The purpose of this study was to profile the mental development of children aged 18 to 96 months with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Chinese version of the Griffiths Mental Development ...Scales (GMDS), and to explore the relationships between developmental levels and ASD severity, the sex of the child and the age of ASD diagnosis. Children with ASD (
n
= 398; 337 boys, 61 girls) were recruited and ASD severity evaluated using the Autism Behavior Checklist and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, while the GMDS was used to evaluate the children’s mental development. Study participants were divided into groups according to GMDS general and subscale quotients, ASD severity, sex, and age. The majority of groups divided according to the GMDS quotients exhibited an unbalanced distribution in respect of the six domains of the GMDS and there were significant differences within the six subscale quotients. Autism severity, sex and age had significant effects on the overall level of development of autistic children. The quotients recorded for the children with more severe ASD were significantly lower than those for the children with less severe ASD. A markedly higher proportion of developmental delay was recorded for girls than boys in relation to the performance subscale. The locomotor quotient decreased in line with age at diagnosis, while autism severity and age had significant effects on the general and subscale quotients and sex had a significant effect on performance quotient. Children with ASD exhibit an uneven cognitive development profile, and their overall developmental levels are affected by autism severity, sex and age. Specific cognitive domains differ according to sex in children with ASD. Locomotor skills tend to decrease according to the age at diagnosis for autistic children aged 18 to 84 months. Autism severity and age are also associated with the level of functioning in different cognitive areas. These findings contribute to define the cognitive developmental profiles of children with ASD.
Aim
The aim of this study was to evaluate neurocognitive outcome at 24 months of corrected age after less invasive surfactant application (LISA) in preterm infants born at 23‐26 weeks of gestational ...age.
Methods
Surviving participants of a LISA trial conducted in 13 German level III neonatal intensive care units were reviewed for assessment of developmental outcome, hearing and vision problems, growth and rehospitalisation days. Maternal depression, breastfeeding rates and socio‐economic factors were evaluated as potentially confounding factors.
Results
In total, 156/182 infants took part in the study, 78 had received surfactant via LISA and 78 via endotracheal intubation. 22% of LISA infants compared to 42% of intubated infants had a psychomotor development index (PDI) <70 (0.012). A significant difference in mental development index (MDI) was observed in the stratum of more mature infants (25 and 26 weeks of GA). For this group, MDI < 70 was observed in 4% of LISA infants vs 21% of intubated infants (P = 0.008).
Conclusion
At 24 months of age, the LISA‐treated infants scored less often PDI < 70 and had similar results in MDI. Infants born at 25 and 26 weeks treated with LISA had lower rates of severe disability. LISA is safe and may be superior.
In phenylketonuria (PKU), high phenylalanine (Phe) levels hamper neurodevelopment impairing executive function later in life. While the second has been more studied, fewer data exist on predictors of ...PKU patients' development in specific populations. To contribute to the field, we performed a retrospective analysis of predictors of neurodevelopment in PKU patients in a Portuguese cohort. We analyzed the retrospective data on the metabolic control of 89 patients, as their health and familial features. Griffith's Mental Development Scale performance at age 6 (GMDS6) was used to assess neurodevelopment. Our cohort included 14 GMDS6low and 75 GMDS6high patients. In a multivariate analysis, the better predictors of neurodevelopment were the metabolic control at age 3 and year of birth (n = 87, β0 = −121, β1 = −1.77, β2 = 0.06, LRchi2(2) = 13.61, Prob > chi2 = 0.001, Pseudo R2 = 0.1773). With this model, it was possible to define a safety cut‐off of 7.8 mg/dL for the Phe level at age 3 (sensitivity = 72.6%, specificity = 78.6%), confirming the safety of the cut‐off of 6 mg/dL already used in the clinical practice. Our study supports the relevance of metabolic control to predict the neurodevelopment of PKU patients, in the historical context of the disease management.
Affordances capture the relationships between a robot and the environment in terms of the actions that the robot is able to perform. The notable characteristic of affordance-based perception is that ...an object is perceived by what it affords (e.g., graspable and rollable), instead of identities (e.g., name, color, and shape). Affordances play an important role in basic robot capabilities such as recognition, planning, and prediction. The key challenges in affordance research are: (1) how to automatically discover the distinctive features that specify an affordance in an online and incremental manner and (2) how to generalize these features to novel environments. This survey provides an entry point for interested researchers, including: (1) a general overview; (2) classification and critical analysis of existing work; (3) discussion of how affordances are useful in developmental robotics; (4) some open questions about how to use the affordance concept; and (5) a few promising research directions.
