SUMMARY Forty‐two females with Rett syndrome, aged 2.5 to 47 years, were assessed with the Teller Acuity Cards and a new version of the Fagan test for age 2 years and above, and their parents were interviewed about the children's communication skills. The visual function of the subjects indicated arrested development, and they scored significantly lower on the Fagan test than a normal comparison group. Their visual processing and memory deteriorated somewhat with age, while those of the comparison group showed a slight increase. Both age at onset of Rett syndrome symptomatology and speech measures were inversely correlated with visual processing and memory, indicating that age at recession may have differential consequences for different functions. Among the subjects, persistent looking was associated with low cognitive function. The results have implications for intervention, and demonstrate that the paradigm of preferential looking may be useful in cognitive assessment of females with Rett syndrome. RÉSUMÉ Caractéristiqites de vision, de cognition et de développement cltez les filles et femmes présentant un syndrome de Rett Une évaluation de 42 filles ou femmes présentant un syndrome de Rett et âgée de 2.5 à 47 ans a été faite avec les cartes d' acuité de Teller et une nouvelle version du test de Fagan pour 2 ans d' agc el au dessus; les parents furent également interrogés sur les capacityés de communication de leurs enfants. l' exploration de la fonction visuelle indiquait un arrêt de développement avec un score significativcment plus bas que celui d' un groupe normal de comparaison au test de Fagan. II y avail une certaine détérioration des capacityés' visuelles et de la mémoire avec l' âge alors qu'on notait un léger progrès dans le groupe de comparaison. l' âge du début de la symptomatologie du syndrome de Rett et les mesurcs d' efficience de langage étaicnt inversement corrélés avec l' efficience visuelle et la mémoire, indiquant que l' âge au début de la récession pouvait avoir des conséquences différentes pour différentes fonctions. Parmi les sujets, la fixité du regard était associéà une efficience cognitive faible. Les résuitats ont des conséquences pour l' approche et démontrcnt que le paradigme de Fixité du regard pcut être utile dans l' évaluation cognitive de filles ou femmes avec syndrome de Rett. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Sehvennögen, kognitive Fähigkeiten und Entwicklungsparameter bei Mädchen and Frauen mit Rett Syndrom “ 42 weíbliche Paticnten mit Rett Syndrom im Alter zwischen 2.5 und 47 Jahren wurden mit den Teller acuity Cards und einer neucn Version des Fagan Tests für Kinder vom 2.Lebensjahr an untersucht und die Eltern wurden nach den Kommunikationsfähigkeiten ihrer Kinder befragt. Das Sehvermögen der Paticnten wics auf eine Entwicklungshemmung hin und sie hatten signifikant niedrigere Scores beim Fagan Test als die normale Verglcichsgruppe. Ihrc visuelle Verarbeitung und ihr visUelles Gedächtnis wurden mit dem Alter etwas schlechter, während bei den Kontrollkindern eine leichte Vcrbesserung zu ve...

In children's lives there are a lot of instigators for actions in every milieu and situation. When children grow older, the cortical activity starts to regulate the action instigation from the limbic system. The school system makes demands of action regulation for children. In outdoor education the many instigators for actions are not under the same demands for regulation as inside the classroom. In this study we have interviewed nine children about their experience with outdoor education. The interviews shows a wide variability of affordances grasped from outdoor education, as well as a tendency toward gender differences in what kind of action possibilities they grasp. These activities give the children useful experiences that are directly and indirectly relevant for their curriculum.

Children with hearing loss are at risk for developing psychosocial problems. Children with mild to severe hearing loss are less frequently subject to research, in particular in preschool, and we therefore know less about the risk in this particular group. To address this, we compared psychosocial functioning in thirty-five 4-5-year olds with hearing aids to that of 180 typically hearing children. Parent ratings of psychosocial functioning and social skills, as well as scores of receptive vocabulary, were obtained. Children with hearing loss evidenced more psychosocial problems than hearing agemates. Female gender and early detection of hearing loss predicted better psychosocial functioning among children with hearing loss, whereas vocabulary and degree of hearing loss did not. Early intervention addressing psychosocial functioning is warranted for children with all degrees of hearing loss, including mild and moderate. Gender differences should be investigated in future research.

No abstract

Background: Internalizing psychopathology and dysregulated negative affect are characterized by dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system and reduced heart rate variability (HRV) due to increases in sympathetic activity alongside reduced vagal tone. The neurovisceral system is however, a complex nonlinear system, and nonlinear indices related to psychopathology are so far less studied in children. Essential nonlinear properties of a system can be found in two main domains: the informational domain and the invariant domain. sample entropy (SampEn) is a much-used method from the informational domain, while detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) represents a widely-used method from the invariant domain. To see if nonlinear HRV can provide information beyond linear indices of autonomic activation, this study investigated SampEn and DFA as discriminators of internalizing psychopathology and negative affect alongside measures of vagally-mediated HRV and sympathetic activation.Material and Methods: Thirty-Two children with internalizing difficulties and 25 healthy controls (aged 9–13) were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist and the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire, Revised, giving an estimate of internalizing psychopathology, negative affect and effortful control, a protective factor against psychopathology. Five minute electrocardiogram and impedance cardiography recordings were collected during a resting baseline, giving estimates of SampEn, DFA short-term scaling exponent α1, root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), and pre-ejection period (PEP). Between-group differences and correlations were assessed with parametric and non-parametric tests, and the relationships between cardiac variables, psychopathology and negative affect were assessed using generalized linear modeling.Results: SampEn and DFA were not significantly different between the groups. SampEn was weakly negatively related to heart rate (HR) in the controls, while DFA was moderately negatively related to RMSSD in both groups, and moderately positively related to HR in the clinical sample. SampEn was significantly associated with internalizing psychopathology and negative affect. DFA was significantly related to internalizing psychopathology.Conclusions: Higher invariant self-similarity was linked to less psychopathology. Higher informational entropy was related to less psychopathology and less negative affect, and may provide an index of the organizational flexibility of the neurovisceral system.