Assessing the Effects of Observational Conditioning and Response-Contingent Pairing on the Vocalizations of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display impairments in communication, such as limited echoic behavior, few vocal-verbal responses, and a lack of functional communication. One potential way to foster the acquisition of vocal responses in individuals with disabilities is by conditioning vocalizations as reinforcers. Conditioning procedures include stimulus-stimulus pairing, response-contingent pairing (RCP), operant discrimination training, and observational conditioning (OC).

The Relationship Between Neonatal Surgery, Postpartum Depression, and Infant Clinical Course.

Objective: Postpartum depression (PPD) affects 10-15% of mothers in the general population, and studies show increased incidence for mothers of infants with serious health conditions. This study investigates incidence of PPD in mothers of surgical patients in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and characterizes these patients' clinical and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed Nebraska's Tracking Infant Progress Statewide (TIPS) database and referring hospital medical records from February 2013 to June 2018.

Identifying Molecular Fragments That Drive 7-Dehydrocholesterol Elevation.

Medications having the unwanted side effect of inhibiting 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase (DHCR7), one of the last enzymes in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway, account for about 300 million yearly prescriptions in the United States. Many of these drugs are currently prescribed to pregnant women. Many DHCR7-inhibiting medications share chemical similarities, which can be the active substructure responsible for the medication affinity to the enzyme.

Ubiquitous Aberration in Cholesterol Metabolism across Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is characterized by metabolic deregulations that often manifest as deviations in metabolite levels and aberrations in their corresponding metabolic genes across the clinical specimens and preclinical PC models. Cholesterol is one of the critical metabolites supporting PC, synthesized or acquired by PC cells. Nevertheless, the significance of the de novo cholesterol synthesis pathway has been controversial in PC, indicating the need to reassess this pathway in PC.

Prenatal Metal Exposures and Infants' Developmental Outcomes in a Navajo Population.

Early-life exposure to environmental toxicants can have detrimental effects on children's neurodevelopment. In the current study, we employed a causal modeling framework to examine the direct effect of specific maternal prenatal exposures on infants' neurodevelopment in the context of co-occurring metals. Maternal metal exposure and select micronutrients' concentrations were assessed using samples collected at the time of delivery from mothers living across Navajo Nation with community exposure to metal mixtures originating from abandoned uranium mines.

Empirically Deriving Omission and Commission Errors for Relapse Tests: A Demonstration of Reverse Translation.

Most studies examine treatment relapse by programming contextual changes with perfect treatment integrity or with omission errors in the absence of a context change (i.e., all alternative responses placed on extinction).

Oral Aversion in Infants With Congenital Heart Disease: A Single-Center Retrospective Cohort Study.

Objectives: Neonates undergoing cardiac surgery are at risk for oral aversion (OA). OA is not well described outside of the index hospitalization and impacts patients and families. We evaluated the prevalence of OA at 1 year old after neonatal cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) surgery.

Longitudinal predictors of depression, anxiety, and alcohol use following COVID-19-related stress.

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed profound effects on health and daily life, with widespread stress exposure and increases in psychiatric symptoms. Despite these challenges, pandemic research provides unique insights into individual differences in emotion and cognition that predict responses to stress, with general implications for understanding stress vulnerability. We examined predictors of responses to COVID-19-related stress in an online sample of 450 emerging adults recruited in May 2020 to complete questionnaires assessing baseline stress and psychiatric symptoms, rumination, cognitive reappraisal use and intolerance of uncertainty.

Facilitating the emergence of intraverbal tacts in children with autism spectrum disorder: A preliminary analysis.

Intraverbal tacts are an example of multiply controlled verbal behavior. More specifically, they are verbal responses under control of both a nonverbal (visual) stimulus (e.g.

Collective Re-Storying of Mentee and Mentor Experiences in a Cancer Research Education Program for American Indian and Alaska Native Students.

The Youth Enjoy Science program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center has engaged American Indian/Alaska Native youth in mentored cancer research internships from 2017 to 2022. The primary purpose of this study was to examine mentor and mentee lived experiences of participation in Youth Enjoy Science research education internships and to provide insights that can inform mentorship practices in research education programs for American Indians/Alaska Natives. We conducted semi-structured interviews with current and former Youth Enjoy Science mentees (n=8) and mentors (n=8).

On the role of operant contingencies in the maintenance of inappropriate mealtime behavior: An epidemiological analysis.

Functional analysis is the primary assessment used to determine the function of inappropriate mealtime behavior in children with feeding disorders. Based on single-case experimental design studies and recent reviews, the prevalence of negative reinforcement alone in the maintenance of inappropriate mealtime behavior appears to be much greater than positive reinforcement alone. We conducted a retrospective consecutive-controlled case series to determine the generality of previous findings.

Evaluation of Risk Factors and Approach to Screening for Asymptomatic Neonatal Hypoglycemia.

Introduction: Protocols to identify asymptomatic neonatal hypoglycemia (NH) rely on the presence of established risk factors (late preterm gestation, large or small for gestational age, and infant of a diabetic mother) for inclusion. We analyzed the performance of these risk factors in identifying hypoglycemia in modern practice, and additionally evaluated the optimal duration of screening blood glucose measurements.