Background and Aims: Congenital hypothyroidism is the most common and preventable cause of mental retardation in children. This study aimed to investigate mental development in healthy children and ...children with hypothyroidism treated in South Khorasan in 2020. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 64 children aged five to seven years in South Khorasan, divided into two groups (n=32): the control group and the group with congenital hypothyroidism. Data were collected using checklist demographic data, including gender, age, treatment, socioeconomic status, place of residence, and parents’ level of education, as well as children’s intellectual quotient (IQ) based on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test of intelligence. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software (version 24) at a significant level of less than 0.05 Results: The mean age of children was 6.22±0.79 years, and there was no significant difference between the two groups concerning their age (P=0.78). The results also showed no significant difference between the groups for their gender (P>0.05). The average IQ score was 125.50±8.00 in the population with hypothyroidism and 127.14±5.41 in healthy children; however, the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.50). Additionally, there was no significant relationship between the IQ scores and case groups (P=0.40). Finally, the comparison of IQ classes was not significant between the two groups regarding their age (P>0.05) and gender (P> 0.05). Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that the screening program for congenital hypothyroidism can positively affect children’s mental development or IQ.
Is there any difference in developmental outcomes in children born after capacitation IVM (CAPA IVM) compared with conventional IVF?
Overall development up to 24 months of age was comparable in ...children born after CAPA IVM compared with IVF.
IVM has been shown to be a feasible alternative to conventional IVF in women with a high antral follicle count (AFC). In addition to live birth rate, childhood development is also a relevant metric to compare between the two approaches to ART and there are currently no data on this.
This study was a follow-up of babies born to women who participated in a randomized controlled trial comparing IVM with a pre-maturation step (CAPA IVM) and IVF. Developmental assessments were performed on 231 children over 24 months of follow-up.
Participants in the randomized controlled trial had an indication for ART and a high AFC (≥24 follicles in both ovaries). They were randomized to undergo one cycle of either IVM (n = 273) or IVF (n = 273). Of these, 96 women and 118 women, respectively, had live births. Seventy-six women (94 children, 79.2%) and 104 women (137 children, 88.1%), respectively, completed Ages & Stages Third Edition Questionnaire assessment (ASQ-3), and underwent evaluation of Developmental Red Flags at 6, 12 and 24 months of age.
Baseline characteristics of participants in the follow-up study between the IVM and IVF groups were comparable. Overall, there were no significant differences in ASQ-3 scores at 6, 12 and 24 months between children born after IVM or IVF. The proportion of children with developmental red flags was low and did not differ between the two groups. Slightly, but significantly, lower ASQ-3 problem solving and personal-social scores in twins from the IVM versus IVF group at 6 months were still within the normal range and had caught up to the IVF group in the 12- and 24-month assessments. The number of children confirmed to have abnormal mental and/or motor development after specialist assessment was four in the IVM group and two in the IVF group (relative risk 2.91, 95% CI 0.54-15.6; P = 0.23).
This study is an open-label follow-up of participants in a randomized controlled trial, and not all original trial subjects took part in the follow-up. The self-selected nature of the follow-up population could have introduced bias, and the sample size may have been insufficient to detect significant between-group differences in developmental outcomes.
Based on the current findings at 2 years of follow-up, there does not appear to be any significant concern about the effects of IVM on childhood development. These data add to the evidence available to physicians when considering different approaches to fertility treatment, but require validation in larger studies.
This work was funded by the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number FWO.106-YS.2017.02. L.N.V. has received speaker and conference fees from Merck, grant, speaker and conference fees from Merck Sharpe and Dohme, and speaker, conference and scientific board fees from Ferring; T.M.H. has received speaker fees from Merck, Merck Sharp and Dohme, and Ferring; R.J.N. has receives grant funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia; B.W.M. has acted as a paid consultant to Merck, ObsEva and Guerbet and is the recipient of grant money from an NHMRC Investigator Grant; J.E.J.S. reports lecture fees from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Biomérieux and Besins Female Healthcare, grants from Fund for Research Flanders (FWO) and is co-inventor on granted patents on CAPA-IVM methodology in the USA (US10392601B2) and Europe (EP3234112B1); T.D.P., M.H.N.N., N.A.N., T.T.L., V.T.T.T., N.T.N., H.L.T.H. and X.T.H.L. have no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years, and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.
NCT04296357 (www.clinicaltrials.gov).
5 March 2020.
7 March 2020.
Childhood autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can easily be misdiagnosed, due to the nonspecific social and communicational deficits associated with the disorder. The present study attempted to profile ...the mental development and visual attention toward emotion among preschool children with mild or moderate ASD who were attending mainstream kindergartens. A total of 21 children (17 boys and 4 girls) diagnosed with mild or moderate ASD selected from 5,178 kindergarteners from the Xi'an city were recruited. Another group of 21 typically developing (TD) children who were matched with age, gender, and class served as controls. All children were assessed using the Griffiths Mental Development Scales-Chinese (GDS-C), and their social visual attention was assessed during watching 20 ecologically valid film scenes by using eye tracking technique. The results showed that ASD children had lower mental development scores in the Locomotor, Personal-Social, Language, Performance, and Practical Reasoning subscales than the TD peers. Moreover, deficits in recognizing emotions from facial expressions based on naturalistic scene stimuli with voice were found for ASD children. The deficits were significantly correlated with their ability in social interaction and development quotient in ASD group. ASD children showed atypical eye-gaze pattern when compared to TD children during facial emotion expression task. Children with ASD had reduced visual attention to facial emotion expression, especially for the eye region. The findings confirmed the deficits of ASD children in real life multimodal of emotion recognition, and their atypical eye-gaze pattern for emotion recognition. Parents and teachers of children with mild or moderate ASD should make informed educational decisions according to their level of mental development. In addition, eye tracking technique might clinically help provide evidence diagnosing children with mild or moderate ASD.
