Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

K R Harris

Publications and source records attributed to K R Harris.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome in the Top End of the Northern Territory.

OBJECTIVE: To establish the prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in the Top End of the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, in both the indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a preventable disease that is a major cause of intellectual handicap worldwide. The prevalence of FAS in the NT, and in Australia as a whole, is unknown. METHODOLOGY: Cases were identified through retrospective review of medical records and outpatient letters of children seen by Royal Darwin Hospital paediatric staff. Cases were also identified by tracing potentially affected siblings, or incidentally during clinical work. All children were born between 1990 and 2000, and lived in the Top End of the NT. RESULTS: Seventeen children were identified with definite FAS. Twenty-six children with partial FAS or alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) were also identified. The prevalence of FAS in the Top End of the NT was calculated to be 0.68 per 1000 live births. The prevalence might be as high as 1.7 per 1000 live births, if cases identified as partial FAS or ARND because of insufficient records, were assumed to have full FAS. In indigenous children, the corresponding prevalence was calculated to be between 1.87 and 4.7 per 1000 live births. The difference between indigenous and non-indigenous rates of FAS was significant (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of FAS in indigenous children of the Top End of the NT is comparable to the high rates in indigenous populations worldwide.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The effects of goal setting and self-instruction on learning a reading comprehension strategy: a study of students with learning disabilities.

This study examined the contributions of instruction in goal setting and self-instruction, separately and combined, on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of a reading comprehension strategy by fourth-through sixth-grade students with learning disabilities. A previously validated strategy involving the use of story structure to analyze and remember story content was taught to 47 students with learning disabilities using the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model. Comparisons were made among students with learning disabilities in four conditions (strategy instruction, strategy instruction plus goal setting, strategy instruction plus self-instruction, and strategy instruction plus goal setting and self-instruction). Result indicated that instruction in the reading strategy produced meaningful, lasting, and generalizable effects on students' story comprehension skills. Furthermore, the comprehension performance of the students with learning disabilities after strategy instruction was indistinguishable from that of a social comparison group of normally achieving students. Explicit instruction in goal setting and self-instruction, however, did not augment the comprehension performance of students with learning disabilities.

Analysis of Variance↗