Parental Bonding in the News: 4 in 10 Infants Lack Strong Parental Attachments

[Source:  Medical News Today]

Research on Weighted Vests in the News:  More Research on Effects of Weighted Vests on Attending Behaviors  

[Source:  ABC Therapeutics]

I was very happy to see another article on weighted vests in the current issue of AJOT (Lin, Lee, Chang, and Hong, 2014).  The last opportunity we had to look at this issue was the excellent pilot study completed by Collins and Dworkin and published in the November/December 2011 AJOT.  In that study (reviewed here) the authors found that the weighted vests were not effective in increasing time on task, but cautioned that the results should be generalized cautiously owing to the small sample size and participant selection process.

The current study, completed by colleagues in Taiwan, employed a much more rigorous randomized and two period crossover design with a much larger sample of children.  110 children participated in the study that measured their performance on the Conners' Continuous Performance Test and recorded behaviors during weighted and non-weighted vest wearing conditions.

Free Play in the News:  Playground Removes "Safety" Rules; Fun, Development and Injuries Ensue

Very interesting article.  Thank you to Loren Shlaes of the pediatricOT blog for making sure we saw it.

[Source: Boing Boing]

Bullying in the News:  Becoming More Popular Doesn't Protect Teens From Bullying 

Movies like Mean Girls have told us that the popular crowd rules, and the nerds and nonconformists get picked on.

But even the top rungs of high school social ladder aren't immune to bullying, researchers say. Becoming more popular can actually increase a teen's risk of getting bullied rather than making them immune to attack.

To find that out, researchers from The University of California, Davis and Pennsylvania State University asked 4,200 high school students in North Carolina about their close friends and acquaintances. "We created sort of a social map of the school," says Bob Faris, an associate professor of sociology at UC Davis.

"The climb up can be painful," Faris says. Students trying to rise up the ranks were also more likely to bully others. "As kids get closer [to the top]," Faris says, "they become more involved in social combat."

Universal Structure of Language in the News:  Universal Syllables: Some Innate Preferences Shape the Sound of Words at Birth  

[Source:  Science Daily]

Languages are learned, it's true, but are there also innate bases in the structure of language that precede experience? Linguists have noticed that, despite the huge variability of human languages, there are some preferences in the sound of words that can be found across languages.  So they wonder whether this reflects the existence of a universal, innate biological basis of language. A new study provides evidence to support to this hypothesis, demonstrating that certain preferences in the sound of words are already active in newborn infants.

Take the sound "bl": how many words starting with that sound can you think of? Blouse, blue, bland... Now try with "lb": how many can you find? None in English and Italian, and even in other languages such words either don't exist or are extremely rare. Human languages offer several examples of this kind, and this indicates that in forming words we tend to prefer certain sound combinations to others, irrespective of which language we speak. The fact that this occurs across languages has prompted linguists to 

Gross Motor Skills in the News:  Gross Motor Skill Development in Children with Learning Disabilities

PediaStaff Placement of the Week:  Beautiful Arkansas!  

Congratulations to Lawrence B., OTR/L who is relocating to Arkansas next month and has an accepted an offer to work for one of PediaStaff's clients.  He will go to work every day to an impressive 12,000 square foot outpatient therapy clinic complete with a brand new sensory gym.

Larry will be working with children from birth to 21 years of age..with various diagnoses from moderate to severe and will have plenty of support and mentorship. He will get 2 weeks payed time-off per year, along with 80 hours of sick leave plus paid health insurance coverage.

Great job, Larry.  This will be a great opportunity for you.

Good Morning Baltimore!  PediaStaff is at AOTA 2014  

Baltimore is a beautiful city and we are all enjoying it quite a bit!  Its been so wonderful to meet all of these experienced therapists with so much to teach and share as well as the enthusiastic young people that are the future of this great profession.  

Its been a treat sharing convention with you! 

Please enjoy a collage of some of the pictures we have taken so far on our blog

Speech Language Resources of the Week:  Early Communication Video For Families by Pathways.org  

We just got an email from Virginia Li, of Pathways.org.  They have recently completed a new YouTube video  and brochure on early communication development, which both cover major milestones and tips for what parents can do to help their infants reach these milestones.  The video covers information for the first year and the brochure covers ages zero to three.

Watch this Excellent Video Through a Link on our Website

SLP Caseloads Survey:  Your Help Requested  

With great honesty, author Jennifer Schwertfeger takes us through her 24-weeker Grace's  miraculous 9-month NICU journey from troublesome pregnancy to birth to NICU to home and into the school years.  This book is helpful to parents of preemies at any stage in the journey as the author provides meaningful tips and definitions throughout. It is also a fabulous book for professionals to gain perspective on the preemie parent experience when working with a child with complex medical needs and a long-term NICU/PICU stay.

Book Review:  Life with Grace  

With great honesty, author Jennifer Schwertfeger takes us through her 24-weeker Grace's  miraculous 9-month NICU journey from troublesome pregnancy to birth to NICU to home and into the school years.  This book is helpful to parents of preemies at any stage in the journey as the author provides meaningful tips and definitions throughout. It is also a fabulous book for professionals to gain perspective on the preemie parent experience when working with a child with complex medical needs and a long-term NICU/PICU stay.

Autism Resource of the Week:  Video on the Importance of Social Stories  

Please visit My Aspergers Child for a great video discussion about social stories and how parents, therapists and caregivers can use social stories with their students and children with autism.

Access This Informative Video Through a Link on our Blog

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