Cryptic T-cell epitopes and their role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether expectations about normal infant and child development are different among mothers from 4 ethnocultural groups. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred fifty-five mothers (90 Puerto Rican, 59 African American, 69 European American, 37 West Indian-Caribbean) whose children received health care at hospital-based pediatric clinics and private pediatricians' and family practitioners' offices. DESIGN: Verbally administered questionnaire that included 25 questions in which mothers were asked to give their opinions about the age at which a normal child should begin to accomplish standard developmental milestones. ANALYSIS: Responses (mean ages at which mothers expected children to attain the milestones) from each group were compared after controlling for age of mother, number of children, level of education, and socioeconomic status. RESULTS: Significant differences among ethnic groups' responses were seen for 9 of 25 developmental milestones. Differences were mainly seen among personal and social milestones, and Puerto Rican mothers tended to expect children to attain these milestones at a later age than did other mothers. No differences in responses were seen between Spanish- and English-speaking Puerto Rican mothers. European-American mothers expected children to take first steps and become toilet trained at a later age. CONCLUSIONS: Developmental expectations differ among mothers from different ethnocultural groups. Many of these differences can be explained by underlying cultural beliefs and values and specific child-rearing practices. Clinicians should ask about maternal expectations during child health visits to interpret mothers' concerns and opinions about their children's development.     

Factors affecting young children's mental development and their significance in intervention

Factors affecting their developmental quotients (DQ) in 48 normal young children, who were involved in regular development assessments at child health care outpatient visits and whose parents received child-rearing guidance at Chaoyangmen Subdistrict of Dongcheng District, Beijing, and 43 controls aged 36 months were analyzed. Factors, such as their parents' receiving child-rearing guidance, paternal education, maternal education, paternal occupation, type of nursery schools, home environment quality score (HEQS) at 24 and 36 months of age, and mothers' knowledge of child-rearing were associated with children's DQ at their age of 36 months, with statistical significance at a level of 0.05 in univariate analysis. With multiple regression analysis, HEQS at the age of 36 months, family size at the age of 24 months, paternal education, children's sex, and mothers' age had influences on DQ at age of 36 months with statistical significance, and the degree of correlation of HEQS with DQ at 36 months was much higher than that of other factors, and it suggested that HEQS was an important link in child developmental intervention.     

Measuring children's perceptions of their mother's depression: The Children’s Perceptions of Others’ Depression Scale–Mother Version.

Several theoretical perspectives suggest that knowledge of children's perceptions of and beliefs about their parents' depression may be critical for understanding its impact on children. This paper describes the development and preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of a new measure, the Children's Perceptions of Others' Depression – Mother Version (CPOD-MV), which assesses theoretically and empirically driven constructs related to children's understanding and beliefs about their mothers' depression. These constructs include children's perceptions of the severity, chronicity, and impairment of their mothers' depression; self-blame for their mother's depression; and beliefs about their abilities to deal with their mother's depression. The CPOD-MV underwent two stages of development: (1) a review of the literature to identify key constructs, focus groups to help generate items, and clinicians' ratings on the relevance and comprehensibility of the drafted items and (2) a study of the measure's psychometric properties. The literature review, focus groups, and item-reduction techniques yielded a 21-item measure. Reliability, factor structure, and discriminant, convergent, and concurrent validity were tested in a sample of 10- to 17-year-old children whose mothers had been treated for depression. The scale had good internal consistency; factor structure suggestive of a single construct; and discriminant, concurrent, convergent, and incremental validity, suggesting the importance of measuring children's perceptions of their mothers' depression beyond knowledge of mothers' depression symptom level when explaining which children have the greatest risk for emotional and behavioral problems among children of depressed mothers. These findings support continued development and beginning clinical applications of the scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' supervision of their children's peer play: Relations with beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge.

