Contributions of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale to Measuring Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression

The first objective of this study was to separate the contributions of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ) and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS) to maladaptive cognitive patterns in their relations to symptoms of depression and their potential developmental origins: emotional maltreatment, parents’ typical feedback styles, and parents’ dysfunctional attitudes regarding their offspring. Other objectives were to examine these relations in the context of symptoms of anxiety and to learn whether selected aspects of the Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Project (CVD Project; Alloy, & Abramson, 1999) would generalize to a distinctive sample (n = 98). The same relations between the DAS and the CSQ and depression and developmental origins emerged as in the CVD Project,  but relations with the DAS were somewhat more robust.

早期护理干预对缺血缺氧性脑病患儿智力及行为发育的影响

目的:研究早期护理干预对缺血缺氧性脑病(H IE)患儿智力及行为发育的影响。方法:采用自行设计的早期干预方法,对患儿的视觉、听觉、感觉等给予不同的刺激,加以新生儿抚触、水浴抚触及中医穴位针灸等措施,对干预组患儿进行实施,另设对照组只行一般发育了解。结果:干预组患儿的智力及行为发育指数与对照组相比均有显著性差异。结论:早期护理干预能促进缺血缺氧性脑病患儿的智力及行为的发育,帮助他们尽早康复。     

护理人力资源开发策略的探讨

目的 通过切实了解医疗管理者的人力资源开发的经验,探讨护理人力资源开发的策略,以期为相关政府部门政策的制订提供依据.方法 质性描述采用深度访谈法收集13名医疗机构管理者的资料,进行现场记录(或录音),并用Colaizzi的分析程序进行分析.结果 通过阅读、分析、反思、分类和提炼,总结了2个方面的内容:一是护理人力资源开发的政策导向;二是护理人力资源开发的政策与措施,分别由4个子项和7个子项组成.结论 护理人力资源的开发受多种因素影响,需要国家、社会、医院以及护士本人共同的努力.     

Developmental changes in visuo-spatial working memory in normally developing children: Event-related potentials study

Objective: Working memory (WM) is very important for normal development. The fronto-parietal neuronal network supporting WM has already been well-studied. Less is known about the cortical activity changes during development of WM. We evaluated the maturation of visual WM network at the electrophysiological level in a group of normally developing children. Methods: Multichannel (n = 31) event-related potentials (ERP) were measured during a visuo-spatial backmatching task in 69 childrens (6–16 years old). One-backmatching (BM1) and two-backmatching (BM2) tasks were performed. Age-related changes in behavioral parameters (commission and omission errors and reaction times) and ERP parameters (peak amplitudes and latencies) were analyzed between different ages. Results: Clear improvement in performance from young childhood toward adolescence was seen at the behavioral level: decrease of errors and fastening of reaction times. At the electrophysiological level age-related changes were seen in peak latencies and especially in amplitudes. Different peaks have different dynamics in amplitudes and latencies: early peak amplitude decreased and latency shortened with age, which was not always seen in late peaks. This reflects developmental changes in intensity and speed of WM processing. Later peaks were more clearly seen over the right hemisphere in older children, illustrating hemispheric lateralization in visuo-spatial working memory. Conclusions: Our results indicate that not only at the behavioral but also at the electrophysiological level clear age-related dynamics in WM processing can be seen. Furthermore, with ERP we showed that different WM components follow different developmental trajectories. Significance: Our work demonstrates that age-related dynamics in intensity and speed of information processing during WM task is reflected in developmental changes in different ERP components. It also states that fronto-parietal visual WM network can be functional even before all its nodes are fully mature.     

Disability as a risk factor? Development of psychopathology in children with disabilities

Empirical research has established that children with disabilities are more likely to develop psychopathology than children without disabilities. But too little is known about the association between disability and psychopathology. The aim of this article is to discuss developmental psychopathological models that conceptualise the connection between childhood disability and psychopathology. Empirical studies of psychopathology among children with a congenital hearing impairment and children with cerebral palsy will be reviewed, representing in-depth examples of association between disability and psychopathology. Both a congenital hearing impairment and cerebral palsy were found to be dominating risk factors for all types of psychopathology, but no relationship was identified between degree of disability and risk of psychopathology. The higher risk cannot be explained by biological impairments alone. To explain the contradictory findings, developmental models of disability and psychopathology are applied. Within a multi-factorial developmental psychopathological perspective and a dialectical model of disability (Vygotsky, 1993), it is suggested that disability can be understood as an incongruence between the individual development of the child and demands and expectations in the specific relations and institutions in which the child participates. This incongruence creates and strengthens negative factors for the child with disability and results in a higher risk of psychopathology.     

