Art as Meditation: A Mindful Inquiry into Educator Well-Being

Being prepared for the intensity and complexities that educators face in their work means building strategies for managing well-being. This qualitative study explored educators’ conceptualizations about their well-being using an arts-based, community-based participatory research (AB-CBPR) methodology. After a brief mindfulness meditation and contemplation of prompting questions, educators were invited to participate in drawing and writing reflections. The artifacts were coded to determine themes. Themes suggested the importance of human connectedness and interconnection, self care and nurturance, the healing qualities of the natural word, and the recognition that institutions need to provide space and resources to support educator well-being. The mindfulness-based art-as-meditation process was itself a salutogenic process and provided a means for developing a deeper understanding of educator well-being through a community-based participatory research approach

A Statewide Tiered System for Screening and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be reliably detected in the second year of life, the average age of diagnosis is 4 to 5 years. Limitations in access to timely ASD diagnostic evaluations delay enrollment in interventions known to improve developmental outcomes. As such, developing and testing streamlined methods for ASD diagnosis is a public health and research priority. In this report, we describe the Early Autism Evaluation (EAE) Hub system, a statewide initiative for ASD screening and diagnosis in the primary care setting. Development of the EAE Hub system involved geographically targeted provision of developmental screening technical assistance to primary care, community outreach, and training primary care clinicians in ASD evaluation. At the EAE Hubs, a standard clinical pathway was implemented for evaluation of children, ages 18 to 48 months, at risk for ASD. From 2012 to 2018, 2076 children were evaluated (mean age: 30 months; median evaluation wait time: 62 days), and 33% of children received a diagnosis of ASD. Our findings suggest that developing a tiered system of developmental screening and early ASD evaluation is feasible in a geographic region facing health care access problems. Through targeted delivery of education, outreach, and intensive practice-based training, large numbers of young children at risk for ASD can be identified, referred, and evaluated in the local primary care setting. The EAE Hub model has potential for dissemination to other states facing similar neurodevelopmental health care system burdens. Implementation lessons learned and key system successes, challenges, and future directions are reviewed

Narrative writing, reading and cognitive processes in middle childhood: what are the links?

This study investigated the relationship between measures of reading and writing, and explored whether cognitive measures known to be related to reading ability were also associated with writing performance in middle childhood. Sixty-Four children, aged between 8 years 9 months and 11 years 9 months, took part in a battery of writing, reading, and cognitive ability tasks. Reading fluency emerged as having a strong relationship to written language performance, after controlling for age and verbal reasoning. While children with reading difficulties were weak at spelling accuracy, they were otherwise found to produce written compositions of similar quality to typical readers. Boys produced less written text than girls, but did not demonstrate weaker written language abilities. Collectively the results demonstrate that writing skills can be separated into transcription and composition processes, and highlight the need for further research on the relationship between reading fluency and children’s writing

Site use and connectivity of female grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) around Wales

The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) provided core funding to the Sea Mammal Research Unit during this work and NERC Grant No. NE/G008930/1 to PP and LH to develop photo-ID use for grey seals. The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation provided additional funding to PP and LH for photo-ID work with grey seals. NRW funded survey work by MB, LM, SW and PS; contracted LH for survey design, software development and data management; IL and PP for work related to the production of this manuscript.Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are a qualifying feature of three special areas of conservation (SACs) in Wales, yet relatively little is known of their site use along this coastline. Since 1992, many individuals and organisations have contributed to a grey seal photographic identification database held by Natural Resources Wales, which is one of the largest and oldest of its kind, providing key information from grey seal haul-out sites around the Celtic and Irish Seas. Here, we investigated spatial connectivity of haul-out sites and fidelity of adult females to breeding sites. The minimum number of adult female grey seals using the area between 1992 and 2016 was 2688. Individual capture histories and relative spatial transition probabilities (Pij) between pairs of location groups were calculated. Adjacent locations were highly connected (e.g. Lleyn Peninsula and Bardsey, Pij = 0.7) but connections spanned the entire region, up to 230 km apart (e.g. Skomer and Dee Estuary, Pij = 0.004). Resights were recorded within SACs (e.g. Lleyn Peninsula and Bardsey [Lleyn Peninsula and the Sarnau SAC], Pij = 0.7), between SACs (e.g. Bardsey and Skomer [Pembrokeshire Marine], Pij = 0.03), between SACs and non-designated areas (e.g. Skerries and Bardsey, Pij = 0.09) and between sites outside any protected area (e.g. Dee Estuary and Anglesey, Pij = 0.5). While inter-annual fidelity to breeding sites was high (Pij = 0.82–1), individual female grey seals moved throughout the region. This evidence of extensive site use beyond protected areas is important for the management and conservation of grey seals around Wales.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A method for increasing expressivity of Gene Ontology annotations using a compositional approach.