Mothers (N?=?76) of 3- to 5-year-old children completed questionnaires assessing beliefs in the importance and modifiability (vs. innateness) of children's peer relationship skills, perceptions of their children's social competence with peers, and strategies they would use in response to children's peer interaction problems. A subsample of mothers (n?=?34) was observed supervising the play of their own children and a peer. Maternal perceptions of children's competence were negatively associated with the extent of mothers' involvement in children's play, whereas the quality of supervision was predicted by knowledge of socialization strategies and the interaction of beliefs and knowledge. Beliefs appeared to moderate the effects of maternal knowledge on mothers' behavior in that knowledge was associated with the quality of supervision only when mothers believed social skills were important and modifiable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' Affect in the Homework Context: The Importance of Staying Positive.

This research investigated mothers' affect in the context of children's homework. Mothers (N=109) of children 8 to 12 years old were interviewed daily about their affect while interacting with children, their assistance with children's homework, and children's behavior while completing homework. At this time and 6 months later, children's motivational and emotional functioning was assessed. Although mothers' negative affect was lower than their positive affect, it was elevated on days their assistance with homework was high. This was accounted for by mothers' perceptions of children as helpless on days they provided heightened assistance. Mothers' positive affect in the homework context buffered children's motivational and emotional functioning against mothers' negative affect as well as children's helplessness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' beliefs about their children's cognitive abilities.

Examined mothers' judgments of their children's cognitive abilities and the relation between such judgments and the child's developmental level. 49 1st-grade children responded to tasks drawn from either the Piagetian literature or the Stanford-Binet IQ tests. Ss also completed a vocabulary test drawn from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Subsequently, each S's mother was asked various questions about probable response, both for her own child and for children in general. Results reveal that mothers were more accurate in predicting their child's success or failure on the IQ items than on the Piaget items. In both conditions, overestimations of ability were more common than underestimations. Estimates of age of mastery also showed overestimation, in some cases by several years. Data collected from 12 fathers indicate that fathers' patterns of response were similar to those of their wives. The correlations between accurate predictions by the mother and correct answers by the child were .85 in the Piaget condition and .49 in the IQ condition. Findings are compatible with the match hypothesis, which posits that the mother's knowledge of her child enables her to create an optimally challenging environment. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The structure of mother–child play: Young children with Down syndrome and typically developing children.

This study explored developmental changes and effects of Down syndrome on mothers' structuring of their children's play. Mothers and their young children with Down syndrome (n?=?28) were compared with socioeconomically matched samples of mothers and their mental age-matched (n?=?28) and chronological age-matched (n?=?28) typically developing children. Mothers of typically developing children exhibited more object demonstrations with their developmentally younger children, who exhibited less object play. Mothers of children with Down syndrome were more directive and supportive than were mothers of younger and older typically developing children, who did not differ in their frequencies of these behaviors. More maternal supportive object behavior was associated with more object play and vocalization by children with Down syndrome. Mothers and children in all 3 groups were contingently responsive to their partners' behavioral signals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social interactionist account of developing decontextualized narrative skill.

The ability to produce decontextualized language is a crucial skill underlying literacy acquisition. This study investigated the role of parental interaction styles on children's developing skill at providing contextual orientation in one type of decontextualized discourse, personal experience narratives. A researcher elicited narratives monthly for 18 mo from 10 children age 26–43 mo. At intervals, mothers were asked to tape record "talk about past events" with their children. The children's increasing skill at independently providing context about when and where was correlated with mothers' frequencies of using specific types of prompts in their narrative elicitations. Cross-lagged correlations showed that parents who frequently prompted for context orientation had children who most frequently provided subsequent orientation to when and where in their stand-alone narratives when they were over 3 years of age. Results were interpreted in terms of Vygotskian theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imitation and expansions: Some developmental aspects of mother-child communications.

