Feeding Problems in Individuals with Autism and Developmental Disabilities

Many children with developmental disabilities exhibit feeding problems, which in turn can lead to malnutrition and respiratory symptoms. The combination of discomfort and pain for the child and difficulty of treatment for the parents and attending professionals validate research on interventions for feeding problems in children with developmental disabilities. Feeding problems range from food selectivity and refusal to rumination and gastroenterological problems that require medical interventions. This paper will review research on feeding problems in children with developmental disabilities and possible causes for these problems, including poor oral-motor coordination, swallowing dysfunction and choking, food selectivity, and aversive feeding behaviors. This paper will further review behavioral treatment strategies for feeding problems, including multicomponent treatments, behavioral momentum procedures, and responses to behavioral cues and stimuli. Differences in diagnoses will be recorded, and factors in effectiveness will be noted

Homelessness and Public Health in Los Angeles

Los Angeles faces a housing crisis of unprecedented scale. After years of underinvestment, in 2016/2017 LA County voters approved Measures H and HHH, which provided an infusion of resources for homeless services, permanent housing, and integrated outreach through the LA County Homeless Initiative (HI). An estimated 58,936 individuals in LA County remain homeless as of January 2019, 75% of them unsheltered and living on streets, in tents, or encampments. Our best estimates suggest that the homeless population has grown since 2017.HI takes a Housing First approach to homelessness, with the largest amount of total funds allocated to housing solutions. However, rehousing is often subject to delays in construction and case management. These delays, combined with persistent market forces driving new homelessness, have left the county well short of its targets. While no forecasts were issued, the initial gap analysis for HI had assumed a 34% reduction in the total homeless count from 2016 to 2019. The count has in fact increased by 26% over that period, meaning 28,000 more homeless clients than anticipated on any night. Whereas cities with comparable homeless crises such as New York have focused on increasing the availability of emergency shelters and safe havens in addition to permanent housing, LA County’s relatively low investment in transitional options has resulted in persistent levels of unsheltered homelessness.Research has shown that homelessness has severe health consequences. Homeless individuals have a high risk of mortality, with a recent LA County Medical Examiner report finding an average age of death of 48 for women and 51 for men. Homeless individuals have much higher risks of mental illness, substance abuse, infectious disease, chronic illness, violence, and reproductive health risks than the general population. Much less is known about the health burdens associated with being unsheltered, but most evidence points to substantially greater health risks given the more intense exposures to violence, weather, pollution, poor sanitation, and behavioral risk. Research is just beginning to quantify the burdens of living on the streets.Our analysis of the LA County homelessness response drew on expert interviews, data analysis, and document review. Beyond the growing numerical gap between HI’s targets and actual trends, we identified five critical service gaps that require immediate attention: Taking a person-centered approach that recognizes both the diversity of client needs and the limitations of existing resources, yet honors the principle that everyone deserves housing; Improving access to emergency shelters by reducing legal and political barriers to construction and adopting “low barrier shelters” that facilitate entry; Delivering comprehensive street medicine and other services to unsheltered homeless populations using evidence-based models that support the path to housing and recovery Adopting more extensive outreach models that engage citizens, empower homeless clients and leverage mobile technology so that case workers can focus on clients most in need; Strengthening data collection and research methods to understand the consequences of unsheltered homelessness, pilot new service models, and evaluate rehousing efforts

The Slavery Reader

Traditional values: A woman\u27s defense of the Peculiar Institution In this book that is part biography, part intellectual history, Leigh Fought, assistant editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers, provides an in-depth look at one of the most unusual Southern women of the antebellu...

Manuelle Rotation bei hinterer Hinterhauptseinstellung : erfolgreich zur Spontangeburt?

Darstellung des Themas: In der Literatur wird die occipito-posteriore Position als häufigste Fehleinstellung unter der Geburt beschrieben. Dabei besteht ein erhöhtes Risiko für eine operative Geburtsbeendigung. Als Alternative für eine operative Geburtsbeendigung wird die manuelle Rotation als mögliches Manöver zur Förderung einer Spontangeburt beschrieben. Aufgrund der steigenden operativen Geburtenrate in der Schweiz sehen die Hebammen die Aufgabe, den Fokus wieder auf die spontane Geburt zu richten. Ziel: Das Ziel ist, die Auswirkung einer manuellen Rotation bei einer occipito-posterioren Position bei vollständig eröffnetem Muttermund auf den Geburtsmodus darzustellen. Methode: Zur Beantwortung der Fragestellung wird auf verschiedenen Datenbanken nach relevanter Literatur gesucht. Vier Studien werden nach vorher definierten Ein- und Ausschlusskriterien ausgewählt, analysiert und kritisch diskutiert. Zum Vergleich wird weitere Fachliteratur hinzugezogen. Ergebnisse: Die Studien, welche für diese Arbeit verwendet werden, zeigen keine einheitlichen Ergebnisse. Während drei einen positiven Effekt beschreiben, was die Senkung der operativen Geburtenrate bei Anwendung einer manuellen Rotation betrifft, zeigt das verwendete Review keinen Einfluss. Schlussfolgerung: Die Anwendung der manuellen Rotation ist aktuell mit zu wenig Evidenzen belegt. Es kann daher keine generalisierte Aussage bezüglich der Wirksamkeit gemacht werden. Demzufolge ist weitere Forschung zu dieser Thematik nötig