Objective To compare neurodevelopmental outcomes of extremely preterm infants diagnosed with patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) who were treated medically or surgically and those who were not diagnosed ...with PDA or who did not undergo treatment for PDA. Study design This retrospective population-based cohort study used data from a geographically defined area in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory served by a network of 10 neonatal intensive care units. Patients included all preterm infants born at <29 completed weeks of gestation between 1998 and 2004. Moderate/severe functional disability at 2-3 years corrected age was defined as developmental delay, cerebral palsy requiring aids, sensorineural or conductive deafness (requiring bilateral hearing aids or cochlear implant), or bilateral blindness (best visual acuity of <6/60). Results Follow-up information at age 2-3 years was available for 1473 infants (74.8%). Compared with infants not diagnosed with a PDA or who did not receive PDA treatment for PDA, those with medically treated PDA (aOR, 1.622; 95% CI, 1.199-2.196) and those with surgically treated PDA (aOR, 2.001; 95% CI, 1.126-3.556) were at significantly greater risk for adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes at age 2-3 years. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that treatment for PDA may be associated with a greater risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcome at age 2-3 years. This was particularly so among infants born at <25 weeks gestation. These results may support permissive tolerance of PDAs; however, reasons for this association remain to be elucidated through carefully designed prospective trials.
A trace element, known as a minor element, is a chemical element whose concentration is very low. They are divided into essential and non-essential classes. Numerous physiological and metabolic ...processes in both plants and animals require essential trace elements. These essential trace elements are so directly related to the metabolic and physiologic processes of the organism that either their excess or deficiency can result in severe bodily malfunction or, in the worst situations, death. Elements can be found in nature in various forms and are essential for the body to carry out its varied functions. Trace elements are crucial for biological, chemical, and molecular cell activity. Nutritional deficits can lead to weakened immunity, increased susceptibility to oral and systemic infections, delayed physical and mental development, and lower productivity. Trace element enzymes are involved in many biological and chemical processes. These compounds act as co-factors for a number of enzymes and serve as centers for stabilizing the structures of proteins and enzymes, allowing them to mediate crucial biological processes. Some trace elements control vital biological processes by attaching to molecules on the cell membrane’s receptor site or altering the structure of the membrane to prevent specific molecules from entering the cell. Some trace elements are engaged in redox reactions. Trace elements have two purposes. They are required for the regular stability of cellular structures, but when lacking, they might activate alternate routes and induce disorders. Therefore, thoroughly understanding these trace elements is essential for maintaining optimal health and preventing disease.
One of the medical and social problems that are considered urgent today is the need to improve the health of children with disorders of mental development, including attention deficit hyperactivity ...disorder (ADHD). Purpose - to conduct a systematic analysis of scientific sources regarding the etiopathogenesis, clinical manifestations, and joint practical work of doctors, social workers, and teachers regarding ADHD in children 6-8 years old. Domestic and international studies prove that the treatment of ADHD in children should be comprehensive, include recommendations on regime and lifestyle, drug therapy, and practical recommendations from an educational component. A multidisciplinary approach to determine clinical-psychopathological and clinical-psychological regularities of the mental development of children with ADHD is relevant. A feature of such children is high activity, inability to focus on one thing, short-temperedness. But such a condition can be corrected if treatment is started as early as possible. The cause of the development of the disorder can be: complications during pregnancy (this includes early toxicosis, preeclampsia, intrauterine hypoxia of the fetus), complications during childbirth (premature, rapid); low body weight of the child at birth or suffered serious diseases during the first year of life; the presence of bad habits in a pregnant woman, hard work or work in harmful conditions during the period of bearing the fetus. The main signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children 6-8 years old are as follows: inattention; hyperactivity; impulsiveness. The main symptoms of ADHD can also be accompanied by accompanying symptoms: difficulties in learning, even despite high intellectual abilities; tics; quick fatigue; the presence of phobias, anxiety and depression; autism; sleep problems; speech or behavior disorders. Scientists consider the features of intellectual development of children with ADHD to be voluntary regulation of mental activity, cognitive functions, speech, voluntary motor activity, insufficient development of perceptual-gnostic and emotional spheres. No conflict of interests was declared by the author.
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