The influence of syllable position on children's production of consonants

Two studies examined consonant production by 13 children with delayed phonological skills. Study 1 examined patterns of substitution errors in word-initial, word-final and intervocalic positions of two-syllable words with a strong-weak stress pattern. For phonemes that were misarticulated in at least one word position, intervocalic consonant production was most likely to be the same as the word-final consonant production, but different from the word-initial consonant production. Study 2 examined proportions of matches and mismatches for features in five positions of multisyllabic words: (1) syllable-initial, word-initial, (2) syllable-initial, within-word, (3) intervocalic before an unstressed syllable, (4) syllable-final, within-word, and (5) syllable-final, word-final. Significant variations in match ratios were observed as a function of syllable position. A number of different patterns of position-dependent errors were observed.     

Mapping connectivity in the developing brain

Recently, there has been a wealth of research into structural and functional brain connectivity, and how they change over development. While we are far from a complete understanding, these studies have yielded important insights into human brain development. There is an ever growing variety of methods for assessing connectivity, each with its own advantages. Here we review research on the development of structural and/or functional brain connectivity in both typically developing subjects and subjects with neurodevelopmental disorders. Space limitations preclude an exhaustive review of brain connectivity across all developmental disorders, so we review a representative selection of recent findings on brain connectivity in autism, Fragile X, 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, Williams syndrome, Turner syndrome, and ADHD. Major strides have been made in understanding the developmental trajectory of the human connectome, offering insight into characteristic features of brain development and biological processes involved in developmental brain disorders. We also discuss some common themes, including hemispheric specialization – or asymmetry – and sex differences. We conclude by discussing some promising future directions in connectomics, including the merger of imaging and genetics, and a deeper investigation of the relationships between structural and functional connectivity.     

Toll-like receptor 9 deficiency impacts sensory and motor behaviors

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) mediate the induction of the innate immune system in response to pathogens, injury and disease. However, they also play non-immune roles and are expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) during prenatal and postnatal stages including adulthood. Little is known about their roles in the CNS in the absence of pathology. Several members of the TLR family have been implicated in the development of neural and cognitive function although the contribution of TLR9 to these processes has not been well defined. The current studies were undertaken to determine whether developmental TLR9 deficiency affects motor, sensory or cognitive functions.We report that TLR9 deficient (TLR9^−/−) mice show a hyper-responsive sensory and motor phenotype compared to wild type (TLR9^+/+) controls. This is indicated by hypersensitivity to thermal stimuli in the hot plate paw withdrawal test, enhanced motor-responsivity under anxious conditions in the open field test and greater sensorimotor reactivity in the acoustic startle response. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response was also enhanced, which indicates abnormal sensorimotor gating. In addition, subtle, but significant, gait abnormalities were noted in the TLR9^−/− mice on the horizontal balance beam test with higher foot slip numbers than TLR9^+/+ controls. In contrast, spatial learning and memory, assessed by the Morris water maze, was similar in the TLR9^−/− and TLR9^+/+ mice. These findings support the notion that TLR9 is important for the appropriate development of sensory and motor behaviors.     

The relationship between early speech and later speech and language performance for children with cleft lip and palate

This study examined the relationship between speech measures at presurgery/9 months and postsurgery/13 months and speech and language performance at 21 months for children with cleft lip and palate and their noncleft peers. Comparisons were also made between the speech and lexical development of children with cleft lip and palate and noncleft children at 21 months of age. The participants included 30 children; 15 with cleft lip and palate and 15 noncleft children. Results revealed differences between the groups for several measures of speech and lexical development at 21 months. For the children with cleft palate, correlational analyses suggested that true stop production, both immediately before and after palatal surgery, was positively correlated with a majority of the speech production measures at 21 months. At postsurgery/13 months, true stop production was related to later vocabulary development, and size of true consonant inventory was related to all measure of speech production and one measure of lexical development at 21 months. For the noncleft group, true canonical babbling ratio at 13 months was the only measure that was significantly correlated with any of the speech and/or language measures at 21 months. The impact of clefting on prelinguistic and later speech and language skills is discussed.