A new screener predicts Toddlers' language development from age 2-3: The QUILS:TOD.

Language interventions may yield greater benefits for younger children than their older counterparts, making it critical to evaluate children's language skills as early as possible. Yet, assessing young children's language presents many challenges, such as limited attention spans, low expressive language, and hesitancy to speak with an unfamiliar examiner. To address these challenges, the Quick Interactive Language Screener for Toddlers (QUILS:TOD; for children 24- to 36-months of age) was developed as a quick, tablet-based language screener capable of assessing children's vocabulary, syntax, and word learning skills.

When the ward is the patient: Using the PRISM protocol to understand and reduce violence in an inpatient intellectual disability setting.

Background: Violence in inpatient settings is recognised as a worldwide issue, with inpatient intellectual disability services having higher rates than other mental health settings. Violence results in injury and illness, lack of confidence in the organisation and staff burnout. These combined effects have a negative impact on the ability of services to provide therapeutic environments.

Assessing the language of 2 year-olds: From theory to practice.

Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success in school and interpersonal relationships. The paucity of reliable behavioral instruments for this age group prompted the development of a new touchscreen language screener for 2-year-olds that relies on language comprehension. Developmental literature guided selection of age-appropriate markers of language disorder risk that are culturally and dialectally neutral and could be reliably assessed.

Prevalence, co-occurring difficulties, and risk factors of developmental language disorder: first evidence for Mandarin-speaking children in a population-based study.

Background: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition that significantly affects children's achievement but has been understudied. We aim to estimate the prevalence of DLD in Shanghai, compare the co-occurrence of difficulties between children with DLD and those with typical development (TD), and investigate the early risk factors for DLD.

Methods: We estimated DLD prevalence using data from a population-based survey with a cluster random sampling design in Shanghai, China.

The development of a parent report instrument of early communication and language skills of infants and toddlers in mainland China.

Objective: This study was designed to produce a new parent-report measure, the Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin-Infant Toddler Assessment of Communication and Language (DREAM-IT) in order to provide norms for the developmental skills of children aged 0-36 months in four areas: expressive language, receptive language, cognitive play and social skills.

Methodology: The scale was designed to be both broader and deeper than existing instruments that neglect one or more of these significant domains involved in early language. Items were chosen by a group of specialists with clinical experience working with the age group and with attention to the developmental literature.

Predicting mitochondrial fission, fusion and depolarisation event locations from a single z-stack.

This paper documents the development of a novel method to predict the occurrence and exact locations of mitochondrial fission, fusion and depolarisation events in three dimensions. This novel implementation of neural networks to predict these events using information encoded only in the morphology of the mitochondria eliminate the need for time-lapse sequences of cells. The ability to predict these morphological mitochondrial events using a single image can not only democratise research but also revolutionise drug trials.

The characteristics of spontaneous language in young children identified as language delayed in Mandarin.

Background: Little is known about the spontaneous speech characteristics of young children with language delay in Mandarin, relative to their peers. Until the recent development of standardized language assessments normed in China on Mandarin-speaking children, it was difficult to independently identify atypically developing children to study their spontaneous speech, and only case studies have been available.

Aim: To investigate which aspects of spontaneous speech might be distinctive for atypical development in a short play session.

Classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener for preschool children with and without developmental language disorder.

Introduction: This research examined the classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS) for identifying preschool-aged children (3;0 to 6;9) with developmental language disorder (DLD). We present data from two independent samples that varied in prevalence and diagnostic reference standard.

Methods: Study 1 included a clinical sample of children (54 with DLD; 13 without) who completed the QUILS and a standardized assessment of expressive grammar (Syntax subtest from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced; Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool 2nd Edition; or Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-3 rd Edition).

How should we address the inevitable harms from non-negligent variant reclassification in predictive genetic testing?

The process of interpreting genetic variants, in which experts use all available evidence to determine whether an identified variant is associated with a current or future disease, is both scientific and nevertheless subjective. In this paper, we summarize the existing evidence that any given variant could be reclassified and that such a reclassification could lead to harm. Furthermore, the racial gap in genetic databases could lead to a higher likelihood of harm for non-white patients.

The Technological Basis of a Balloon-Expandable TAVR System: Non-occlusive Deployment, Anchorage in the Absence of Calcification and Polymer Leaflets.

Leaflet durability and costs restrict contemporary trans-catheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) largely to elderly patients in affluent countries. TAVR that are easily deployable, avoid secondary procedures and are also suitable for younger patients and non-calcific aortic regurgitation (AR) would significantly expand their global reach. Recognizing the reduced need for post-implantation pacemakers in balloon-expandable (BE) TAVR and the recent advances with potentially superior leaflet materials, a trans-catheter BE-system was developed that allows tactile, non-occlusive deployment without rapid pacing, direct attachment of both bioprosthetic and polymer leaflets onto a shape-stabilized scallop and anchorage achieved by plastic deformation even in the absence of calcification.

Across demographics and recent history, most parents sing to their infants and toddlers daily.

Music is universally prevalent in human society and is a salient component of the lives of young families. Here, we studied the frequency of singing and playing recorded music in the home using surveys of parents with infants ( = 945). We found that most parents sing to their infant on a daily basis and the frequency of infant-directed singing is unrelated to parents' income or ethnicity.

