NIH-funded researchers develop language test for people with Down syndrome
2021-04-08
(Press-News.org) WHAT:
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a test to evaluate the expressive language skills of people with Down syndrome, a condition resulting from an extra copy or piece of chromosome 21. Expressive language is the use of words to convey meaning to others. Language delays are common in people with Down syndrome, and the study authors believe their test provides a more effective way to evaluate prospective language interventions, compared to current evaluation methods.
The study was conducted by Angela Thurman, Ph.D., of the University of California, Davis, and appears in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Funding was provided by NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
The 107 participants in the study ranged from 6 to 23 years old, and all had an IQ of 70 or less. Researchers engaged the participants in conversation, which was recorded, transcribed and scored on the basis of talkativeness, vocabulary, sentence structure and other aspects of spoken language. Participants took the test again four weeks later. Test scores were consistent across both versions, an indication of the test's reliability. Similarly, scores were consistent with those of other language tests the participants took.
Participants whose language was limited to basic phrases and those who had a developmental level below 4 years of age had difficulty completing the test. The researchers concluded the test was suitable for most individuals with Down syndrome from 6 to 23 years old, but they call for additional studies to develop other measures for those with more limited spoken language skills.
WHO:
Alice Kau, Ph.D., of the NICHD Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Branch is available for comment.
INFORMATION:
ARTICLE:
Thurman, AJ et al. Spoken language outcome measures for treatment studies in Down syndrome: feasibility, practice effects, test-retest reliability and construct validity of variables generated from expressive language sampling. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 2021.
About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-04-07
Cancer doctors may soon have a new tool for treating melanoma and other types of cancer, thanks to work being done by researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
In a paper published in the journal PNAS last month, CU Cancer Center members Mayumi Fujita, MD, PhD, Angelo D'Alessandro, PhD, Morkos Henen, PhD, MS, Beat Vogeli, PhD, Eric Pietras, PhD, James DeGregori, PhD, Carlo Marchetti, PhD, and Charles Dinarello, MD, along with Isak Tengesdal, MS, a graduate student in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, detail their work on NLRP3, an intracellular complex that has been found to participate in melanoma-mediated inflammation, leading to tumor growth and progression. By ...
2021-04-07
ZANZIBAR CITY (April 7, 2021) - A new study revealed that a drastic reduction of deaths of one of Africa's rarest primates, the Zanzibar red colobus (Piliocolobus kirkii), followed the installation of four speedbumps along a stretch of road where the species frequently crossed.
Zanzibar red colobus are found only in the Zanzibar archipelago and classified as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Reliant on Unguja Island's forests for their survival, around half of the species population is found in Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park.
In the study, published ...
2021-04-07
Eight months after mild COVID-19, one in ten people still has at least one moderate to severe symptom that is perceived as having a negative impact on their work, social or home life. The most common long-term symptoms are a loss of smell and taste and fatigue. This is according to a study published in the journal JAMA, conducted by researchers at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
Since spring 2020, researchers at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet have conducted the so-called COMMUNITY study, with the main purpose of examining immunity after COVID-19. In the first phase of the study in spring 2020, blood samples were collected from 2,149 employees at Danderyd Hospital, of whom about 19 percent had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Blood samples have since ...
2021-04-07
With a lethal, airborne virus spreading fast, hospitals had to change how they treated patients and policies for how caregivers provided that treatment. But for maternity patients and nurses some of those changes had negative outcomes, according to a new University of Washington study.
"We found that visitor restrictions and separation policies were harming families and nurses. The effects for patients included loneliness, isolation and mistrust, while nurses described mistrust and low morale," said Molly Altman, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the UW School of Nursing.
Importantly, Altman added, both nurses and patients described how COVID "amplified existing ...
2021-04-07
LA JOLLA--(April 7, 2021) When cells are stressed, chemical alarms go off, setting in motion a flurry of activity that protects the cell's most important players. During the rush, a protein called Parkin hurries to protect the mitochondria, the power stations that generate energy for the cell. Now Salk researchers have discovered a direct link between a master sensor of cell stress and Parkin itself. The same pathway is also tied to type 2 diabetes and cancer, which could open a new avenue for treating all three diseases.
"Our findings represent the earliest step in Parkin's alarm response that anyone's ever found by a long shot. ...
2021-04-07
New medicines for people who have diabetes seem to pop up all the time. Drugs that help the body break down carbohydrates, drugs that increase excretion of glucose in the urine, drugs that help muscles respond to insulin and drugs that stimulate the pancreas to produce it -- the list of pharmaceutical options to treat diabetes gets longer and longer.
The downside of this wealth of treatment options is that it can be difficult for health care providers to stay on top of the latest research and standards of care. Which medication is best for which patients? And what are the best medicines to prescribe that both lower blood glucose and reduce risk for cardiovascular disease?
Johns Hopkins Medicine endocrinologist ...
2021-04-07
How many species of birds are there in the world? It depends on whose count you go by. The number could be as low as 10,000 or as high as 18,000. It's tough to standardize lists of species because the concept of a "species" itself is a little bit fuzzy.
That matters because conserving biodiversity requires knowing what diversity exists in the first place. So biologists, led by University of Utah doctoral candidate Monte Neate-Clegg of the School of Biological Sciences, set out to compare four main lists of bird species worldwide to find out how the lists differ--and why. They found that although the lists agree on most birds, disagreements in some regions ...
2021-04-07
A new analysis of lung epithelial cells from COVID-19 patients reveals how the protective complement branch of the immune system, which usually plays roles in both innate and adaptive immunity, can convert to a harmful system during COVID-19. Blocking excessive complement activity in lung epithelial cells with a combination of existing chemotherapy and antiviral medications - ruxolitinib and remdesivir, respectively - helped normalize the production of complement proteins by infected lung epithelial cells in human cell culture experiments, the researchers found. Thus, the drug duo could serve as a promising strategy to treat damaging inflammation during severe COVID-19, the authors say. Overactivation of complement proteins can contribute to diseases such as acute respiratory distress ...
2021-04-07
HERSHEY, Pa.-- Social distancing and lockdowns may have reduced the spread of COVID-19, but researchers from Penn State College of Medicine also report those actions may have affected clinical researchers' ability to finish trials. Study completion rates dropped worldwide between 13% and 23%, depending on the type of research sponsor and geographic location, between April and October 2020.
Researchers previously reported that more than 80% of clinical trials suspended between March 1 and April 26, 2020, noted the pandemic as their chief reason for halting activity. Patient enrollment in studies was lower in April 2020, compared to April ...
2021-04-07
WYOMISSING, Pa. -- Teaching people to become entrepreneurs requires more than just passing on entrepreneurial skills, according to a team of Penn State Berks-led researchers. Would-be entrepreneurs also need to understand -- and negotiate -- the barriers that they might face.
In a study, researchers built a multidimensional model to measure the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education. The model not only includes teaching entrepreneurial skills, but also addresses the students' intentions to start a business and their perceptions of the barriers they might encounter when starting a business.
"There are a lot of studies in the literature that focus on, for example, how entrepreneurship education ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] NIH-funded researchers develop language test for people with Down syndrome
