Publications by authors named "A Pickles"

Background: Most children with developmental disabilities (DD) live in low- and middle-income countries, but access to services is limited, impacting their ability to thrive. Pilot study findings of the World Health Organization's Caregiver Skills Training (WHO CST) intervention, which equips caregivers with strategies to facilitate learning and adaptive behaviours in children with DD, are promising but evidence from an appropriately powered trial delivered by non-specialist facilitators is lacking. This study will investigate the effectiveness and the resource impacts and costs and consequences of the WHO CST intervention in four sites in rural and urban Kenya and Ethiopia.

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Cognitive markers may in theory be more sensitive to the effects of intervention than overt behavioral measures. The current study tests the impact of the Intervention with the British Autism Study of Infant Siblings-Video Interaction for Promoting Positive Parenting (iBASIS-VIPP) on an eye-tracking measure of social attention: dwell time to the referred object in a gaze following task. The original two-site, two-arm, assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT) of this intervention to increase parental awareness, and responsiveness to their infant, was run with infants who have an elevated familial likelihood for autism (EL).

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Objective: Routine evaluation and surveillance imaging after pituitary adenoma (PA) endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal resection (EETS) is a neurosurgical practice to identify tumor recurrence. This study aims to identify social and clinical factors that may contribute to patients missing their initial 1-year follow-up appointment and provide guidance for targeted education to improve patient adherence with postoperative treatment plans, ultimately reducing unknown adenoma recurrence.

Methods: The authors performed a single-center retrospective review of patients who underwent EETS for PAs from 2007 to 2023.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and reliability of two observational tools for assessing parent-infant interactions, focusing on shorter observation periods to identify families needing intervention.
  • A sample of 250 mother-infant dyads engaged in 7-minute play sessions, and the interactions were analyzed for predictive validity concerning future mental health and attachment outcomes.
  • The results highlighted that both the PIIOS total score and a brief NICHD-3 score from a 5-minute observation were reliable tools in clinical settings, with the NICHD-3 showing advantages in training ease and broader application over time.
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Autism sibling recurrence in prospective infant family history studies is ~20% at 3 years but systematic follow-up to mid-childhood is rare. In population and clinical cohorts autism is not recognized in some children until school-age or later. One hundred and fifty-nine infants with an older sibling with autism underwent research diagnostic assessments at 3 years and mid-childhood (6 to 12 years (mean 9)).

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