A Look in the Mirror: Unveiling Human Rights Issues Within Social Work Education.

Using a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, this study explored the financial effect of the field practicum requirement on BSW students. This project was conducted at a mid-sized university in the Southwest region of the United States where current and recent field students responded to surveys and social work field instructors and faculty participated in interviews. The study describes financial burdens and reveals human rights issues affecting nontraditional and underserved students that have answered the call to a career of serving the most vulnerable in society.

Avatar assistant: improving social skills in students with an ASD through a computer-based intervention.

This study assessed the efficacy of FaceSay, a computer-based social skills training program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This randomized controlled study (N = 49) indicates that providing children with low-functioning autism (LFA) and high functioning autism (HFA) opportunities to practice attending to eye gaze, discriminating facial expressions and recognizing faces and emotions in FaceSay's structured environment with interactive, realistic avatar assistants improved their social skills abilities. The children with LFA demonstrated improvements in two areas of the intervention: emotion recognition and social interactions.

Surgical outcomes for velopharyngeal insufficiency in velocardiofacial syndrome and nonsyndromic patients.

Objective: To compare speech outcomes after operative intervention for velopharyngeal insufficiency between velocardiofacial syndrome patients and nonsyndromic patients.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Tertiary academic center.

Arterial embolization in the management of posterior epistaxis.

Objectives: Treatment of severe epistaxis can encompass many modalities. Control rates with all treatments are good. Morbidity among treatment groups varies.

Otolaryngologic manifestations of PHACE syndrome.

Two case reports of PHACE syndrome (posterior fossa malformations (P), hemangiomas (H), arterial anomalies (A), coarctation of the aorta and cardiac defects (C), and eye abnormalities (E)) are presented. Clinical characteristics consisted of cutaneous and airway hemangiomas, aortic coarctation, and left superior vena cava in one child and cutaneous and airway hemangiomas, sternal clefting, and supraumbilical raphe in the other child. Treatment modalities included systemic and intralesional steroids for cutaneous and airway hemangiomas, submucosal resection and laryngotracheal reconstruction for airway hemangiomas, repair of aortic coarctation, and laser treatment of cutaneous hemangiomas.