BACKGROUND: The Gene Ontology project integrates data about the function of gene products across a diverse range of organisms, allowing the transfer of knowledge from model organisms to humans, and enabling computational analyses for interpretation of high-throughput experimental and clinical data. The core data structure is the annotation, an association between a gene product and a term from one of the three ontologies comprising the GO. Historically, it has not been possible to provide additional information about the context of a GO term, such as the target gene or the location of a molecular function. This has limited the specificity of knowledge that can be expressed by GO annotations. RESULTS: The GO Consortium has introduced annotation extensions that enable manually curated GO annotations to capture additional contextual details. Extensions represent effector-target relationships such as localization dependencies, substrates of protein modifiers and regulation targets of signaling pathways and transcription factors as well as spatial and temporal aspects of processes such as cell or tissue type or developmental stage. We describe the content and structure of annotation extensions, provide examples, and summarize the current usage of annotation extensions. CONCLUSIONS: The additional contextual information captured by annotation extensions improves the utility of functional annotation by representing dependencies between annotations to terms in the different ontologies of GO, external ontologies, or an organism's gene products. These enhanced annotations can also support sophisticated queries and reasoning, and will provide curated, directional links between many gene products to support pathway and network reconstruction

The facilitators and barriers to improving functional activity and wellbeing in people with dementia: a qualitative study from the process evaluation of Promoting Activity, Independence and Stability in Early Dementia (PrAISED)

BACKGROUND: The PRomoting Activity, Independence and Stability in Early Dementia (PrAISED) study delivered an exercise and functional activity programme to participants living with dementia. A Randomised Controlled Trial showed no measurable benefits in activities of daily living, physical activity or quality of life. OBJECTIVE: To explore participants' responses to PrAISED and explain why an intervention that might be expected to have produced measurable health gains did not do so. METHODS: A process evaluation using qualitative methods, comprising interviews and researcher notes. SETTING: Data were collected in participants' homes or remotely by telephone or videoconferencing. SAMPLE: A total of 88 interviews were conducted with 44 participants living with dementia (n = 32 intervention group; n = 12 control group) and 39 caregivers. A total of 69 interviews were conducted with 26 therapists. RESULTS: Participants valued the intervention as proactively addressing health issues that were of concern to them, and as a source of social contact, interaction, information and advice. Facilitators to achieving positive outcomes included perceiving progress towards desired goals, positive expectations, therapists' skills and rapport with participants, and caregiver support. Barriers included: cognitive impairment, which prevented independent engagement and carry-over between sessions; chronic physical health problems and intercurrent acute illness and injury; 'tapering' (progressively infrequent supervision intended to help develop habits and independent activity); and the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Self-directed interventions may not be appropriate in the context of dementia, even in the mild stages of the condition. Dementia-specific factors affected outcomes including caregiver support, rapport with therapists, availability of supervision, motivational factors and the limitations of remote delivery. The effects of cognitive impairment, multimorbidity and frailty overwhelmed any positive impact of the intervention. Maintenance of functional ability is valued, but in the face of inevitable progression of disease, other less tangible outcomes become important, challenging how we frame 'health gain' and trial outcomes

Measures of exposure to the Well London Phase-1 intervention and their association with health well-being and social outcomes

In this paper, we describe the measures of intervention exposure used in the cluster randomised trial of the Well London programme, a public health intervention using community engagement and community-based projects to increase physical activity, healthy eating and mental health and well-being in 20 of the most deprived neighbourhoods in London.10 No earmarked resources to support the development of these measures and associated data collection were provided to either the research team or to those delivering the interventions on the ground. Instead, these were derived from contractually specified performance management information reported quarterly by partners and by inclusion of questions seeking information about participation in the follow-up questionnaires used to measure the main trial outcomes. The exposure measures are consequently considerably less sophisticated than those used in the US studies, where earmarked funding was available

Measures of exposure to the Well London Phase-1 intervention and their association with health well-being and social outcomes

In this paper, we describe the measures of intervention exposure used in the cluster randomised trial of the Well London programme, a public health intervention using community engagement and community-based projects to increase physical activity, healthy eating and mental health and well-being in 20 of the most deprived neighbourhoods in London.10 No earmarked resources to support the development of these measures and associated data collection were provided to either the research team or to those delivering the interventions on the ground. Instead, these were derived from contractually specified performance management information reported quarterly by partners and by inclusion of questions seeking information about participation in the follow-up questionnaires used to measure the main trial outcomes. The exposure measures are consequently considerably less sophisticated than those used in the US studies, where earmarked funding was available

A cluster randomised trial of a telephone-based intervention for parents to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in their 3- to 5-year-old children: study protocol

Background: Inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption in childhood increases the risk of developing chronic disease. Despite this, a substantial proportion of children in developed nations, including Australia, do not consume sufficient quantities of fruits and vegetables. Parents are influential in the development of dietary habits of young children but often lack the necessary knowledge and skills to promote healthy eating in their children. The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of a telephone-based intervention for parents to increase the fruit and vegetable consumption of their 3- to 5-year-old children. Methods/Design: The study, conducted in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia, employs a cluster randomised controlled trial design. Two hundred parents from 15 randomly selected preschools will be randomised to receive the intervention, which consists of print resources and four weekly 30-minute telephone support calls delivered by trained telephone interviewers. The calls will assist parents to increase the availability and accessibility of fruit and vegetables in the home, create supportive family eating routines and role-model fruit and vegetable consumption. A further two hundred parents will be randomly allocated to the control group and will receive printed nutrition information only. The primary outcome of the trial will be the change in the child's consumption of fruit and vegetables as measured by the fruit and vegetable subscale of the Children's Dietary Questionnaire. Pre-intervention and post-intervention parent surveys will be administered over the telephone. Baseline surveys will occur one to two weeks prior to intervention delivery, with follow-up data collection calls occurring two, six, 12 and 18 months following baseline data collection. Discussion: If effective, this telephone-based intervention may represent a promising public health strategy to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in childhood and reduce the risk of subsequent chronic disease. Trial registration: Australian Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000820202