were used in the development of a new micro-simulation model in order to evaluate the effect of such turbulence