Motor Performance in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech and Speech Sound Disorders

Purpose: This study sought to determine if (a) children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), other speech sound disorders (SSDs), and typical development (TD) would perform differently on a standardized motor assessment and (b) whether comorbid language impairment would impact group differences. Method: Speech, language, and motor abilities were assessed in children with CAS (n = 10), SSD (n = 16), and TD (n = 14) between the ages of 43 and 105 months. Motor skills were evaluated using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-Second Edition (Henderson, Sugden, & Barnett, 2007), a behavioral assessment that is sensitive in identifying fine/gross motor impairments in children with a range of motor and learning abilities. Data were reanalyzed after reclassifying children by language ability. Results: The CAS group performed below the normal limit on all components of the motor assessment and more poorly than the TD and SSD groups on Aiming and Catching and Balance. When children were reclassified by language ability, the comorbid CAS + language impairment group performed worse than the SSD-only and TD groups on Manual Dexterity and Balance and worse than the TD group on Aiming and Catching; all 7 children with CAS + language impairment evidenced performance in the disordered range compared to 1 of 3 children in the CAS-only group and 2 of 6 children in the SSD + language impairment group. Conclusions: Children with CAS + language impairment appear to be at an increased risk for motor impairments, which may negatively impact social, academic, and vocational outcomes; referrals for motor screenings/assessments should be considered. Findings may suggest a higher order deficit that mediates cognitive-linguistic and motor impairments in this population

A Comparison of Oral Motor and Production Training for Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Despite the many debates about the usefulness of nonspeech oral motor exercises (NSOMEs) in the treatment of speech disorders, few controlled experiments have evaluated their efficacy in the remediation of phonological/articulatory disorders (PADs). More importantly, the relative effect of NSOMEs compared with traditional production treatment (PT) has not been established. The current study employed an alternating treatment design to evaluate changes in production of sounds targeted by NSOMEs and PT in nine children with PAD. Each subject received treatment on two linguistically distinct sounds in which one sound was treated with NSOMEs and the second sound was targeted with PT. The difference in treatment efficacy, measured as the percentage change in target production for NSOMEs versus PT, was compared using a paired t test. Because NSOMEs typically are used to ready a child for subsequent PT, comparison of PT treatment accuracy was made between NSOME-first and PT-first sessions. Results demonstrated a statistically significant effect of treatment type with greater production gains with PT compared with NSOMEs. Further, no facilitative effect of NSOMEs on PT was noted; however, the choice of distinct treatment targets may have contributed to this null effect. Although additional investigation is warranted, the current investigation does not support the efficacy of NSOMEs in the treatment of PAD

Short and long distance translocations: Movement and survival in eastern box turtles (_Terrapene carolina carolina_)

*Background/Question/Methods*

Human development represents a serious threat to wildlife populations through continued habitat loss and incidental mortality from construction activities. Resource managers responsible for protecting species with legal status or high public profile are faced with difficult decisions on how to best manage populations located in construction zones. One approach to mitigate mortalities is to relocate individuals. The effectiveness of translocation for reptiles and amphibians has been questioned, with studies often reporting higher mortality and increased movements of translocated individuals. Translocations of reptiles and amphibians have primarily involved moving animals long distances, well beyond an individual’s home range. For reptiles this means finding new nesting, foraging, and overwintering sites, which may be problematic. Moving individuals only short distances, within their home range, may reduce those problems. As part of the mitigation plan for a highway construction project in central Maryland, groups of eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina) were translocated both short distances (<0.5km), and long distances (~5km). To investigate differences in survival and movement patterns among long distance translocation, short distance translocation, and non-translocation groups, I tracked 94 turtles (31 long distance translocation, 29 short distance translocation, and 34 non-translocation) using radio telemetry. 

*Results/Conclusions*

Eleven animals died during the first activity season after translocation (April through November 2008). The mortalities included two long distance translocation, six short distance translocation, and three non-translocation animals. The causes of mortality included road kill, construction activity, and unknown (1, 4, and 6 mortalities respectively). All construction related mortalities were a result inadequate exclusion fencing to keep turtles from trespassing back onto the construction site. All mortalities due to construction were either non-translocation or short distance translocation animals. Eleven other individuals were located at least once within the construction zone, suggesting that without our intervention mortality rates would have been much higher. Preliminary results for movement show that turtles in the non-translocation group had the lowest average movements while long distance translocation animals had the greatest average movements. Long distance translocation turtles also chose overwintering sites farther away from their initial overwintering sites than either short distance translocation or non-translocation turtles (average distance from original site of 261.8m, 155.6m, and 124.3m respectively). This suggests that movement patterns of short distance translocation turtles are more like native turtles.
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Space, the new frontier

Space program - high thrust boosters with greater payload capabilities, superior guidance and control, and astronaut trainin

