Developing a Tool for Measuring Parent Knowledge and Barriers to Supportive School Integration After Diagnosis of Childhood Cancer.

Children treated for cancer are at risk for long-term neurocognitive late effects that can impact school attainment, employment, and quality of life. Obtaining formal education support can be critical to later success but may depend upon parent knowledge and ability to access needed support. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a scale to measure the perceived support that parents received upon their child's return to school during or after cancer treatment.

Integrative review of school integration support following pediatric cancer.

Purpose: This study aims to understand parents' experiences of school integration support for their child's transition to K-12 schooling during or after cancer treatment.

Methods: This integrative literature review used PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Embase databases and included articles from January 2000 to July 2022 describing parent experiences with support from healthcare providers, school faculty/systems, and school integration programs. This review was guided by an adapted School Re-Entry Model and used constant comparison to identify common themes and guide synthesis.

A Rocky Landscape: Challenges with College Transition and Completion for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer.

Adolescents and young adults with cancer have lower college attendance and graduation rates than their peers, but the reasons for this and extent to which cancer impacts college is unknown. This study explores post-high school experiences of young adults with cancer, detailing impacts of diagnosis and treatment on higher education attainment. A convergent mixed-methods design disseminated nationally obtained data regarding post-high school transition experiences in adults diagnosed with cancer before age 25.

Addressing Schooling in Children With Cancer-It's Everybody's Job, So It's Nobody's Job: An Explanatory Mixed-Methods Evaluation.

Neurocognitive deficits from childhood cancer treatment are common, long-standing, and negatively impact multiple domains of life leading to challenges with schooling and education. The purpose of this study is to describe caregiver-reported experiences of neurocognitive effects from therapy and to understand the roles clinicians play in this domain in the United States. An explanatory mixed-methods study of 174 caregivers of children with cancer provided insight into how clinicians provided information on neurocognitive effects of treatment and their experiences with school-related resources.

Barriers to Schooling in Survivorship: The Role of Neuropsychological Assessment.

Purpose: Pediatric cancer survivorship rates continue to improve, although disease- and treatment-related neurocognitive impacts substantively affect survivors' educational access and availability for learning. Receiving formal educational supports substantially improves survivors' academic progress and graduation rates; however, parents of survivors report obtaining such support is stressful, in part due to limited knowledge on their part and that of their oncology providers.

Methods: Parents (N = 195) of pediatric survivors across the United States were surveyed to explore specific barriers to obtaining appropriate educational supports and the facilitating role of the oncologist.

Tools of the trade to address schooling related communication needs after childhood cancer: A mini-review with consideration of health disparity concerns.

Over the last 60 years, success rates in treating childhood cancers have grown dramatically from 10% to greater than 85%. Negative effects of treatments, however, place survivors at risk for neurocognitive deficits that can make school challenging. Evidence shows that receiving special education services can benefit affected children.

Educating Childhood Cancer Survivors: a Qualitative Analysis of Parents Mobilizing Social and Cultural Capital.

Childhood cancer impacts the child patient as well as the family and caregivers throughout diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. Secondary analysis of qualitative data revealed the critical role of parents' adaptability and flexibility when navigating advocacy decisions about their child's schooling following diagnosis and through survivorship. After cancer, adjusting to school means adjusting to a new normal creating challenges related to curriculum, peers, and educators that can affect quality of life.

Assessment of Online Resources for Returning to School During and After Treatment of Childhood Cancer.

To evaluate current online parent education resources for children returning to school after a cancer diagnosis. Online search was conducted using 3 search engines and terms recommended by affected families. Sites were evaluated by 3 reviewers for understandability and actionability (scored 0-100%) using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT).

Schooling in survivorship: Understanding caregiver challenges when survivors return to school.

Objective: Schooling after treatment can hold challenges for survivors of childhood cancer and caregivers who may need to act as advocates on their behalf. This study seeks to understand caregiver experiences of survivor's school-related challenges. This understudied area is critical given the 85% survivor rate for those diagnosed with childhood cancer and the disproportionate risk of learning difficulties faced by those with brain tumor or who receive therapy that targets the central nervous system.

Dissociable controlled retrieval and generalized selection mechanisms in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

How does ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) control mnemonic processing? Alternative models propose that VLPFC guides top-down (controlled) retrieval of knowledge from long-term stores or selects goal-relevant products of retrieval from among competitors. A paucity of evidence supports a retrieval/selection distinction, raising the possibility that these models reduce to a common mechanism. Here, four manipulations varied semantic control demands during fMRI: judgment specificity, cue-target-associative strength, competitor dominance, and number of competitors.

Pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging: progress and challenges.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the pediatric population promises to provide novel insights into the nature of both normal and abnormal functional brain development as well as changes in brain function due to various interventions. Although acquisition of fMRI data from children is associated with a number of methodological challenges, primarily compliance and head motion, good quality data can be obtained. For example, conditioning and personal interactions can improve compliance, and motion reduction techniques can successfully reduce artifacts due to head motion.

Interactive memory systems in the human brain.

Learning and memory in humans rely upon several memory systems, which appear to have dissociable brain substrates. A fundamental question concerns whether, and how, these memory systems interact. Here we show using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) that these memory systems may compete with each other during classification learning in humans.

Recovering meaning: left prefrontal cortex guides controlled semantic retrieval.

Prefrontal cortex plays a central role in mnemonic control, with left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) mediating control of semantic knowledge. One prominent theory posits that LIPC does not mediate semantic retrieval per se, but rather subserves the selection of task-relevant knowledge from amidst competing knowledge. The present event-related fMRI study provides evidence for an alternative hypothesis: LIPC guides controlled semantic retrieval irrespective of whether retrieval requires selection against competing representations.