1,720,957 research outputs found
Atypical object exploration in infants at-risk for autism during the first year of life
No full textPublisher's PDF.Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder usually diagnosed by the end of the second year of life. Early signs of ASD within the first year of life are still unclear. The main purpose of the present study was to compare object exploration skills between infants at-risk for ASD and typically developing (TD) infants to determine early markers for autism within the first year of life. Sixteen at-risk infants and 16 TD infants were longitudinally followed from 6 to 15 months of age during an object exploration task involving three objects with distinct size, shape, and texture, i.e., a long rattle, a rigid circular ball, and a soft circular koosh ball. All sessions were videotaped for coding of manual exploration (grasping and dropping), oral exploration (mouthing), and visual exploration (looking). We also obtained follow-up outcomes using various developmental questionnaires at 18 months and email follow-up on developmental delays/ASD diagnosis after the infants’ second birthdays. Our results showed object-based differences in exploration patterns that extended across both groups. We also noticed context-dependent group differences for various exploratory behaviors across objects and ages. Specifically, at 6 months, at-risk infants showed less grasping of the rigid ball as well as less mouthing and greater looking at the rattle compared to TD infants. At 9 and 12 months, at-risk infants demonstrated significantly lower levels of purposeful dropping of all objects and greater looking at the rattle. Lastly, at 15 months, at-risk infants showed persistent mouthing of the rigid ball and rattle compared to TD infants. In addition, 10 out of 16 at-risk infants developed various motor, social, and language delays or ASD diagnosis at follow-up. Taken together, early context-dependent delays/abnormalities in object exploration could be markers for future developmental delays in infants at-risk for autism. Moreover, promoting early object experiences through socially embedded, free and structured play could have significant implications for multisystem development including perceptuo-motor, social communication, and cognitive development in at-risk infants.University of Delaware. Department of Physical Therapy.University of Delaware. Department of Psychology
The Effects of Robot-Child Interactions on the Bilateral Coordination Skills of Typically Developing Children between 4 and 11 years of age
No full textBackground: Coordination develops gradually over development with younger children showing more unstable coordination patterns compared to older children and adults. In the present study, we examined whether robot-child interactions could improve bilateral coordination skills of typically developing (TD) children through imitation of whole body actions. Methods: Twenty four TD children between 4 and 11 years of age were non-randomly assigned to training and control group. Training group children received twelve training sessions across six weeks in a robot imitation context involving whole body and drumming actions. Children were assessed pre- and post-training on standardized tests of motor performance, and task-specific dual-limb and multilimb actions within a solo and social context. Results: Training group children improved their bilateral coordination following training compared to the control group children. Specifically, training group showed greater improvements in task-specific actions versus standardized tests of motor performance. In addition, TD children performed better in the solo versus the social context of task-specific actions. Conclusions: Robot-child interactions could potentially facilitate bilateral coordination and be a promising intervention tool for children with significant coordination impairments such as children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). The present study served as a foundation for future group studies in children with ASDs.
Keywords: Dual-limb, Multilimb, Motor, Coordination, Social, Autis
Creative yoga intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
No full textBhat, AnjanaAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by primary impairments in the social communication skills, and presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors, as well as secondary impairments in the motor skills of children. The rising prevalence of ASD (1 in every 68 children) emphasizes the need for effective interventions to promote better outcomes in this population. The primary goal of the current study was to examine the effects of a movement-based, creative yoga intervention on the motor, social communication, and behavioral skills of children with ASD. Additionally, we compared the efficacy of yoga to two other movement interventions delivered within a musical and robotic context in children with ASD. Twelve children with ASD between 5- and 12 years of age received 8-weeks of yoga intervention with 2 sessions delivered each week and additional home sessions delivered by the parents of the children. The activities practiced within the yoga sessions included poses, breathing exercises, eye gaze training, social games, and relaxation. We assessed the generalized changes in the motor, imitation, and joint attention of children using standardized tests administered before and after the intervention, and training-specific changes in the imitation, communication, affect, and maladaptive behaviors of children during the early, mid, and late training session. Our results indicated that children improved the gross motor performance, imitation accuracy, and response to joint attention bids on standardized tests following the yoga intervention. In addition, the children showed training-specific improvements in the imitation of yoga poses and communication skills during the late training sessions compared to the mid and early sessions. In terms of differences between the three movement-based intervention, we observed similar training-related changes in the motor, communication, and affective states of children following the music, robot, or yoga intervention such that children improved the motor and communications skills, with no changes in the affective states following the intervention. We also observed group-related differences, such that the yoga group was associated with greater responsive social verbalization and interested affect, the music group had greater positive and negative affect, and lastly, the robot group had greater self-verbalization and negative affect compared to the other two groups. Overall, the current evidence suggests that movement-based interventions delivered within engaging and creative contexts could be promising tools for alleviating the primary social communication, as well as the secondary motor impairments of children with ASD.Ph.D.University of Delaware, Biomechanics and Movement Sciences Progra
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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