Writing Disability in ADHD Children

The psychological examination aims at objectifying the key symptoms of hyperactivity, i.e. attention and executive function disorders (in short, activation-inhibition control). The files of 237 patients from our consultations, aged between 5 and 17 years old and examined between 2004 and 2016, are analyzed retrospectively. Of whom 40 cases show the typical ADHD syndrome, mixed presentation, according to DSM-5 criteria. These ADHD children and adolescents show not only a characteristic impulsivity on computerized attention tests, but also a deficit in the acquisition of writing, an early manifestation of their neurodevelopmental disorders. This association correctly classifies 82.4% of hyperactives and controls, a strong effect given the difficult diagnosis of ADHD syndrome

Internalizing Dimensions Profiles of Children Referred for Externalizing Behaviours in School Psychological Services

Externalizing behaviours are among the most common and challenging childhood disorders. These behavioural traits are often associated with less obvious internal states, such as anxiety, depression or personality disorders, which are commonly ignored by mental health professionals. Recognizing and assessing these mood states in terms of anxiety level and depressive symptoms (especially self-esteem) and personality traits may help mental health specialist to design more effective interventions. 24 children aged 8 to 14 referred to school psychological services for disruptive behaviour disorders were compared to a control group, paired by age, gender and intellectual efficiency. Parents and teachers completed the Strenghs and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in order to assess disruptive behaviours. Manifest anxiety, depressive symptoms, personality traits were assessed using respectively the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (R-CMAS), the Multiscore Depression Inventory for Children (MDI-C), and the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (HiPIC). Children with externalizing disorders presented many discreet indices of affective distress as higher level of physiological anxiety, sad mood, instrumental helplessness, social introversion, pessimism and lower level of conscientiousness and benevolence. These results should encourage child and adolescent’s clinicians to screen for psychological vulnerabilities during a holistic psychological assessment including self-report questionnaires and child interviews in addition to the classical parents or teachers’ questionnaires

Les enfants-adultes de parents alcooliques : Entre fragilités et ressources

L’alcoolisme parental est une réalité qui demeure tabou dans notre société actuelle. Ce phénomène a des conséquences néfastes pour la personne alcoolique mais également pour les proches, notamment les enfants. Selon Addiction Suisse (2018), 100'000 enfants auraient au moins un parent dépendant

JDM treatment with rituximab Personal non-commercial use only

ABSTRACT. Objective. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of rituximab (RTX) in juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) in off-trial patients. Methods. We conducted a multicenter prospective study of patients with JDM included in the French Autoimmunity and Rituximab (AIR) registry. Results. Nine patients with severe JDM were studied. The main indication for RTX treatment was severe and/or refractory muscle involvement (7 patients), severe calcinosis (1 patient), or severe chronic abdominal pain associated with abdominal lipomatosis (1 patient). RTX was associated with corticosteroids, immunosuppressive drugs, and plasma exchange therapy in 9/9, 5/9, and 2/9 patients, respectively. Mild infections of the calcinosis sites occurred in 2 patients and an infusion-related event in 1. Complete clinical response was achieved in 3/6 patients treated with RTX for muscle involvement. In these responders steroid therapy was stopped or tapered to < 15% of the baseline dosage, with no relapse, with a followup ranging from 1.3 to 3 years. Calcinosis did not improve in the 6 affected patients. Conclusion. This small series suggests that rituximab may be effective for treating muscle and skin involvement in a small subset of children with severe JDM, and that its safety profile was satisfactory. Further studies are needed to identify predictive factors of response to RTX in patients with sever

Higher COVID-19 pneumonia risk associated with anti-IFN-α than with anti-IFN-ω auto-Abs in children

