Pediatric Prevention: Feeding Disorders.

Applied behavior analysis has the most empirical support as intervention for pediatric feeding disorders, when a child does not eat or drink a sufficient quantity or variety of food to maintain proper nutrition. Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial for diagnosis, referral, and management of pediatric feeding disorders because the etiology is complex and multifactorial. Thus, our aim is to provide information about how to recognize a feeding disorder, to delineate the environmental variables implicated in the etiology and maintenance of feeding disorders, and to provide recommendations for prevention and intervention for feeding disorders based on the applied-behavior analytic literature.

A selective role for a component of the autophagy pathway in coupling the Golgi apparatus to dendrite polarity in pyramidal neurons.

Pyramidal neurons have a characteristic morphology that is critical to their ability to integrate into functional neural circuits. In addition to axon dendrite polarity, pyramidal neurons also exhibit dendritic polarity such that apical and basolateral dendrites differ in size, structure and inputs. Dendrite polarity in pyramidal neurons coincides with polarity of the Golgi apparatus, a key feature relevant to directed secretory trafficking, both in vitro and in vivo.

Caregivers can implement play-based instruction without disrupting child preference.

Young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often require systematic teaching to learn new skills, and caregivers can teach their children by embedding learning opportunities in a play-based context. However, researchers have not evaluated procedures to train caregivers how to implement a combination of strategies designed to establish rapport and early language skills while maintaining play as a preferred context. Caregiver-child dyads composed of 2 mothers and their sons were recruited to participate.

Using e-learning modules to teach ongoing-visual inspection of functional analyses.

Despite the effectiveness of function-based treatments, most clinicians do not conduct functional analyses (FA). The time required to conduct an FA is a major barrier preventing their use. One way to increase FA efficiency is to discontinue the analysis as soon as it has produced clear results.

Treating food selectivity as resistance to change in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Change-resistant behavior, such as rigid and selective food consumption, is a core symptom of autism that can have significant negative consequences for the child (Flygare Wallén et al., 2018; Levy et al., 2019).

Providing noncontingent, alternative, functional reinforcers during delays following functional communication training.

Functional Communication Training (FCT) involves arranging extinction for problem behavior and reinforcement for a more desirable, functionally equivalent, communicative response (FCR). Although effective under ideal arrangements, the introduction of delays to reinforcement following the FCR can result in increased problem behavior. Austin and Tiger (2015) showed that for individuals whose problem behavior was sensitive to multiple sources of reinforcement, providing access to alternative, functional reinforcers during delays mitigated this increase in problem behavior during delay fading.

Amiodarone Alters Cholesterol Biosynthesis through Tissue-Dependent Inhibition of Emopamil Binding Protein and Dehydrocholesterol Reductase 24.

Amiodarone is prescribed for the treatment and prevention of irregular heartbeats. Although effective in clinical practice, the long-term use of amiodarone has many unwanted side effects, including cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic, and neurological toxicities. Our objective was to elucidate effects of amiodarone exposure on the cholesterol metabolism in cultured neuronal and non-neuronal cells and in individuals taking amiodarone.

Muscle capacity to accelerate the body during gait varies with foot position in cerebral palsy.

Background: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) often have altered gait patterns compared to their typically developing peers. These gait patterns are characterized based on sagittal plane kinematic deviations; however, many children with CP also walk with altered transverse plane kinematics.

Research Question: How do both altered skeletal alignment and kinematic deviations affect muscles' capacity to accelerate the body during gait?

Methods: A three-dimensional gait analysis was completed for 18 children with spastic CP (12.

Incorporating discriminative stimuli into functional communication training with augmentative and alternative communication devices: a tutorial.

Functional communication training (FCT) is a commonly used and effective treatment for problem behavior maintained by social reinforcement (e.g., an individual engages in self-injurious behavior to gain access to adult attention).

Dusk to Dawn: Evaluating the effect of a hospital-based youth violence prevention program on youths' perception of risk.

Background: Historically, youth violence prevention strategies used deterrence-based programming with limited success. We developed a youth violence prevention program, Dusk to Dawn (D2D), intended to improve youths' recognition of high-risk situations and teach new skills in conflict resolution. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of D2D on youths' perceptions of personal risk factors and high-risk situations.

Neonatal Vitamin D Status Is Associated with the Severity of Brain Injury in Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy: A Pilot Study.

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentration at birth and the short-term outcomes in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Our secondary aim was to evaluate the effect of postnatal vitamin D supplementation on outcomes in the perinatal period after hypoxic injury.

Study Design: This retrospective cohort study included all infants ≥35 weeks gestation admitted to a regional level IV neonatal intensive care unit and diagnosed with moderate or severe HIE.

Urban American Indian Community Health Beliefs Associated with Addressing Cancer in the Northern Plains Region.

American Indians residing in the Northern Plains region of the Indian Health Service experience some of the most severe cancer-related health disparities. We investigated ways in which the community climate among an American Indian population in an urban community in the Northern Plains region influences community readiness to address cancer. A Community Readiness Assessment, following the Community Readiness Model, conducted semi-structured interviews with eight educators, eight students, and eight community leaders from the American Indian community in Omaha's urban American Indian population and established the Northern Plains region community at a low level of readiness to address cancer.

