Using a portable wireless computer lab to provide outreach training to public health workers

Librarians at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport developed an outreach program for public health workers in north Louisiana. This program provided hands-on training on how to find health information resources on the Web. Several challenges arose during this project. Public health units in the region lacked suitable teaching labs and faced limited travel budgets and tight staffing requirements, which made it impractical for public health workers to travel. One solution to these problems is a portable wireless computer lab that can be set up at each site. The outreach program utilized this approach to present on-site training to public health workers in the region. The paper discusses operational and technical issues encountered in implementing this public health outreach project.     

Relationships between body composition and fundamental movement skills among children and adolescents

The purpose of this study was to examine associations of fundamental movement skills (FMS) with measures of body composition among children and adolescents. Secondary analyses of cross-sectional data collected from 4,363 children and adolescents in Grades 4, 6, 8, and 10 as part of the 1997 New South Wales Schools Fitness and Physical Activity Survey were conducted. Six FMS (run, vertical jump, throw, catch, kick, and strike) were assessed by observation. Height and weight (used to calculate body mass index; BMI) and waist circumference were directly measured. Results indicated that the children's and adolescents' ability to perform FMS was significantly related to BMI and waist circumference. Specifically, BMI and waist circumference were significant predictors for FMS in six of the eight demographic groups. Adjusted odds ratios revealed that overweight boys and girls in all grades were less likely to possess high levels of FMS and more likely to possess low levels of FMS than those who weren't overweight. When FMS were partitioned into locomotor and object-control skills, nonoverweight boys and girls in each grade were two to three times more likely to possess more advanced locomotor skills than overweight boys and girls. However, for object-control skills, the only demographic groups in which nonoverweight students possessed a greater number of advanced skills than overweight students were boys in Grades 6 and 10. There appear to be significant and important associations between performance of locomotor skills and weight status among children and adolescents. This would suggest that intervention strategies to prevent unhealthy weight gain among children and youth might usefully include increasing proficiency of locomotor skills as a key component.     

Infants' perception of dynamic affective expressions: do infants distinguish specific expressions?

Seven-month-old infants' perception of positive (happy, interested) and negative (angry, sad) affective expressions was investigated using a preferential looking procedure (n = 20 in each of 6 conditions). The infants saw two videotaped facial expressions and heard a single vocal expression concordant with one of the facial expressions. The voice on the soundtrack was played 5 s out of synchrony with the ongoing affective visual display. Infants participated in one of six conditions (all possible pairs of the four expressive events). Infants' visual fixations to the affectively concordant and affectively discordant displays were recorded. Infants looked longer at the affectively concordant displays than at the affectively discordant displays in all conditions except the happy/sad and interested/sad conditions. For these two comparisons, facial discrimination was demonstrated by the infants' preferential looking at happy and interested expressions compared to the sad expression. Thus, 7-month-old infants discriminate among happy, interested, angry, and sad expressions, demonstrating differentiation among specific, dynamic expressions. The results are discussed in terms of the information specifying facial and vocal affect and the possible role of familiarity in learning to differentiate among affective expressions during infancy.     

Childhood sexual assault victims: long-term outcomes after testifying in criminal court

We report a longitudinal study of long-term outcomes of participating in criminal cases following child sexual abuse (CSA). In the 1980s, 218 child victim/witnesses took part in a study of short-term sequelae of legal involvement. Approximately 12 years later, 174 of them, as well as a comparison group of 41 matched individuals with no CSA history, were interviewed about their mental health and legal attitudes. Being young when the legal case started was associated with poorer later adjustment. Additionally, even when controlling for psychological problems at the start of the legal case and other familial, CSA, and life stressors, testifying repeatedly in childhood predicted poorer current functioning. These associations were often moderated by the severity of both the CSA and the perpetrator's sentence: Testifying repeatedly in cases involving severe abuse, and not testifying when the perpetrator received a light sentence, predicted poorer current mental health. In partial contrast to the mental health results, being older when the case began and the perpetrator receiving a lenient sentence predicted more negative feelings about the legal system. In addition, not having testified when the perpetrator received a light sentence predicted more negative legal attitudes. Individuals' emotional reactions while waiting to testify and while actually testifying were also associated with their current mental health and attitudes toward the legal system: Greater distress predicted poorer adjustment, especially in individuals who were adolescents when they went to court. Greater distress also predicted more negative attitudes. Finally, when the former CSA victim/witnesses were compared with individuals with no CSA history, the former reported poorer adjustment and more negative feelings about the legal system. Results have implications for multilevel-transactional models of development, for understanding developmental sequelae of legal involvement following childhood trauma, and for social policy concerning the treatment of child victim/witnesses.     

Infant temperament moderates relations between maternal parenting in early childhood and children's adjustment in first grade

A differential susceptibility hypothesis proposes that children may differ in the degree to which parenting qualities affect aspects of child development. Infants with difficult temperaments may be more susceptible to the effects of parenting than infants with less difficult temperaments. Using latent change curve analyses to analyze data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care, the current study found that temperament moderated associations between maternal parenting styles during early childhood and children's first-grade academic competence, social skills, and relationships with teachers and peers. Relations between parenting and first-grade outcomes were stronger for difficult than for less difficult infants. Infants with difficult temperaments had better adjustment than less difficult infants when parenting quality was high and poorer adjustment when parenting quality was lower.     

Profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss in nigerian children: any shift in etiology?

Deafness, profound hearing loss, is a global problem. However, the causes of, attitudes toward, and management options for deafness differ considerably from region to region. This study seeks to identify the present causes of profound sensorineural hearing loss in Nigeria, which in our environment is almost synonymous to a life sentence of silence and isolation. This is a retrospective survey of children 15 years and below (M = 6.7 years, SD = 3.2). Of the 115 children included in this study, 64 (55.7%) were males, giving a male:female ratio of 5:4. Age group 1-3 years had the highest proportion of hearing loss, 33 (28.7%), and there was a progressive decline in frequency with advancing age. In about a third (34.8%) of patients, causes were unknown, probably congenital. The main acquired causes were febrile illness (18.3%), measles (13.9%), meningitis (8.7%), mumps (6.9%), or severe birth asphyxia (4.3%). Compared to the findings of two decades ago, we conclude that there is no significant shift yet in the etiology of profound sensorineural hearing loss in our environment.     

The Transition to High School: Current Knowledge, Future Directions

In the American educational system, school transitions are frequent and predictable, but they can disrupt student functioning across developmental domains. How students experience school transitions has been a focus of research for some time, but the high school transition has received less attention, and the limited research often focuses on a particular developmental domain (e.g., academics and socioemotional well-being) to the exclusion of a more integrated model. This review relies on life course theory to establish an organizational framework for interpreting and connecting the diffuse and sometimes disparate findings on the high school transition, including adolescent developmental trajectories and the influence of social ties, changing sociocultural contexts, and stratification systems. Conclusions identify aspects for future inquiry suggested by current knowledge and the tenets of the life course perspective.