We found that 19 (10.4%) of 183 unvaccinated children hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia had autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I IFNs (IFN-alpha 2 in 10 patients: IFN-alpha 2 only in three, IFN-alpha 2 plus IFN-omega in five, and IFN-alpha 2, IFN-omega plus IFN-beta in two; IFN-omega only in nine patients). Seven children (3.8%) had Abs neutralizing at least 10 ng/ml of one IFN, whereas the other 12 (6.6%) had Abs neutralizing only 100 pg/ml. The auto-Abs neutralized both unglycosylated and glycosylated IFNs. We also detected auto-Abs neutralizing 100 pg/ml IFN-alpha 2 in 4 of 2,267 uninfected children (0.2%) and auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-omega in 45 children (2%). The odds ratios (ORs) for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia were, therefore, higher for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-alpha 2 only (OR [95% CI] = 67.6 [5.7-9,196.6]) than for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-. only (OR [95% CI] = 2.6 [1.2-5.3]). ORs were also higher for auto-Abs neutralizing high concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 12.9 [4.6-35.9]) than for those neutralizing low concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 5.5 [3.1-9.6]) of IFN-omega and/or IFN-alpha 2

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Type I interferon-mediated autoinflammation due to DNase II deficiency

Microbial nucleic acid recognition serves as the major stimulus to an antiviral response, implying a requirement to limit the misrepresentation of self nucleic acids as non-self and the induction of autoinflammation. By systematic screening using a panel of interferon-stimulated genes we identify two siblings and a singleton variably demonstrating severe neonatal anemia, membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, liver fibrosis, deforming arthropathy and increased anti-DNA antibodies. In both families we identify biallelic mutations in DNASE2, associated with a loss of DNase II endonuclease activity. We record increased interferon alpha protein levels using digital ELISA, enhanced interferon signaling by RNA-Seq analysis and constitutive upregulation of phosphorylated STAT1 and STAT3 in patient lymphocytes and monocytes. A hematological disease transcriptomic signature and increased numbers of erythroblasts are recorded in patient peripheral blood, suggesting that interferon might have a particular effect on hematopoiesis. These data define a type I interferonopathy due to DNase II deficiency in humans

Le développement de la temporalité : théorie et instrument de mesure du temps notionnel chez l'enfant

Les aléas du développement de la temporalité chez l'enfant passent souvent inaperçus, masqués par divers troubles psychopathologiques. Le temps constitue toutefois une dimension essentielle de l'adaptation scolaire, familiale ou sociale. En première partie, cet article retrace la psychogenèse de la temporalité et plus particulièrement le développement du temps notionnel et le développement des notions cinématiques. La seconde partie est consacrée à la présentation du questionnaire temporel pour l'enfant (QTE), étalonné sur un échantillon de 153 enfants de 6 à 13 ans. Cet instrument d'évaluation du temps notionnel offre au clinicien un outil de screening permettant d'identifier les difficultés temporelles chez les enfants

Revue des modèles et théories sur les hyperactivités de l'enfant : Antagonisme ou complémentarité? [A review of child ADHD theories and models: Antagonism or complementary?]

Child hyperactivity is a puzzling presentation for parents, teachers and Child Mental Health Professionals. The latter have developed a number of concepts and theories that are an attempt at explaining the nature and origin of various behavioural disorders. As a result, children and parents are confronted to a myriad of theories, sometimes contradictory. Child psychologists play a paramount role in linking together those various representations during initial consultations with families. The present literature review aims to introduce the principal theoretical models of hyperactivity (neuropsychological, neurobiological, psychodynamic and temperament)

La représentation du Haut Potentiel Intellectuel ( HPI ) partagée par les pédiatres

Le Haut Potentiel Intellectuel ( HPI ) est un vaste sujet qui alimente les revues scientifiques et les publications destinées à un large public. Au sein de la Consultation psychologique de l’enfant et de l’adolescent de l’Université de Lausanne, une hausse flagrante des demandes faisant apparaître cette thématique a été observée depuis plusieurs années. Cet engouement incite à étudier le phénomène du HPI en tant que figure sociale, construite par une association complexe de connaissances, d’idéologies et de croyances. Le concept de représentation sociale de Serge Moscovici a servi de cadre théorique à une étude exploratoire qualitative ciblant les pédiatres. Celle-ci s’inscrit dans la continuité d’une étude quantitative déjà menée auprès de ce groupe social spécifique. En considérant que la représentation du HPI partagée par les pédiatres est en mesure d’impacter les demandes de bilan, il est apparu pertinent d’explorer le contenu de cette représentation