Uneven Encounters

In Uneven Encounters, Micol Seigel chronicles the exchange of popular culture between Brazil and the United States in the years between the World Wars, and demonstrates how that exchange affected ideas of race and nation in both countries. From Americans interpreting advertisements for Brazilian coffee or dancing the Brazilian maxixe, to Rio musicians embracing the “foreign” qualities of jazz, Seigel traces a lively, cultural back and forth. Along the way, she shows how race and nation for both elites and non-elites are constructed together, and driven by global cultural and intellectual currents as well as local, regional, and national ones. Seigel explores the circulation of images of Brazilian coffee and of maxixe in the United States during the period just after the imperial expansions of the early twentieth century. Exoticist interpretations structured North Americans’ paradoxical sense of themselves as productive “consumer citizens.” Some people, however, could not simply assume the privileges of citizenship. In their struggles against racism, Afro-descended citizens living in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, New York, and Chicago encountered images and notions of each other, and found them useful. Seigel introduces readers to cosmopolitan Afro-Brazilians and African Americans who rarely traveled far from home but who nonetheless absorbed ideas from abroad. She suggests that studies comparing U.S. and Brazilian racial identities as two distinct constructions are misconceived. Racial formation transcends national borders; attempts to understand it must do the same

Infrared Radiation and the Warming of the Atmosphere

Student`s will learn 1) Explain how Earth’s atmosphere is like the glass in a greenhouse. 2)Explain how absorption of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases like CO2 causes more collisions between atmospheric gases and a resulting rise in temperatur

Simulating the effects of coated ice nuclei in the formation of thin ice clouds in the high arctic using RAMS

2010 Spring.Covers not scanned.Includes bibliographical references.The Polar regions are an integral part of Earth's energy budget, however they are poorly understood mainly due to their remoteness and lack of observations. The recent launch of two successful satellites, CloudSat and CALIPSO, into the A-Train constellation are providing excellent insight into wintertime clouds and precipitation at the Poles. One distinguishable characteristic seen from satellite data during Arctic winter and spring is an optically thin cloud containing ice crystals large enough to precipitate out. These "thin ice clouds" (TIC) occur in regions affected by anthropogenic pollution. It is hypothesized that the anthropogenic pollution, likely sulfuric acid, coat the available ice forming nuclei (IN) and render them inactive for forming ice crystals. Therefore, the effective IN concentrations are reduced in these regions and there is less competition for the same available moisture leading to the formation of relatively small concentrations of large ice crystals. The ice crystals grow large enough for sedimentation, which dehydrates the Arctic atmosphere. We use Colorado State University's Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) configured as a cloud resolving high-resolution model (CRM) with horizontal grid-spacing of 1 00m to simulate these TI C's. Varying ice nuclei (IN) concentrations from 5 L-1 to 100L-1 are used to simulate the effects of the acidic coating, whereby the low IN concentration represents the IN particles containing the acidic coating. Results show no concrete evidence in support of the hypothesis. Therefore, a sensitivity experiment is conducted to identify the environmental conditions that maximize the production of TIC's. Results indicate that an increase in both the temperature and supersaturation relative to observations provide a better environment for the production of TIC's

Risk Factors and Their Effects on the Comorbidity of Asthma and Anxiety Disorders in School Aged Children

Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease, characterized by attacks that make a child or adult feel like they are unable to breathe (Shohat, Graif, & Garty, 2005). Currently, nearly 6.3 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are afflicted with asthma (EPA, 2006) Children with asthma are also more prone to developing other disorders especially, anxiety. The prevalence of child patients with asthma suffering from anxiety disorders is found to be as high as 4.7% (Katon, Richardson, Lozano & McCauley, 2004). The current study aims to examine the risk factors that contribute to the comorbidity of asthma and anxiety in pediatric patients. Several risk factors can lend themselves to this comorbidity and it is hypothesized that there are four prevalent ones. The risk factors were drawn from the biological, environmental, and familial domains. They include asthma severity levels, socioeconomic status, amount of stress in the family and parent mental health. There were five main measures used in the study. The Functional Severity Scale determined asthma severity. Socioeconomic status was determined by using the Hollingshead Index. Parent mental health status was assessed through the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and family stress levels through the Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE). The primary caregiver completed all four measures during their lab visit. Participants ranged between 8-12 years of age along with their primary caregivers. Ninety-three percent of the primary caregivers were mothers. They were drawn from a sample pool from the Family Life and Asthma Project, an on-going study based inSyracuse,New York. Seventy-two families were selected based on which children completed the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC), a measure of childhood anxiety. Overall, it was found that family stress levels, socioeconomic status, and the severity of the child’s asthma all had significant effects on child anxiety levels. The only factor that did not have a significant effect was the level of parent depression or anxiety. When the risk factors were looked at as one combined risk factor, levels of anxiety rose with the presence of zero, one, or two risk factors. However, when children had three, four, or five risk factors in their lives, anxiety increased and decreased inconsistently