Lexical and semantic ability in groups of children with cochlear implants, language impairment and autism spectrum disorder

Reporting of Cultural Factors in Autism Research Publications in Sweden: Application of the GAP-REACH Checklist

“…Language as a Proxy for Ethnicity/Culture A study by Löfkvist et al (2014) was the only one (3.3%) that used language as a proxy for ethnicity to describe their sample's cultural characteristics (Tables 3 and 4). Knowledge of Swedish was a requirement for participation in the study for three different clinical groups: children with ASD, with cochlear implants (CI), and with language impairment.…”

“…Indeed, Bildt et al (2015) No Yes No (= not described) Domellöf et al (2014) No Yes No (= not described) Fernell et al (2015) Yes Yes The 1st cohort group: Bthe Stockholm Somali group^; the 2nd cohort group based in Gothenburg categorized as (a) Swedish, (b) miscellaneous (non-Scandinavian, South America, East Africa), (c) African/Middle East. Gardner et al (2015) Yes No Maternal country of birth categorized as (a) mother born in Sweden, (b) mother born outside Sweden Idring et al (2015) Yes No Maternal country of birth categorized as (a) mother born in Sweden, (b) mother born outside Sweden with low/high Human Development Index (HDI) Idring et al (2014) Yes Yes Maternal country of birth categorized as (a) mother born in Sweden, (b) mother born in Europe outside Sweden, (c) mother born outside Europe Lee et al (2015) Yes No Maternal country of birth categorized as (a) mother born in Sweden, (b) mother born in Europe outside Sweden, (c) mother born outside Europe Löfkvist et al (2014) Yes Yes Swedish language proficiency Lundström et al (2015b) Yes No No (= not described) McEvilly et al (2015) Yes No No (= not described) Selten et al (2015) Yes No Personal or parental history of migration Törn et al (2015) Yes No No (= not described) Zander et al (2015) Yes Yes Maternal country of origin a Coding based on the results reported by the first author/coder the Swedish Personal Data Act (PUL 1998) did not allow registering sensitive personal information such as race, ethnicity or other culture-related data such as religion. Therefore, the use of geographic area or country of origin as proxy for ethnicity by the researchers shown in this study justifies this approach.…”

“…These findings are consistent with Hollander's (2013) description of different ways of operationalizing the immigrants' country of origin in her research on social inequalities of mental health and mortality among refugees and other immigrants to Sweden: (1) the simplest dichotomization of native/immigrant, (2) the immigrant's income level in their country of origin (native, OECD-country, non-OECD-country), and (3) different clusters of country or area of origin. Yet one study (Löfkvist et al 2014) used language as a proxy for ethnicity to describe the demographic characteristics of the study participants. This finding could be partly explained by the design of the study-not based on national population registers-where a good command of Swedish was a requirement to test lexical and semantical ability in young children.…”

Cognitive capacities and composite cognitive skills in individuals with Usher syndrome type 1 and 2

“…An example is that of areas of the brain, which normally are involved in the processing of sound, but which in pre-lingually deafened individuals are activated in response to specific visual stimuli, such as the signs of sign language (Lomber et al, 2010;Lee et al, 2007). The altered development of basic cognitive skills is likely to have an impact on the development of more composite cognitive skills, such as language (Löfkvist et al, 2014) and reading (Nakeva von Mentzer et al, 2013). To what extent and in what ways these complex abilities will be affected, will however be dependent on many different factors within and outside of the individual, such as personality, motivations, and communication strategies andcompetence of the friends and family as well as rehabilitative services and support.…”

“…The second sensitive period ends during the middle of the teenage years, and languages that have been learnt after this age are wired in different structures and networks of the brain compared to languages learned prior to this age (Ruben & Schwartz, 1999). Löfkvist et al (2014), Mentzer (2014), and Ruben and Schwartz (1999) all highlight the importance of access to a full, nuanced and rich language during these sensitive periods in order for a typical language development to occur.…”