Oral History Collections at James Madison University: Defining Digital Workflows

Oral History collections present challenges surrounding legacy media formats, born digital and digitized content, transcription, preservation, and user access. Collections might contain a variety of analog and digital materials which need to be considered holistically for processing and organization, preservation, and access. In this presentation, librarians from James Madison University discuss collaborating to improve workflows for processing oral history collections held in JMU Libraries\u27 Special Collections

The effect of mode and context on survey results: analysis of data from the Health Survey for England 2006 and the Boost Survey for London.

BACKGROUND: Health-related data at local level could be provided by supplementing national health surveys with local boosts. Self-completion surveys are less costly than interviews, enabling larger samples to be achieved for a given cost. However, even when the same questions are asked with the same wording, responses to survey questions may vary by mode of data collection. These measurement differences need to be investigated further. METHODS: The Health Survey for England in London ('Core') and a London Boost survey ('Boost') used identical sampling strategies but different modes of data collection. Some data were collected by face-to-face interview in the Core and by self-completion in the Boost; other data were collected by self-completion questionnaire in both, but the context differed. Results were compared by mode of data collection using two approaches. The first examined differences in results that remained after adjusting the samples for differences in response. The second compared results after using propensity score matching to reduce any differences in sample composition. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between the two samples for prevalence of some variables including long-term illness, limiting long-term illness, current rates of smoking, whether participants drank alcohol, and how often they usually drank. However, there were a number of differences, some quite large, between some key measures including: general health, GHQ12 score, portions of fruit and vegetables consumed, levels of physical activity, and, to a lesser extent, smoking consumption, the number of alcohol units reported consumed on the heaviest day of drinking in the last week and perceived social support (among women only). CONCLUSION: Survey mode and context can both affect the responses given. The effect is largest for complex question modules but was also seen for identical self-completion questions. Some data collected by interview and self-completion can be safely combined

Dendritic Ventriloquism: Inhibitory Synapses Throw Their Voices

In a theoretical study in this issue of Neuron, Gidon and Segev (2012) identify several new principles governing how inhibition interacts with excitation in active dendrites. They show that inhibitory synapses can interact with excitability at a distance, effectively “throwing their voices” in the dendritic tree, such that distributed inhibitory synapses can act synergistically to provide a global veto of dendritic excitability

Structured Connectivity in Cerebellar Inhibitory Networks

SummaryDefining the rules governing synaptic connectivity is key to formulating theories of neural circuit function. Interneurons can be connected by both electrical and chemical synapses, but the organization and interaction of these two complementary microcircuits is unknown. By recording from multiple molecular layer interneurons in the cerebellar cortex, we reveal specific, nonrandom connectivity patterns in both GABAergic chemical and electrical interneuron networks. Both networks contain clustered motifs and show specific overlap between them. Chemical connections exhibit a preference for transitive patterns, such as feedforward triplet motifs. This structured connectivity is supported by a characteristic spatial organization: transitivity of chemical connectivity is directed vertically in the sagittal plane, and electrical synapses appear strictly confined to the sagittal plane. The specific, highly structured connectivity rules suggest that these motifs are essential for the function of the cerebellar network

Testing perceived moral transgressions as mediating links of PTSD symptoms to distress

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms cause distress for 5-20% of individuals worldwide. Cognitive models of PTSD emphasize negative social cognitions about the world, and recent research suggests a relatively unexplored moral dimension. In this study, we test whether perceived moral transgressions mediated the relationship between PTSD symptoms and distress, using both correlational and experimental data., Participants recruited via MTurk (N = 400) completed measures of PTSD symptoms and perceived transgressions of others in the past week, read randomly assigned news vignettes, with and without transgressions, and endorsed current distress levels. We will present study design and preliminary regressions results

Information Shocks and Social Networks

The relationships between social networks and economic behavior have been well-documented. However, it is often difficult to distinguish between the role of information sharing and other features of a neighborhood, such as factors that are common to people of the same ethnicities or socio-economic opportunities, or uniquely local methods of program implementation. We seek to gain new insight into the potential role of information flows in networks by investigating what happens when information is disrupted. We exploit rich microdata from Florida vital records and program participation files to explore the effects of neighborhood social networks on the degree to which immigrant WIC participation during pregnancy declined in the "information shock" period surrounding welfare reform. We compare changes in WIC participation amongst Hispanic immigrants living in neighborhoods with a larger concentration of immigrants from their country of origin to those with a smaller concentration of immigrants from their country of origin, holding constant the size of the immigrant population and the share of immigrants in the neighborhood who are Hispanic. We find strong evidence to support the notion that social networks mediated the information shock faced by immigrant women in the wake of welfare reform.