Centre-based early education interventions for improving school readiness: A systematic review.

Background: Globally, children are legally obliged to attend school at a certain age (ranging from 4 to 7 years old). Developmental differences are rarely considered at school entry nor are they always reflected in the teaching and learning environment. Children who start school without being ready to cope may be significantly disadvantaged.

Measuring the impact of therapy on medication use: data-linkage study.

Background: The psychological therapies service (PTS) in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, in Northern Ireland, provides therapies to adults with moderate or severe mental health difficulties. Psychometric outcomes data are routinely collected to assess if a patient demonstrates significant improvement in their main presenting problem area following therapy. The wider impact of therapy is not fully measured in the outcomes database as this would be disproportionately burdensome for both patient and therapist.

Young People's Understanding of Coercive Control in Northern Ireland.

Coercive control and related research have progressed significantly in the past number of years, with an ever-growing evidence base adding to its construct. However, currently there is a lack of evidence on young people's knowledge and understanding of coercive control. We included a module of questions in the 2020 Northern Ireland Young Life and Life and Times survey ( = 2,069) with the aim of capturing baseline measurable data on understanding of coercive control within intimate relationships among 16-year olds.

Healthcare staff mental health trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic: findings from the COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey.

Background: Cross-sectional studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of healthcare staff. However, it is less well understood how working over the long term in successive COVID-19 waves affects staff well-being.

Aims: To identify subpopulations within the health and social care staff workforce with differentiated trajectories of mental health symptoms during phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psychological support for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study involving support providers.

Healthcare staff represent a high-risk group for mental health difficulties as a result of their role during the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of wellbeing initiatives have been implemented to support this population, but remain largely untested in terms of their impact on both the recipients and providers of supports. To examine the experience of staff support providers in delivering psychological initiatives to healthcare staff, as well as obtain feedback on their perceptions of the effectiveness of different forms of support.

COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey: longitudinal survey of psychological well-being among health and social care staff in Northern Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health and social care workers have faced unprecedented professional demands, all of which are likely to have placed considerable strain on their psychological well-being.

Aims: To measure the national prevalence of mental health symptoms within healthcare staff, and identify individual and organisational predictors of well-being.

Method: The COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey is a longitudinal online survey of psychological well-being among health and social care staff in Northern Ireland.

New psychoactives within polydrug use trajectories-evidence from a mixed-method longitudinal study.

Aims: To provide public health-related research evidence on types and usage patterns of new psychoactive substances (NPS), developmental pathways into NPS and decision-making factors for, and associated harms of, NPS use.

Design: Three-phase mixed-methods design, including a latent class analysis (LCA) of the longitudinal Belfast Youth Development Study (BYDS), a narrative analysis of interviews with NPS users and a three-step approach manual method modelling using regressions to reveal classes of substance use and their associated predictors and outcomes.

Setting: Northern Ireland.

School bonding and ethos in trajectories of offending: Results from the Belfast Youth Development Study.

Background: Aspects of the school environment, such as school attachment levels, are linked to adolescent offending. Previous research has not clarified whether a school- or individual-level intervention approach to improving pupil school attachment and commitment is most likely to reduce adolescent offending.

Aim: The present study assessed the impact of individual- and school-level variables on offending behaviour from ages 14-16 years.

Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Peer, Family, and School Contextual Influences on Adolescent Drinking Frequency.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to identify the mechanisms relating to parental control, adolescent secrecy, and school context that shape patterns of adolescent drinking frequency and appraise the implications for systems-level intervention.

Methods: The Belfast Youth Development Study collected information on friendship networks in schools, alcohol use, and Stattin and Kerr's parental monitoring subscales across 5 years of postprimary school education in annual waves from age 11-15 years. Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models were fitted to 22 schools (N = 3,220) to assess friendship formation and peer influence processes related to drinking frequency and their variation by parental control or child secrecy.

The Belfast Youth Development Study (BYDS): A prospective cohort study of the initiation, persistence and desistance of substance use from adolescence to adulthood in Northern Ireland.

Background: Substance misuse persists as a major public health issue worldwide with significant costs for society. The development of interventions requires methodologically sound studies to explore substance misuse causes and consequences. This Cohort description paper outlines the design of the Belfast Youth Development (BYDS), one of the largest cohort studies of its kind in the UK.

Psychological Well-being Trajectories of Individuals with Dyslexia Aged 3-11 Years.

Dyslexia has been associated with a range of psychological well-being issues in childhood. However, it is unclear if these difficulties stem from coping with academic struggles at school, or from other pre-existing diagnoses that sometimes co-occur with dyslexia. Using UK Millennium Cohort Study data (n = 7224) from 2003 to 2011, the present study compared psychological well-being development from ages 3-11 years for children with (1) dyslexia only; (2) special educational needs excluding dyslexia; (3) comorbid dyslexia and other special educational needs; and (4) no special educational needs.

Staff Training in Autism: The One-Eyed Wo/Man….

