Communicating nutrition in agriculture. Seminars and manuals for planners on the FAO methodology.
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A program was implemented to increase the manual signing of five profoundly retarded and four autistic youth within their daily environment. Each participant was nonvocal or minimally vocal. The program was based on modified incidental teaching strategies and was implemented by direct care personnel under supervision in an institutional setting. Specific components included rearranging the physical environment to prompt signing, altering routine staff-resident interactions to prompt, manually guide and/or reinforce signing; and conducting mini-training sessions. Additionally, staff modeled signs intermittently throughout the day. The program was sequentially implemented during two staff work shifts on each of two resident living modules. Observations conducted at four separate time periods during the day indicated that significant increases in signing occurred for all participating youth and that the increases generally maintained during follow-up checks at 5 and 17 weeks. Differential effects of the increased signing on frequency of vocalizations were noted across residents. A staff acceptability survey indicated favorable staff reports on the usefulness of signing to communicate with the youth. Results are discussed regarding the significance of manual signing for seriously developmentally disabled persons and the importance of ensuring that signing skills are used in the daily environment and not exclusively in formal training sessions. Also, areas for continued research are noted in terms of more refined analyses of client skills and subsequent progress in manual communication programs.
250 patients referred to a department of psychiatry for the deaf were selected by random sampling and studied. The results underline the need for specialised services for deaf patients of all types, not only those who communicate solely by manual methods. Patients are referred to this department suffering from mental illness and communication disorders, as well as from problems related to their deafness. Some of the difficulties of managing a supra-regional service are discussed.
In this study, teachers' ratings of the speech intelligibility and receptive communication ability of 15 severely deaf and 15 profoundly deaf students using five methods of communication were compared with the students' scores on tests of these receptive communication methods. The teachers' ratings generally were lower than the test scores, and examination of the correspondence between ratings and test measures revealed a low level of association between the two. Only the correlation between ratings and test results for fingerspelling had an acceptable level of statistical significance. Teachers' ratings appeared to underestimate students' tested communicative abilities in all communication modes, a situation that could engender self-fulfilling prophecies of poor performance. It would therefore be useful to have relatively quick, reliable, valid procedures available for teachers to assess their students' communication competencies with the various manual and oral components of communication. Several such procedures are suggested.
Electronic imaging system implementation is a challenging process and requires: (1) thorough procedure documentation and communication plans; (2) systematic evaluation of processes by all involved personnel groups; and (3) anticipation of potential issues and documentation of new problems as they occur. Our department is continuously improving procedures and communications as opportunities arise. A downtime procedure manual and a basic communication plan has given us a foundation to build upon and will help us to maintain appropriate levels of patient care throughout electronic system failures.
Two groups of severely and profoundly deaf students aged 10 to 17 years were tested on their abilities to choose, from a set of four pictures, the one matching a sentence presented on videotape under 11 different communication conditions. The communication conditions involved individual and combined presentations of lipreading, listening, fingerspelling, and signed English. Severely deaf students scored higher than profoundly deaf students under all conditions except those that involved signed English, where the profoundly deaf group scored as high as the severely deaf group. All the students scored higher under conditions that involved audition, including lipreading plus audition, than under audition alone. The discussion of the results highlights methodological problems that made it difficult to interpret some previous studies in this area. Practical implications of the results for both oral education of the deaf and simultaneous communication are also discussed.
The benefits of teaching manual sign language skills to severely and profoundly mentally retarded persons are becoming well documented. However, if these individuals are to use manual signing for functional communication, then their daily caregivers must also be skilled in the use of signs. In this study, a program for teaching signing skills to institutional personnel was evaluated. The generality of the program's effectiveness was investigated in three studies involving different groups of staff: paraprofessional direct care staff, specialty habilitation persons, and nurses. Results showed that the training program, consisting of written and verbal instructions, modeling, practice, and verbal feedback, was effective in rapidly teaching signs to all participating staff members. Also, the acquired signing skills maintained over time, the program was well received by staff, and staff used the signs in their routine interactions with institutionalized residents. Results are discussed with respect to the need to insure that handicapped individuals have a manual signing community with which to use their signing skills and to important components of effective staff training programs.
