Evaluation of a bespoke training to increase uptake by midwifery teams of NICE Guidance for membrane sweeping to reduce induction of labour: a stepped wedge cluster randomised design.

Background: National guidance recommends pregnant women are offered membrane sweeping at term to reduce induction of labour. Local audit suggested this was not being undertaken routinely across two maternity units in the West Midlands, UK between March and November 2012.

Methods: Bespoke training session for midwifery teams (nine community and one antenatal clinic) was developed to address identified barriers to encourage offer of membrane sweeping, together with an information leaflet for women and appointment of a champion within each team.

Recollection in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder primarily affecting social interaction and communication. Recently, there has been interest in whether people with ASD also show memory deficits as a result of abnormal brain development. However, at least in adolescents with ASD, the recollection component of episodic memory has rarely been explored.

Efficacy of a reading and language intervention for children with Down syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: This study evaluates the effects of a language and literacy intervention for children with Down syndrome.

Methods: Teaching assistants (TAs) were trained to deliver a reading and language intervention to children in individual daily 40-min sessions. We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample received the intervention immediately, whereas the remaining children received the treatment after a 20-week delay.

The N400 effect in children: relationships with comprehension, vocabulary and decoding.

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the N400 (an ERP component that occurs in response to meaningful stimuli) in children aged 8-10 years old and examined relationships between the N400 and individual differences in listening comprehension, word recognition and non-word decoding. Moreover, we tested the claim that the N400 effect provides a valuable indicator of behavioural vocabulary knowledge. Eighteen children were presented with picture-word pairs that were either 'congruent' (the picture depicted the spoken word) or 'incongruent' (they were unrelated).

Practitioner Review: Reading disorders: what are the effective interventions and how should they be implemented and evaluated?

Background:   Two developmental reading disorders, dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment, are identified by different behavioural characteristics and traced back to different underlying cognitive impairments. Thus, reading interventions designed to address each of these reading disorders differ in content.

Method: This review summarises the nature of dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment, and current understanding of best practice in associated reading interventions.

Ameliorating children's reading-comprehension difficulties: a randomized controlled trial.

Children with specific reading-comprehension difficulties can read accurately, but they have poor comprehension. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy of three interventions designed to improve such children's reading comprehension: text-comprehension (TC) training, oral-language (OL) training, and TC and OL training combined (COM). Children were assessed preintervention, midintervention, postintervention, and at an 11-month follow-up.

Emotion recognition in faces and the use of visual context in young people with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

We compared young people with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) with age, sex and IQ matched controls on emotion recognition of faces and pictorial context. Each participant completed two tests of emotion recognition. The first used Ekman series faces.

Birthing alone: a concern for midwives?

The purpose of the two articles has been to provoke thoughts around the issues of supporting women who request a birth experience that challenges the norm. In the present climate of choice, midwives and obstetricians are falling short of providing the support that some women are requesting and who feel coerced into giving birth alone. We want to see a close in the gap between women, midwives, SOMs and obstetricians for all to work together to ensure that the risks and benefits of choice are provided and documented in a way that is legally adequate and desirable to women.

Patterns of reading ability in children with autism spectrum disorder.

This study investigated reading skills in 41 children with autism spectrum disorder. Four components of reading skill were assessed: word recognition, nonword decoding, text reading accuracy and text comprehension. Overall, levels of word and nonword reading and text reading accuracy fell within average range although reading comprehension was impaired.

Leading the development of an ECV service.

This article has identified an area of practice that needed to be developed. Despite the service being a medical procedure, it fitted into the remit of my role. The findings provide a well-established with improving ECV clinical skills.

Production of the English past tense by children with language comprehension impairments.

Three experiments investigated the ability of eight-year old children with poor language comprehension to produce past tense forms of verbs. Twenty children selected as poor comprehenders were compared to 20 age-matched control children. Although the poor comprehenders performed less well than controls on a range of tasks considered to tap verbal-semantic abilities, the two groups showed equivalent phonological skills.

Hidden language impairments in children: parallels between poor reading comprehension and specific language impairment?

This study investigates the oral language skills of 8-year-old children with impaired reading comprehension. Despite fluent and accurate reading and normal nonverbal ability, these children are poor at understanding what they have read. Tasks tapping 3 domains of oral language, namely phonology, semantics, and morphosyntax, were administered, along with measures that reflect an interaction of language domains that we refer to as broader language skills.

General cognitive ability in children with reading comprehension difficulties.

Background: Children with specific reading comprehension difficulties read accurately and fluently but are poor at understanding what they read.

Aims: This study investigated cognitive ability in children with poor reading comprehension with a view to determining the relationship between general cognitive ability and specific reading comprehension difficulty.

Sample: Twenty-five poor comprehenders and 24 control children, matched for chronological age and word reading ability, participated in this study.