The pediatric diagnostic odyssey is a period of uncertainty and emotional turmoil for families, often characterized by multiple minor medical procedures (such as venipuncture) that children may find distressing. Interventions to reduce distress are rarely offered, despite evidence that this is crucial both for avoiding anticipatory anxiety before future procedures and for improving healthcare compliance in adulthood. We interviewed ten mothers of children with neuromuscular disorders, asking about their perceptions of their child's experiences with different medical procedures, the emotional impact of the diagnostic odyssey, implications of obtaining a diagnosis, and interactions with healthcare providers. We coded interviews in ATLAS.ti (version 7.0) based on a priori and emergent themes, and analyzed them based on the principles of interpretive description. We found that predicting and assessing children's reactions to procedures is challenging; parents reported non-invasive procedures such as x-rays were distressing for some children, and that providers did not detect subtle indicators of distress. Parents valued obtaining a diagnosis because it validated their concerns, enabled planning for the child's future healthcare needs, and allowed access to established support networks. This study suggests that healthcare providers can improve the experience of the diagnostic odyssey by validating family concerns and connecting them to support services that are available without a diagnosis.

Even with optimized medical care for the management of pain, many pediatric patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) report persistently high pain and have corresponding functional impairments. The Comfort Ability Program (CAP), a daylong pediatric pain management intervention, was adapted via a 4-phase knowledge translation process into a video-based intervention to specifically and flexibly address sickle cell pain (SCP). CAP for SCP introduces psychological and biobehavioral pain management techniques to adolescents with SCD and their parents or caregivers. A primary goal of our structured development process and feasibility testing was to ensure ease of access and delivery by addressing identified barriers to care that have historically limited widespread dissemination of evidence-based programs for patients with SCD. Method: The development of CAP for SCP was completed in 4 phases: (1) convening an expert panel to review the literature, discuss logistical and cultural barriers to care, and adapt the curriculum of a 1-day pain management workshop to a video-based format that could specifically meet the needs of a SCD population; (2) conducting a pilot testing of content with patients and parents followed by semistructured focus group discussion; (3) generating and producing the interactive video, audio materials, and corresponding workbook for intervention delivery; and (4) testing

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A method is presented for examining perceptual development in the arts and a study based on this methodology is reported. The purpose of the study was to chart the developmental course of perceptual skills used in the arts and to investigate whether these skills generalize across art forms and aesthetic properties or are ‘art‐form‐specific’ and/or ‘property‐specific’. The sensitivity of 7‐, 9‐ and 12‐year‐olds to three aesthetic properties (repleteness, expression and composition) was investigated in three art forms (drawing, music and literature). Sensitivity to aesthetic properties increased with age. Ability to perceive aesthetic properties in one art form did not predict ability to perceive these same properties in another art form (supporting the ‘art‐form‐specific’ position). In much the same way, ability to perceive one aesthetic property of an art form did not predict ability to perceive another aesthetic property in the same art form (supporting the ‘property‐specific’ position). These results suggest that young children do not attend fully to aesthetic properties of adult works of art and that aesthetic perception develops property by property, and domain by domain. Aesthetic perception appears to emerge as not one skill but many.