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The early social and communicative development of very young siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the focus of the current study. Three groups of children were included: (1) young children diagnosed with ASD, (2) younger siblings in families with a somewhat older child with ASD, and (3) young typically developing children. All children participated in a videotaped, structured interactional procedure called the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS; [Mundy & Hogan, 1996, A Preliminary Manual for the Abridged Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS) Unpublished manual, University of Miami]). Very young siblings were compared to young children with a diagnosed autism spectrum disorder and to a group of young typically developing children. Results indicated that, on three of four of the ESCS subscales, the social communicative behaviors of the younger siblings differed from those of the typically developing children but not from the behaviors displayed by the ASD group. Genetic vulnerability for ASD among siblings and characteristics of family interaction may explain the level of impairment observed in the very young siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders.
The Commission is adopting the Joint Board's recommendation with minor changes in order to allow interested states to proceed with plans for the sale of customer-premises equipment (CPE) prior to the previously adopted cap date of January 1, 1983. This will facilitate the Commission goal of a competitive market for CPE set out in the Second Computer Inquiry.
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In this article we report on how 64 dentists working in a big city in southern Sweden view their profession. The dentists ranged in age from 30 to 70 years (as it was indicated in intervals of 10 years). Their professional experience ranged from 2 to 44 years (mean, 23 years). We collected their views on the ideal skills of a good dentist by means of a questionnaire. From this material we identified three categories: 1) interpersonal skills; 2) clinical skills; and 3) others, such as self-confidence, stress tolerance, and managerial and administrative skills. Next, they rated the relative importance of a number of listed attributes in dentistry in this order: contact with patients, communication skills, empathy, manual skills, and theory. Finally, they described a number of aspects of their profession. We conclude that the importance of interpersonal skills, as well as stress tolerance and administrative skills, is emphasized by experienced practitioners but that these skills are not focused on in the dental curriculum.
Verbal prompts, modeling, physical guidance, positive reinforcement, fading, and chaining procedures were used to teach two nonverbal individuals, one severely and one moderately mentally retarded, an interactive signing dialogue in a naturalistic snack time setting. Both were required to initiate signed communication and to respond to signed communication with either action or manual signing. Using a multiple probe design across three dialogue situations, each client was successively taught his role in each dialogue with a staff member serving as his partner. After both trainees had mastered a dialogue role, signing competency was formally probed as they interacted with their staff partner in a maintenance situation and with the other trainee in a generalization situation. Results showed that clients could learn to use signed communication in each dialogue situation but that extensive training was required. Data also indicated that only partial generalization to the client-client situation occurred.
We examined the longitudinal relationships between power data in two bands (i.e. 4-6 and 6-9Hz) of electrical activity in the brain at 14 months, as measured by background electroencephalograms (EEG), with protodeclarative and protoimperative pointing at 18 months, as measured by the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS), [Mundy et al., ESCS: A Preliminary Manual for the Abridged Early Social Communication Scales, 1996, unpublished manual] (n=27). EEGs were recorded from 64 sensors using the Electrical Geodesics (EGI) system's dense array sensor nets. Multivariate permutation testing (MPT), which controlled for experiment-wise error due to multiple significance tests, revealed significant correlations between log-transformed power in the frontal region at 14 months and protodeclarative, but not protoimperative, pointing at 18 months.