Having well-trained staff is key to ensuring good quality autism services, especially since people affected with autism generally tend to have higher support needs than other populations in terms of daily living, as well as their mental and physical health. Poorly-trained staff can have detrimental effects on service provision and staff morale and can lead to staff burn-out, as well as increased service user anxiety and stress. This paper reports on a survey with health, social care, and education staff who work within the statutory autism services sector in the UK that explored their knowledge and training with regards to autism.

Creating an Inclusive Society… How Close are We in Relation to Autism Spectrum Disorder? A General Population Survey.

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder are increasingly educated in mainstream classrooms in the United Kingdom (Wilkinson & Twist, Autism and Educational Assessment: UK Policy and Practice. NFER, Slough, 2010), and some employers are now specifically seeking out staff on the autism spectrum. Does that mean that we are living in an 'inclusive society' [United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Creating an Inclusive Society: Practical Strategies to Promote Social Integration 2008], in the sense that inequalities are reduced and full economic, social and cultural participation is advanced for individuals with autism?

Methods: A general population survey was conducted to assess how close we, as a society, are to an inclusive society for individuals with autism in Northern Ireland.

The Millennium child with autism: early childhood trajectories for health, education and economic wellbeing.

Objective: Most of what we know about children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is based on post-diagnostic, retrospective, self-select studies. Oftentimes, there is no direct comparison between trajectories of children with ASD and children without ASD.

Methods: To circumvent both of these problems, the present secondary data analysis utilised a large-scale longitudinal general population survey of children born in the year 2000 (i.

Dyslexia in higher education: implications for maths anxiety, statistics anxiety and psychological well-being.

This study examined levels of mathematics and statistics anxiety, as well as general mental health amongst undergraduate students with dyslexia (n = 28) and those without dyslexia (n = 71). Students with dyslexia had higher levels of mathematics anxiety relative to those without dyslexia, while statistics anxiety and general mental health were comparable for both reading ability groups. In terms of coping strategies, undergraduates with dyslexia tended to use planning-based strategies and seek instrumental support more frequently than those without dyslexia.

IQCB1 and PDE6B mutations cause similar early onset retinal degenerations in two closely related terrier dog breeds.

Purpose: To identify the causative mutations in two early-onset canine retinal degenerations, crd1 and crd2, segregating in the American Staffordshire terrier and the Pit Bull Terrier breeds, respectively.

Methods: Retinal morphology of crd1- and crd2-affected dogs was evaluated by light microscopy. DNA was extracted from affected and related unaffected controls.

A non-stop S-antigen gene mutation is associated with late onset hereditary retinal degeneration in dogs.

Purpose: To identify the causative mutation of canine progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) segregating as an adult onset autosomal recessive disorder in the Basenji breed of dog.

Methods: Basenji dogs were ascertained for the PRA phenotype by clinical ophthalmoscopic examination. Blood samples from six affected cases and three nonaffected controls were collected, and DNA extraction was used for a genome-wide association study using the canine HD Illumina single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array and PLINK.

Strategic development in exact calculation: group and individual differences in four achievement subtypes.

This longitudinal study sought to identify developmental changes in strategy use between 5 and 7 years of age when solving exact calculation problems. Four mathematics and reading achievement subtypes were examined at four time points. Five strategies were considered: finger counting, verbal counting, delayed retrieval, automatic retrieval, and derived fact retrieval.

An ADAM9 mutation in canine cone-rod dystrophy 3 establishes homology with human cone-rod dystrophy 9.

Purpose: To identify the causative mutation in a canine cone-rod dystrophy (crd3) that segregates as an adult onset disorder in the Glen of Imaal Terrier breed of dog.

Methods: Glen of Imaal Terriers were ascertained for crd3 phenotype by clinical ophthalmoscopic examination, and in selected cases by electroretinography. Blood samples from affected cases and non-affected controls were collected and used, after DNA extraction, to undertake a genome-wide association study using Affymetrix Version 2 Canine single nucleotide polymorphism chips and 250K Sty Assay protocol.

Phonological awareness and mathematical difficulty: a longitudinal perspective.

The present longitudinal study sought to investigate the impact of poor phonology on children's mathematical status. From a screening sample of 256 five-year-olds, 82 children were identified as either typically achieving (TA; N = 31), having comorbid poor phonology and mathematical difficulties (PDMD; N = 31), or having only poor phonology (phonological difficulty, PD; N = 20). Children were assessed on eight components of informal and formal mathematics achievement at ages 5-7 years.

Individual differences in trajectories of arithmetical development in typically achieving 5- to 7-year-olds.

The arithmetical performance of typically achieving 5- to 7-year-olds (N=29) was measured at four 6-month intervals. The same seven tasks were used at each time point: exact calculation, story problems, approximate arithmetic, place value, calculation principles, forced retrieval, and written problems. Although group analysis showed mostly linear growth over the 18-month period, analysis of individual differences revealed a much more complex picture.