Methods: We analyzed a retrospective cohort of 830 infants with 1 or more known risk factor(s) for NH admitted to the mother-baby unit of a single tertiary-care center from May 2017 to April 2018.

Procedures for determining and then modifying the extinction component of multiple schedules for destructive behavior.

As a component of reinforcer schedule thinning following functional communication training, multiple schedules of reinforcement produce desirable rates and patterns of communication responses as an alternative response to destructive behavior. However, reinforcement schedule thinning is a gradual process that can take many sessions to obtain therapeutic goals. The desired outcome is that manding occurs only during signaled intervals of reinforcement with a sufficiently lean terminal schedule of reinforcement availability and low rates of destructive behavior.

Stimulus Preference Assessment Decision-Making System (SPADS): A Decision-Making Model for Practitioners.

A stimulus preference assessment (SPA) is a fundamental tool used by practitioners to predict stimuli that function as reinforcers. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) requires that all certified behavior analysts and behavioral technicians be trained in SPA methodology (BACB, 2017). SPA procedures are used by nearly 9 out of 10 behavior analysts in the field (Graff & Karsten, 2012).

Correction to: A Demonstration of Caregiver-Implemented Functional Analysis of Inappropriate Mealtime Behavior Via Telehealth.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s40617-021-00615-2.].

Evaluation of Caregiver Training Procedures to Teach Activities of Daily Living Skills.

Unlabelled: Caregivers of children with an autism spectrum disorder are often responsible for assisting their children to complete activities of daily living skills. Effective and efficient caregiver training methods are needed to train caregivers. The present study used two concurrent multiple-baseline across-participants designs to evaluate the effects of real-time feedback and behavioral skills training on training eight caregivers to implement teaching procedures for activities of daily living skills with their child.

Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and amygdala responses to unpredictable threat in children.

Substantial evidence from studies in humans suggests the amygdala is pivotal for anxiety. Findings from animal models and translational studies suggests the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is also critical for anxiety and the anticipation of unpredictable threat in adults. However, it remains unknown whether the BNST is involved in unpredictable threat anticipation in children.

Family Empowerment: Predicting Service Utilization for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often utilize a variety of services. Relatively few studies have examined the relationship between family empowerment and service utilization for this population. The present study investigated the relationship between family empowerment and service utilization in families of children with ASD from the Pacific Northwest.

An evaluation of trial-based functional analyses of inappropriate mealtime behavior.

Functional analyses allow clinicians to develop treatment targeting the variables maintaining a child's inappropriate mealtime behavior (Bachmeyer et al., 2019). Extended functional analyses can be inefficient, potentially delaying the onset of treatment.

Respiratory manifestations of Marfan syndrome: a narrative review.

Objective: The prevalence of Marfan syndrome (MFS) is estimated to be 1 in 10,000 to 15,000 individuals, but the phenotype of MFS may not be apparent and hence its diagnosis may not be considered by clinicians. Furthermore, the effects of MFS on the lungs and breathing are underrecognized despite the high morbidity that can occur. The objective of this Narrative Review is to delineate the molecular consequences of a defective fibrillin-1 protein and the skeletal and lung abnormalities in MFS that may contribute to respiratory compromise.

Phase duration and resurgence.

Resurgence, the recurrence of responding due to a worsening of reinforcement conditions for current behavior, is a prevalent form of treatment relapse. Resurgence as Choice in Context predicts that increasing the duration of exposure to reinforcement for target responding during Phase 1 will increase resurgence magnitude, whereas increasing the duration of exposure to reinforcement for alternative responding and extinction for target responding during Phase 2 will decrease resurgence magnitude. We conducted an experiment evaluating these predictions with human participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform.

On the Efficacy of and Preference for Signaling Extinction in a Multiple Schedule.

Previous basic research has shown that signaling the extinction component of a compound schedule can be aversive and nonpreferred. However, such discriminative stimuli are common when thinning schedules of reinforcement in practice, and they provide several advantages to clinicians. A limitation of previous applied studies on different arrangements of discriminative stimuli is that researchers have used identical stimuli to signal the availability of reinforcement across conditions that do and do not signal extinction, often doubling exposure to the stimulus signaling the availability of reinforcement.

Efficiency and preference for alternative activities during schedule thinning with functional communication training.

Functional communication training is an effective treatment for decreasing socially reinforced destructive behavior (Carr & Durand, 1985). Clinicians frequently use multiple schedules to thin the reinforcement schedule (Hanley et al., 2001).

TUBB3 Arg262His causes a recognizable syndrome including CFEOM3, facial palsy, joint contractures, and early-onset peripheral neuropathy.

Microtubules are formed from heterodimers of alpha- and beta-tubulin, each of which has multiple isoforms encoded by separate genes. Pathogenic missense variants in multiple different tubulin isoforms cause brain malformations. Missense mutations in TUBB3, which encodes the neuron-specific beta-tubulin isotype, can cause congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles type 3 (CFEOM3) and/or malformations of cortical development, with distinct genotype-phenotype correlations.