Resurgence following differential reinforcement of alternative behavior implemented with and without extinction.

In the clinic, differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) often involves programming extinction for destructive behavior while reinforcing an alternative form of communication (e.g., a functional communication response); however, implementing extinction can be unsafe or impractical under some circumstances.

Cancer Biology and You: An Interactive Learning Event for Native American High School Students to Increase Their Understanding of Cancer Causes, Prevention, and Treatment, and to Foster an Interest in Cancer-Related Careers.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have made a compelling call to action not only to strengthen the pipeline of available STEM-trained talent, but in addition to foster students who are members of populations currently under-represented in science. Furthermore, the scientific community must not only increase the accessibility of STEM-related education, but also implement and test evidence-based practices. Presented here, we detail the proceedings of a hands-on, science-focused informal learning opportunity aimed at educating an underrepresented population in cancer biology.

Emergent completion of multistep instructions via joint control.

Teaching procedures that facilitate the emergence of novel responses allow for increased efficiency, which is critical when providing early-intervention services to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Three 5- and 6-year-old children diagnosed with ASD participated. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated functional control over the effects of teaching echoic rehearsals on the emergence of completing novel two-step instructions via joint control and obtained generalization and maintenance of the effects in an applied, nontraining context.

An Evaluation of Real-Time Feedback Delivered Via Telehealth: Training Staff to Conduct Preference Assessments.

Effective, efficient, and accessible staff-training procedures are needed to meet the service-delivery demand for treating individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of delivering real-time feedback via telehealth to train staff to conduct a preference assessment. A nonconcurrent multiple-baseline across-participants design showed that remote real-time feedback was associated with short training time and minimal sessions to achieve mastery.

Training Supervisors to Provide Performance Feedback Using Video Modeling with Voiceover Instructions.

Supervisors commonly use feedback to teach staff members to implement behavioral interventions. However, few studies have evaluated methods to teach supervisors to provide effective feedback. We used a multiple-baseline design to evaluate the use of video modeling with voice-over instruction to train 4 supervisors to provide performance feedback to a confederate therapist implementing a guided-compliance procedure.

The Effects of Scenic Picture Prompts on Variability During the Acquisition of Intraverbal Categorization for Children With Autism.

Researchers have demonstrated the efficacy of picture prompts on the acquisition of intraverbals (Coon & Miguel in , 657-666, 2012; Goldsmith, LeBlanc, & Sautter in , 1-13, 2007; Ingvarsson & Hollobaugh in , 659-664, 2011; Ingvarsson & Le in , 75-93, 2011; Miguel, Petursdottir, & Carr in , 27-41, 2005; Partington & Bailey in , 9-18, 1993). However, no one (to our knowledge) has determined the effects of picture prompts on the variability of responding during intraverbal categorization. We evaluated the use of a scenic picture prompt on response variability during the acquisition of intraverbal categorization with 4 children diagnosed with autism.

Treating destructive behavior reinforced by increased caregiver compliance with the participant's mands.

Functional analyses sometimes do not identify momentary fluctuations in the function of destructive behavior (Bowman, Fisher, Thompson, & Piazza, 1997). In such cases, individuals may mand for the reinforcer that is currently most preferred and display destructive behavior if that mand goes unreinforced. In this study, we conducted a mand analysis to test whether destructive behavior functioned as a precurrent response that increased reinforcement for the participant's mands.

Investigations of operant ABA renewal during differential reinforcement.

Operant renewal is a form of relapse in which a previously extinguished response recurs due to a change in context. We designed two experiments to examine the impact of differential reinforcement of alternative behavior on ABA renewal in a translational model of relapse with 12 children. We compared levels of renewal in two 3-phase arrangements.

Gain-of-function pathogenic variants in SMAD4 are associated with neoplasia in Myhre syndrome.

Myhre syndrome is an increasingly diagnosed rare syndrome that is caused by one of two specific heterozygous gain-of-function pathogenic variants in SMAD4. The phenotype includes short stature, characteristic facial appearance, hearing loss, laryngotracheal stenosis, arthritis, skeletal abnormalities, learning and social challenges, distinctive cardiovascular defects, and a striking fibroproliferative response in the ear canals, airways, and serosal cavities (peritoneum, pleura, pericardium). Confirmation of the clinical diagnosis is usually prompted by the characteristic appearance with developmental delay and autistic-like behavior using targeted gene sequencing or by whole exome sequencing.

Improving accepting and giving compliments with individuals with developmental disabilities.

Individuals with developmental disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder, typically exhibit conversation skill deficits, with two prevailing deficits including giving and accepting compliments. The current study used an individualized approach to assess and teach accepting and giving compliments specific to performance, possession, and appearance with three adolescents and young adults with developmental disabilities. We taught these skills using behavioral skills training and prompting during conversations utilizing a multiple-baseline design across participants.

A preliminary evaluation of treatment duration on the resurgence of destructive behavior.

Quantitative models of resurgence (e.g., Behavioral Momentum Theory, Resurgence as Choice) suggest that resurgence is partly a function of the duration of extinction exposure, with longer histories of extinction producing less resurgence.