Videotaped 2 groups each of 9 children (age ranges = 18-26 mo and 48-61 mo, respectively) in a free-play setting with their mothers. Interactions were analyzed for relationships between mothers' and children's speech with regard to complexity and usage of selected speech types. Mothers' expansions of child utterances were positively related to the younger, but not the older, children's imitations of mothers' speech. Mothers' sentence complexity was positively related to younger, but not older, children's frequency of responding to questions. Child speech that is responsive to mothers' speech seems to provide a gauge by which mothers tailor their language complexity, allowing the child to exert an influence on his language environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determination of pefloxacin and its main active metabolite in human serum by high-performance liquid chromatography

BACKGROUND: Investigation to see if there are key psychological risk indicators for autism in a random population study of children at 18 months of age; and to assess how well these discriminate children who receive a diagnosis of autism from other forms of developmental delay. METHOD: Sixteen thousand children in the southeast of England were screened for autism by their health visitor or GP, during their routine 18-month-old developmental check-up, using the CHAT (Checklist for Autism in Toddlers). From a previous high-risk study we predicted that children at 18 months of age who failed three items ('protodeclarative pointing', 'gaze-monitoring', and 'pretend play') would be at risk for receiving a diagnosis of autism. From other evidence, we further predicted that those 18-month-olds who failed one or two of the key items (either pretend play, or protodeclarative pointing and pretend play) would be at risk for developmental delay without autism. RESULTS: Twelve children out of the total population of 16,000 consistently failed the three key items. Of these, 10 (83.3%) received a diagnosis of autism. Thus, the false positive rate was 16.6% (2 out of 12 cases), and even these 2 cases were not normal. When the 10 children with autism were reassessed at 3.5 years of age, their diagnosis remained the same. Thus the false positive rate among the cases diagnosed with autism was zero. In contrast, of 22 children who consistently failed either protodeclarative pointing and/or pretend play, none received a diagnosis of autism, but 15 (68.2%) received a diagnosis of language delay. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent failure of the three key items from the CHAT at 18 months of age carries an 83.3% risk of autism; and this pattern of risk indicator is specific to autism when compared to other forms of developmental delay.     

Maternal facial behavior and the recognition and production of emotional expression by maltreated and nonmaltreated children.

20 maltreated and 20 nonmaltreated children (ages?=?3–7 years) and their mothers were observed during a laboratory play session and 7 home observation visits. Ss' facial behavior was video recorded in the lab and coded live by observers in the home. Children also participated in an emotional-expression recognition task. Data analysis showed that both maltreatment status and mothers' facial behavior were predictors of children's recognition scores. Positive relationships were also found between mothers' and children's expressive behavior. Although maltreated and nonmaltreated children differed significantly in their recognition of emotional facial expressions, group differences were not found for either mothers' or children's expressive behavior. Overall, this study's findings indicate that children's recognition and production of facial expressions depends in part on the expressive environment provided by their mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of mothers' gender-role stereotypic beliefs on mothers' and children's ability perceptions.

Examined the relation between mothers' gender stereotypic beliefs, their perceptions of their children's abilities, and their children's self-perceptions in 3 activity domains. Approximately 1,500 mothers and their 11- to 12-yr-old children responded to questions about the children's abilities in the math, sports, and social domains. It was predicted that mothers' beliefs about their children would be moderated by their gender stereotypic beliefs about the abilities of female and male people in general. As predicted, path analyses revealed that mothers' gender stereotypic beliefs interact with the sex of their child to influence their perceptions of the child's abilities. Mothers' perceptions, in turn, mediate the influence of past performance on children's self-perceptions in each domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of mothers' control in children's mastery orientation: A time frame analysis.

Important to understanding the process by which parents' control shapes children's motivation is identifying the time frame in which it does so. To this end, mothers and their 4-year-old children were observed interacting for 15 min while working on a challenging task twice over 6 months. Mothers' control and children's mastery orientation were coded in 1-min intervals at both times. Analyses over the 6 months indicated that mothers' heightened control foreshadowed children's dampened mastery because mothers' control was stable over time. Analyses over the 15-min interactions revealed that the more controlling mothers were one minute, the less mastery oriented children were the next minute, adjusting for their earlier mastery. Moreover, when mothers began these interactions highly controlling, children's mastery was particularly likely to decrease over the 15 min. Taken together, the results suggest the effect of mothers' control on children's mastery is immediate and maintained through mothers' continued controlling practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A rearrangement of the CDD gene at the 5'' UTR produces two types of transcripts that contain a natural antisense region