Long-Term Stability and Biocompatibility of Pericardial Bioprosthetic Heart Valves.

The use of bioprostheses for heart valve therapy has gradually evolved over several decades and both surgical and transcatheter devices are now highly successful. The rapid expansion of the transcatheter concept has clearly placed a significant onus on the need for improved production methods, particularly the pre-treatment of bovine pericardium. Two of the difficulties associated with the biocompatibility of bioprosthetic valves are the possibilities of immune responses and calcification, which have led to either catastrophic failure or slow dystrophic changes.

Reducing Unnecessary Noninvasive Testing for Inpatients With Unstable Angina: The RUNIT Protocol.

Background: Routine inpatient transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for patients with unstable angina is common, but it anecdotally adds little value to clinical care. A practice audit at our academic hospital demonstrated that 61.5% of patients with troponin-negative chest pain (TNCP) had normal left ventriculography (LVG) during coronary angiography and normal TTE on the same admission (duplicate testing).

The role of language in building abstract, generalized conceptual representations of one- and two-place predicates: A comparison between adults and infants.

Theories of relations between language and conceptual development benefit from empirical evidence for concepts available in infancy, but such evidence is comparatively scarce. Here, we examine early representations of specific concepts, namely, sets of dynamic events corresponding either to predicates involving two variables with a reversible, asymmetric relation between them (such as the set of all events that correspond to a linguistic phrase like "a dog is pushing a car,") or to comparatively simpler, one-variable predicates (such as the set of events corresponding to a phrase like "a dog is jumping.").

Acute Congestive Heart Failure in a Young Woman.

We describe the case of an adult First Nations woman employed as a daycare worker who presented with clinical symptoms, signs, and imaging suggestive of acute heart failure. In our report, we discuss the likely diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever. Novel teaching points: The incidence of rheumatic fever in Canada is likely underestimated, and it is important to consider the diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever in individuals presenting with acute heart failure.

Decellularization and engineered crosslinking: a promising dual approach towards bioprosthetic heart valve longevity.

Objectives: While decellularization has previously significantly improved the durability of bioprosthetic tissue, remnant immunogenicity may yet necessitate masking through crosslinking. To alleviate the fears of reintroducing the risk of calcific degeneration, we investigated the application of rationally designed crosslinking chemistry, capable of abrogating mineralization in isolation, in decellularized tissue.

Methods: Bovine and porcine pericardium were decellularized using the standard Triton X/sodium deoxycholate/DNAse/RNAse methodology and thereafter combined incrementally with components of a four-stage high-density dialdehyde-based fixation regimen.

Within and Across Language Predictors of Word Learning Processes in Dual Language Learners.

This study investigated the relation between Dual Language Learners' (N = 90) vocabulary and grammar comprehension and word learning processes in preschool (aged 3-through-5 years). Of interest was whether: (a) performance in Spanish correlated with performance in English within each domain; and (b) comprehension predicted novel word learning within and across languages. Dual-language experience was evaluated as a potential moderator.

Author Correction: Establishment and equilibrium levels of deleterious mutations in large populations.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Reflections on diversity, equity, and inclusion in genetic counseling education.

Through self-reflection, self-education, and with a learning mindset each of us has embarked on a personal path to understand the impact of racism in our personal and professional lives. This personal work is ongoing, though it was through our individual paths that led us to engage in dialogue on race and racism at the 38th National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Conference. We initially did not know each other; however, we were drawn by a mutual desire to further the conversation and sought connection with each other after the Conversations Around Diversity Platform Presentations.

The Impact of Grammar on Mentalizing: A Training Study Including Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder.

Training on complements in English, German, and Mandarin has been reported to trigger improvements on both complements and Theory of Mind (ToM), with typically developing (TD) pre-schoolers on the verge of developing these skills (Hale and Tager-Flusberg, 2003; Lohmann and Tomasello, 2003; Shuliang et al., 2014). In the current study, we build on the idea that increasing mastery of complementation holds the promise of enhancing ToM, and seek (i) to replicate the positive effects observed in previous work for this effect in French-speaking TD children, and (ii) to pilot extending this to clinical children, more specifically those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), through exploring whether improvement in the latter, clinical groups follows that of the TD group.

Establishment and equilibrium levels of deleterious mutations in large populations.

Analytical and statistical stochastic approaches are used to model the dispersion of monogenic variants through large populations. These approaches are used to quantify the magnitude of the selective advantage of a monogenic heterozygous variant in the presence of a homozygous disadvantage. Dunbar's results regarding the cognitive upper limit of the number of stable social relationships that humans can maintain are used to determine a realistic effective community size from which an individual can select mates.

Pulmonary Embolism: The Value of the Angiographic Diagnosis.

We describe the case of a 55-year-old patient with a history of pulmonary embolism who presented in shock with ST-elevation on his electrocardiogram. He was triaged to the catheterization laboratory where he suffered a cardiac arrest. A pulmonary embolism was diagnosed angiographically, the thrombus was aspirated, and he received systemic thrombolysis.

Motor Skills of Children and Adolescents Are Influenced by Growing up Barefoot or Shod.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between growing up barefoot or shod and the development of motor performance during childhood and adolescence. Habitual barefoot and shod children and adolescents between 6 and 18 years were recruited in South Africa and Germany. Participants completed balance, standing long jump and 20 m sprint tests in barefoot and shod conditions.