Publications by authors named "S Helene Deacon"

Objective: The primary aim was to assess the cost (£) to the National Health Service (NHS) of hospital treatment for individuals born with bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP), unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP), and cleft palate (CP), from birth to 20 years. The secondary aim was to assess the number of scheduled clinical outpatient and inpatient/outpatient surgical visits for this cohort.

Design: Retrospective micro-costing analysis.

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Background/objectives: Most studies have linked mandatory homeschooling during COVID-19 to mental health harm in parents and children, while a minority have found non-significant or beneficial effects. Past studies have not measured mandatory homeschooling continuously over an extended period; consequently, they could not capture compounding mental health effects, which may explain conflicting results. We asked whether children's cumulative time spent homeschooled during COVID-19 school closure mandates caused compounding harm for parent and child mental health, and whether parent employment, child internet access and educational support from schools (live and pre-recorded online classes, home learning packs) impacted this relationship.

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Prominent theories of reading development have separately emphasized the relevance of children's skill in learning (Share, 2008) and lexical representations (Perfetti & Hart, 2002). Integrating these ideas, we examined whether skill in learning lexical representations is a mechanism that might explain children's reading development. To do so we conducted a longitudinal study, following 139 children from Grades 3 to 5.

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Purpose: Shared reading provides preschool-age children with the opportunity to learn novel, low-frequency words. Abundant empirical evidence demonstrates that children can learn the meanings of such words during shared reading, referred to as "semantic learning." However, less is known about whether children learn the spellings of words during shared reading, referred to as "orthographic learning," and whether this learning is related to early word reading.

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Background: There is debate amongst surgeons regarding the use of antibiotics to prevent fistulae after palatoplasty. Prescribing should be evidence based, as antibiotic stewardship is integral to reducing antibiotic resistance. Our aim was to determine whether differing perioperative regimens affect the prevalence of postoperative fistulae.

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