The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of family and professional assessment of manual ability using the Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) for children with cerebral palsy (CP) in the UK. Families who were taking part in a study measuring the activities and participation of children with CP were invited to classify their child's manual ability using the MACS. Postal surveys were conducted with the families and health professionals nominated by the families. Perfect agreement was assessed as a percentage; chance-corrected agreement was measured using Cohen's kappa (kappa), and reliability was determined using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Families of 91/128 (71%) children responded to the survey (53 males, 38 females; mean age 9y 11mo [SD 1y 11mo], range 6-12y) out of whom 88 indicated a single MACS level. Seventy-two children (82%) were classified with spastic CP, 12 (14%) with dyskinesia, two (2%) with ataxia, and two (2%) were not classified. There were 21, 27, 11, 10, and 19 children who were classified by their families in Gross Motor Function Classification System Levels I to V respectively; 14, 30, 18, 13, and 13 children classified by their families in MACS levels I to V. The survey of health professionals generated 60/71 (85%) responses from physiotherapists, 55/58 (93%) responses from paediatricians, and 21/24 (88%) responses from occupational therapists. There was perfect agreement between families and professionals for more than 50% of children; the indices of chance-corrected agreement ranged from kappa=0.3 to 0.5, and the reliability coefficients ranged from ICC 0.7 to 0.9. Indices of agreement and reliability between families and professionals were equivalent to those between different professionals. The MACS, therefore, offers a valid and reliable method for communicating about the manual ability of children with CP. Families and professionals may not always agree precisely on a MACS level, particularly if children's performance of manual tasks varies in different environments.
BACKGROUND: A 1998 survey of acute Victorian public hospitals (VPH) revealed that surveillance of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) was underdeveloped, definitions and methodology varied considerably, and results disseminated inconsistently. The survey identified the need for an effective surveillance system for HAI. OBJECTIVE: To develop and support a standardized surveillance program for HAIs in large acute VPH and to provide risk-adjusted, procedure-specific, HAI rates. METHODS: In 2002, the independent Victorian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System (VICNISS) Coordinating Centre (VCC) was established to develop and support the standardized surveillance program. A multidisciplinary team was recruited. A communication strategy, surveillance manual, user groups, and Web site were developed. Formal education sessions were provided to participating infection control nurse consultants (ICCs). Surveillance activities were based on the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention's National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System (NNIS) surgical site infection and intensive care unit (ICU) components. NNIS methods were modified to suit local needs. Data collection was paper based or through existing hospital software. An advisory committee of key stakeholders met every second month. RESULTS: The surveillance program was rolled out over 12 months to all 28 large adult VPH. Data on over 20,000 surgical procedures performed at participating sites between November 11, 2002, and December 31, 2004, were submitted. Thirteen hospitals contributed to the ICU surveillance activities. Following aggregation and analysis by the VCC, hospital- and state-level results were posted on the Web page for hospitals to review. CONCLUSION: A standardized approach for surveillance of HAI was established in a short time frame in over 28 VPH. VICNISS is a tool that will continue to provide participating hospitals with a basis for continuous quality improvement.
BACKGROUND: Medical students in Canada must make career choices by their final year of medical school. Selection of students for a career in neurosurgery has traditionally been based on marks, reference letters and personal interviews. Studies have shown that marks alone are not accurate predictors of success in medical practice; personal skills and attributes which can best be assessed by letters of reference and interviews may be more important. This study was an attempt to assess the importance of, and ability to teach, personal skills and attitudes necessary for successful completion of a neurosurgical training program. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 185 active members of the Canadian Neurosurgical Society, asking them to give a numerical rating of the importance of 22 personal skills and attributes, and their ability to teach those skills and attributes. They were asked to list any additional skills or attributes considered important, and rate their ability to teach them. RESULTS: Sixty-six (36%) questionnaires were returned. Honesty, motivation, willingness to learn, ability to problem solve, and ability to handle stress were the five most important characteristics identified. Neurosurgeons thought they could teach problem solving, willingness to consult informed sources, critical thinking, manual dexterity, and communication skills, but honesty, motivation, willingness to learn and ability to handle stress were difficult or impossible to teach. CONCLUSIONS: Honesty, motivation, willingness to learn, ability to problem solve and handle stress are important for success in a neurosurgical career. This information should be transmitted to medical students at "Career Day" venues. Structuring letters of reference and interviews to assess personal skills and attributes will be important, as those that can't be taught should be present before the start of training.