The family caregiver after the institutionalization of the dependent elderly relative

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between the institutionalization of a dependent elderly relative and the family caregiver’s mental health, quality of life and caregiving satisfaction. We present data from 140 family caregivers caring for elderly family members, of whom 77 continued to live with family members and 63 had been institutionalized. We evaluated the factors influencing the decision to institutionalize the dependent relative, the effect of institutionalization on the caregiver’s psychological well-being and quality of life and the impact of strategies to find the meaning and cope with the relative’s placement on the caregiver’s emotional health and quality of life. Care does not end after institutionalization, but the stressors the caregiver faces change. Our results suggest that finding meaning increases satisfaction and reduces feelings of overload. They show that after institutionalization, stressors affecting caregivers are partly relieved, and that finding meaning increases the caregiver’s satisfaction, while decreasing the degree of overload. Our data, further, indicates that a good relationship and cooperation between the staff of the institution and the family are important to improve the caregivers’ emotional health and quality of life, and consequently, the quality of life of the dependent elderly relative.     

Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of linguistic input support to a prelingually deaf child with cued speech: A case study

This paper studies the linguistic input attended by a deaf child exposed to cued speech (CS) in the final part of her prelinguistic period (18-24 months). Subjects are the child, her mother, and her therapist. Analyses have provided data about the quantity of input directed to the child (oral input, more than 1,000 words per half-an-hour session; cued ratio, more than 60% of oral input; and attended ratio, more than 55% of oral input), its linguistic quality (lexical variety, grammatical complexity, etc.), and other properties of interaction (child attention and use of spontaneous gestures). Results show that both adults provided a rich linguistic input to the child and that the child attended most of the input that the adults cued. These results might explain the positive linguistic development of children exposed early to CS.     

Trajectories of Adjustment in a Brazilian Sample of Street-Involved Youth

Trajectories of adjustment were examined in a sample of street-involved youth across a 1-year period. Participants (N = 113; M_age = 14.18 years; 80.5% male, 91% non-White) were recruited in three Brazilian cities. Interviews conducted at three time points included six measures of physical and psychological adjustment. Unconditional growth models revealed linear declines over time (i.e., improved adjustment) on three indicators: health symptoms, sexual risk behaviors, and negative affect. There were no linear changes in drug use, positive affect, or life satisfaction. Conditional growth models revealed few significant effects for age or gender, but ratings of stressful life events moderated longitudinal changes in health symptoms, drug use, and negative affect. Implications for practice, policy, and theory are discussed.     

Influence of the difficulty of the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20 on the assessment of reflection–impulsivity: An item analysis

This study is an item analysis of the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20. We examined error scores in the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20 to determine the influence of the difficulty of the test on the assessment of reflection–impulsivity. The sample included 700 participants aged between 6 and 12 years. The results obtained from the corrected item–total correlation showed moderate but significant values for the discrimination index in all age groups, although the lowest values were found in the 6-year-old group. The item difficulty data show that the test is quite difficult for 6-year-old participants and quite easy for 12-year-old participants, and more likely to show individual differences between these ages. The results suggest that the difficulty of the MFFT20 is appropriate for children between 6 and 12 years. However, because of some floor and ceiling effects, the results of this test for ages 6 and 12 should be interpreted very cautiously, especially for the 6-year-old group.     

White Middle-Class Families and Sociocultural Diversity in Schools: A Literature Review

School choice parental practices have been extensively researched worldwide. Recently, an emergent line of studies has focused on the case of mostly white middle-class parents, who, in contrast to the dominant trend identified by sociological research, choose or are willing to choose a socially, racially and/or ethnically diverse school for their children. The purpose of this article is to review the literature published between 2000 and 2017 on this nascent field, exploring the characteristics of families’ ‘against the grain’ choice processes, the parental practices deployed for managing school diversity, and their consequences for intra-school integration. Results highlight (a) the tensions underlying parental choices for diversity, (b) the multiple individual and collective practices that families implement to confront sociocultural school mix, and (c) the implications for the emergence of social and racial/ethnic intra-school segregation and power dynamics within communities. Based on the findings presented, the article discusses suggestions for further research.

     

A continuous improvement approach: Closing the loop in an engineering,procurement, and construction management environment

Continuous improvement initiatives are of increasing importance due to the high operating risks of engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) firms in the oil and gas sector ($188 billion worth of oil and gas projects in 2008). This article describes a continuous improvement framework that translates performance problems into an action plan and helps to prevent their recurrence.     

Neuromuscular adaptations to sixteen weeks of whole-body high-intensity interval training compared to ergometer-based interval and continuous training

The neuromuscular adaptations between ergometer-based high-intensity interval training (HIIT-T; n = 15), whole-body high-intensity interval training (HIIT-WB; n = 12) and moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT; n = 14) were compared in forty-one healthy men randomized to 16 weeks of training (3x per week). Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed countermovement (CMJ) and squat (SJ) jump height (HIIT-T: 8.5 ± 13.3%; 3.1 ± 9.7%, HIIT-WB: 6.4 ± 9.8%, 10.4 ± 16.1% and MICT: 2.2 ± 9.5%; 4.4 ± 12.1%, respectively), SJ peak power (HIIT-T: 1.7 ± 3.9%; HIIT-WB : 6.4 ± 7.9%; MICT: 0.5 ± 6.5%) and CMJ rate of force development (HIIT-T: 58.1 ± 50.5%; HIIT-WB: 36.9 ± 54.2%; MICT: 38.4 ± 64.3%) improved similarly in all training groups (all p < 0.05). CMJ peak power increased only after HIIT-T (4.3 ± 5.5%) and HIIT-WB (4.5 ± 5.2%), while no differences were observed in both the rectus femoris and vastus lateralis maximal electromyographic amplitude. Finally, marked improvements were also observed in the number of repetitions in the HIIT-WB protocol at the eighth week, with no further improvement at the sixteenth week. These data suggest that 16 weeks of HIIT-WB is capable to improve neuromuscular function to a similar extent as HIIT-T and MICT.     

Horizontal ground reaction forces to stationary running performed in the water and on dry land at different physiological intensities

The aim of the present study was to compare the peak anterior–posterior (Fy) and medio–lateral (Fx) ground reaction forces (GRFs) of women performing stationary running at different intensities in aquatic and dry land environments. Fourteen young women performed the stationary running exercise at three cadences (first ventilatory threshold, second ventilatory threshold and maximum effort, as determined during exercise in water) in aquatic and dry land environments. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyse the data (α?=?.05). As a result, significantly lower peak Fy anterior, Fy posterior, Fx medial and Fx lateral values were observed for the aquatic environment, except for the Fy posterior at the first ventilatory threshold. Significant differences were observed between cadences in the peak Fy anterior, Fy posterior, Fx medial and Fx lateral values, with higher values for the cadence corresponding to maximum effort compared to the first ventilatory threshold, except for the Fy posterior and Fx medial in the aquatic environment. The results indicate that the horizontal GRFs are reduced in the aquatic environment and depend on the intensity of stationary running exercise performance.