Developmental profile of patients with maple syrup urine disease.

The progress of nine maple syrup urine disease patients (eight classical, one possible variant) was reviewed to look for similarities in developmental patterns. A consistent developmental profile of stronger Verbal than Performance IQ and lower than familially expected IQ was seen. Younger age at diagnosis was associated with a milder neonatal course. Those who were asymptomatic or suffered mild complications in the newborn period have higher IQs than children experiencing moderate or severe complications. Children with asymptomatic or mild neonatal course also required less special education services. Overall, a picture of ubiquitous motor, visual-analytic and learning deficits is seen.

Effects of home-based, informal social support on child health.

To enhance mother-infant interaction, paraprofessional home visitors provided parents with emotional support, information, and help in using community resources during pregnancy and throughout the infants' first 14 months. This study reports effects on child health. Both home-visited women and controls made good use of well-child care. Home-visited women made greater use of sick-child care (p = 0.002), most of which was appropriate. The greater use of sick-child care was concentrated among mothers with moderate or high family stress, with whom home visitors had closer relationships. Case histories showed a variety of individual effects on parents.

Neuropsychological deficits in early treated phenylketonuric children.

In this preliminary study, six early treated children with phenylketonuria (PKU) were compared on the Halstead Neuropsychological Battery for Older Children with three groups of children with documented neurological disorders involving predominantly the left, the right, or bilateral dysfunction. The children with PKU had an overall level of neuropsychological impairment similar to that of the brain-damaged groups. The PKU group did not show a consistent pattern of lateralization, but there was some specificity to their deficits. The analyses showed that they were most similar to the right-hemisphere group. The children with PKU tended to show deficits consistently in two neuropsychological domains, conceptual and visuospatial skills, which would help explain their reported difficulty with mathematics. Further work is needed to test these results in a larger sample and to examine possible relationships with dietary compliance.

The relationship between twelve-month home stimulation and school achievement.

Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) was designed to reflect parental support of early cognitive and socioemotional development. 12-month HOME scores were correlated with elementary school achievement, 5--9 years later. 50 low-income children were rank ordered by a weighted average of centile estimates of achievement test scores, letter grades, and curriculum levels in reading and math. 24 children were classified as having significant school achievement problems. The HOME total score correlated significantly, r = .37, with school centile scores among the low-income families. The statistically more appropriate contingency table analysis revealed a 68% correct classification rate and a significantly reduced error rate over random or blanket prediction. The results supported the predictive value of the 12-month HOME for school achievement among low-income families. In an additional sample of 21 middle-income families, there was insufficient variability among HOME scores to allow prediction. The HOME total scores were highly correlated, r = .86, among siblings tested at least 10 months apart.

Preschool developmental testing in prediction of school problems. Studies of 55 children in Denver.

Sixty-five children from lower income families, first evaluated with the Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale at age 4 to 6 years, were followed up 3 years later to determine how well preschool test results could predict later school problems. Eighty-eight per cent of children with Abnormal DDSTs, 66% of children with Questionable DDSTs, and 32% of children with Normal DDSTs showed later school problems. Combining DDST and IQ results did not change the total number of children who would be misclassified, but the type of misclassification changed. When developmental screening is used to identify children at risk for developing school problems, children with Questionable findings should be referred for further evaluation along with those with Abnormal findings since a high percentage of Questionables develop school problems despite adequate intelligence.

"Think aloud": a program for developing self-control in young aggressive boys.

"Think Aloud" was designed as a training program to improve self-control in 6- to 8-year-old boys. It involved modeling and verbalization of cognitive activity to foster use of verbal mediation skills in dealing with both cognitive and interpersonal problems. It was hypothesized that this training would lead to improvement in test performance and teacher ratings of classroom behavior in hyperaggressive boys. Twelve aggressive second grade boys participated in daily, 30-minute, individual sessions for 6 weeks. Normal and aggressive control subjects received no intervention. Teachers rated both trained and untrained aggressive boys as improving in aggressive behaviors but they rated the experimental group as showing improvement on a significantly larger number of prosocial behaviors. The pattern of performance on cognitive tests also changed significantly in the experimental group. On pretest, their pattern differed from normals and resembled the aggressive control group, while on posttest their pattern resembled normals and differed from agressive controls. Suggestions were made concerning additional refinements needed in the program, but overall results indicated potential value in the present approach for providing assistance to aggressive boys in the early grades.

The Denver prescreening developmental questionnaire (PDQ).

To facilitate periodic developmental screening of all children, a Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ) was created to identify those children who require a more thorough screening with the Denver developmental Screening Test (DDST). Children positive on the DDST screen are then referred for a diagnostic assessment. To devise the PDQ, 97 of 105 standard DDST items were formulated into questions. Ten age-appropriate questions were answered by 1,155 parents with subsequent evaluation of their children with the DDST. Agreement between parental responses for individual items and the score for their children's corresponding DDST item varied from 68% to 100% (mean, 93.3%). When the PDQ was positive, 31.2% of the children were referred for a DDST screen. These referrals included 86.7% of abnormal and 53.8% of questionable DDSTs among the 1,155 children screened. The predictive value of a referral was 23.3%. The predictive value of a referral did not differ significantly whether the PDQ was answered by a parent or by day care center staff personnel. A subsequent field trial of 1,027 PDQs in private physicians' offices and public health clinics yielded a similar predictive value (24.7%) for a referral. The parents liked the PDQ which took them only about five minutes to answer and the physicians liked the PDQ since it decreased by almost 69% the number of DDSTs they felt obliged to administer.