BACKGROUND: Mothers with multiple sclerosis (MS) often face fatigue and episodic exacerbations during their child-rearing years. These problems affect their support of their children, including physical affection. Children, depending on their age and gender, may or may not understand the changes. OBJECTIVES: To increase knowledge about mothers with MS concerning the relationship of fatigue and functional status to the perception of physical affection with their children, their perceptions of physical affection with their children in relation to exacerbation of their symptoms and the age and gender of their children, and the children's perceptions of their mothers' physical affection in relation to the children's age and gender and exacerbations in their mothers' symptoms. METHOD: Thirty-five mothers with relapsing-remitting MS and a child of each mother were studied, using interviews and questionnaires. RESULTS: Functional status and fatigue were not significant predictors of physical affection during an exacerbation. When the mothers' symptoms were stable, perceptions of mothers and children with respect to maternal physical affection were similar. Significant changes were reported in both the mothers' perceptions of their physical affection and the children's perceptions of their mothers' physical affection during exacerbations. There was a significant difference between the perceptions of the mothers and children regarding the magnitude of that change. Mothers significantly underestimated changes in their physical affection. CONCLUSIONS: Physical affection was selected as an important aspect of family functioning that could be affected by characteristics of illness, including exacerbations, fatigue, and functional status. However, fatigue and functional status did not explain the perception of physical affection during an exacerbation.     

Parent–child interaction and the acquisition of lexical information during play.

Examined individual play interactions of 14 pairs of parents with their preschool-aged boys and girls (2.6–4.11 yrs old) to determine the ways mothers and fathers provided and elicited lexical information about the names and functions of the parts of a complex toy car. Parents' and children's speech was analyzed for utterances that provided or requested the name (label) or purpose (function) of a car part and for nonlabeling utterances that mentioned the part (term). Analyses revealed significant contrasts between fathers and mothers in their interactive styles and in the amounts and kinds of lexical information they provided and elicited. Fathers' speech contained more different terms than did mothers', and more fathers than mothers described the functions of the car parts. Fathers were also more cognitively and linguistically demanding: More fathers than mothers requested labels and functions from their children. Children, in turn, produced more total vocabulary to fathers than to mothers. These parent–child interaction patterns suggest that fathers and mothers may exert an active influence on children's language development. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal intervention in toddler peer conflict: The socialization of principles of justice.

The focus of this research was mothers' interventions in object conflicts between toddler peers. Maternal consistency in endorsing principles of ownership and possession was evaluated. 32 20- or 30-mo-old children were observed playing with same-aged, same-sex peers for 18 40-min sessions. Mothers of both children were present and free to respond to their children but were asked not to organize or direct the children's play. We found that mothers frequently intervened and that they overwhelmingly favored the other child; however, mothers of boys supported their own children more than mothers of girls. Additionally, mothers were not consistent in endorsing rights of either ownership or possession and thus did not provide coherent information for the children's acquisition of principles of entitlement. Rather, mothers' interventions appeared to be aimed at restoring harmony between the children by urging their own children to yield to their peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication between deaf children and their hearing mothers: the role of language, gesture, and vocalizations

In the present longitudinal study, 20 deaf and 20 hearing children were observed during free play with their hearing mothers when the children were 22 months and 3 years of age. Compared to hearing children, deaf children were severely language delayed, with deaf 3-year-olds using less language (speech or sign) than hearing 22-month-olds. Deaf children communicated primarily through nonlinguistic vocalizations, with increasing use of gesture from 22 months to 3 years of age. Although mothers of deaf children used more visual communication than mothers of hearing children, they still primarily communicated through speech. In addition, deaf children did not visually attend to much of their mothers' communication. Therefore, deaf children received much less communication than hearing children. These results suggest that intervention efforts should be focused on increasing the quantity of perceived linguistic input by the child.