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Background: Articulatory excursion and vocal intensity are reduced in many children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP), contributing to the children's intelligibility deficits and negatively affecting their social participation. However, the effects of speech‐treatment strategies for improving intelligibility in this population are understudied, especially for children who speak languages other than English. In a cueing study on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, acoustic variables and intelligibility improved when the children were provided with cues aimed to increase articulatory excursion and vocal intensity. While French is among the top 20 most spoken languages in the world, dysarthria and its management in French‐speaking children are virtually unexplored areas of research. Information gleaned from such research is critical for providing an evidence base on which to provide treatment. Aims: To examine acoustic and perceptual changes in the speech of French‐speaking children with dysarthria, who are provided with speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion (French translation of 'speak with your big mouth') and vocal intensity (French translation of 'speak with your strong voice'). This study investigated whether, in response to the cues, the children would make acoustic changes and listeners would perceive the children's speech as more intelligible. Methods & Procedures: Eleven children with dysarthria due to CP (six girls, five boys; ages 4;11–17;0 years; eight with spastic CP, three with dyskinetic CP) repeated pre‐recorded speech stimuli across three speaking conditions (habitual, 'big mouth' and 'strong voice'). Stimuli were sentences and contrastive words in phrases. Acoustic analyses were conducted. A total of 66 Belgian‐French listeners transcribed the children's utterances orthographically and rated their ease of understanding on a visual analogue scale at sentence and word levels. Outcomes & Results: Acoustic analyses revealed significantly longer duration in response to the big mouth cue at sentence level and in response to both the big mouth and strong voice cues at word level. Significantly higher vocal sound‐pressure levels were found following both cues at sentence and word levels. Both cues elicited significantly higher first‐formant vowel frequencies and listeners' greater ease‐of‐understanding ratings at word level. Increases in the percentage of words transcribed correctly and in sentence ease‐of‐understanding ratings, however, did not reach statistical significance. Considerable variability between children was observed. Conclusions & Implications: Speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion and vocal intensity yield significant acoustic changes in French‐speaking children with dysarthria. However, the changes may only aid listeners' ease of understanding at word level. The significant findings and great inter‐speaker variability are generally consistent with studies on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, although changes appear more constrained in these French‐speaking children. What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subjectAccording to the only study comparing effects of speech‐cueing strategies on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, intelligibility increases when the children are provided with cues aimed to increase articulatory excursion and vocal intensity. Little is known about speech characteristics in French‐speaking children with dysarthria and no published research has explored effects of cueing strategies in this population.What this paper adds to existing knowledgeThis paper is the first study to examine the effects of speech cues on the acoustics and intelligibility of French‐speaking children with CP. It provides evidence that the children can make use of cues to modify their speech, although the changes may only aid listeners' ease of understanding at word level.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?For clinicians, the findings suggest that speech cues emphasizing increasing articulatory excursion and vocal intensity show promise for improving the ease of understanding of words produced by francophone children with dysarthria, although improvements may be modest. The variability in the responses also suggests that this population may benefit from a combination of such cues to produce words that are easier to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across four studies, we demonstrate that effects obtained from the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, like those obtained from other indirect procedures, are not impervious to strategic manipulation. In experiment 1, we found that merely informing participants to 'fake' their performance without providing a concrete strategy to do so did not eliminate, reverse, or in any way alter the obtained outcomes. However, when those same instructions orientated attention toward the core parameters of the task, participants spontaneously derived a strategy that allowed them to eliminate their effects (experiment 2). When the participants were provided with a viable response strategy, they successfully reversed the direction of their overall Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure effect (experiment 3). By refining the nature of those instructions, we managed to target and alter individual trial-type effects in isolation with some success (experiment 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective memory theories propose that groups' remembrances of their past depend upon their current social situation. In Belgium, a significant proportion of Dutch speakers share a collective memory of past victimisation by French speakers and fight for an ever-larger autonomy of their region. Yet, as the respective economic, political and social situations of the linguistic regions of Belgium recently evolved with a reversal of fortunes, the current experience of younger Dutch speakers does not fit the traditional memory anymore. We thus predicted that the collective memories of victimhood would decline amongst them, thus bringing changes in intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. Three generations were compared in a survey of 1226 French-speaking and 1457 Dutch-speaking individuals. For both groups, younger generations evidenced less regionalist and more integrative positions than older ones. However, these effects were stronger for Dutch-speaking respondents, and for them, collective memory of victimhood mediated the relation linking age and identification with Belgium, intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. We concluded that the current social context has decisive consequences for collective remembrances, which, in turn, impact intergroup relations and political attitudes and choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the long-term effects of a lifestyle intervention and a structured exercise intervention on physical fitness and cardiovascular risk factors in older adults. DESIGN: Controlled trial with randomization between the intervention groups. SETTING: Belgium, Vlaams-Brabant. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred eighty-six sedentary but healthy men and women aged 60 to 83. INTERVENTIONS: Participants in the lifestyle intervention were stimulated to integrate physical activity into their daily routines and received an individualized home-based program supported by telephone calls. The structured intervention consisted of three weekly supervised sessions in a fitness center. Both interventions lasted 11 months and focused on endurance, strength, flexibility, and postural and balance exercises. MEASUREMENTS: Cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, functional performance, blood pressure, and body composition were measured before (pretest), at the end (11 months, posttest), and 1 year after the end (23 months, follow-up) of the interventions. RESULTS: The results from pretest to posttest have already been published. The current study analyzed the results from posttest to follow-up. There was a decrease in cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness, and functional performance from posttest to follow-up in the structured intervention group but not in the control group or the lifestyle intervention group. At 23 months, participants in both groups still showed improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness. In addition, the structured group showed long-term improvements in muscular fitness, whereas the lifestyle group showed long-term improvements in functional performance. No long-term effects were found for blood pressure or body composition. CONCLUSION: These results highlight the potential of a structured fitness center-based intervention and a home-based lifestyle intervention in the battle against inactivity in older adults. Lifestyle programs are especially valuable because they require fewer resources and less time from health institutions and health practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current study was to address the intervening role of perceived control in the job insecurity-strain relationship. Two alternatives were investigated: (1) perceived control as a buffer of the relationship between job insecurity and outcome variables (i.e. job satisfaction, organizational commitment, psychological distress and turnover intentions); and (2) perceived control as a mediator of the relationship between job insecurity and the outcomes. Cross-sectional data of 211 employees were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that perceived control did not buffer the relationship between job insecurity, and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, psychological distress and turnover intentions. However, perceived control was found to partially mediate the association between job insecurity and these outcomes. The results are explained using the cognitive theory of stress and coping of Lazarus and Folkman, and suggest that job insecurity is stressful because it decreases the experience of control. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to analyse the impact of the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model on intent to leave the current organization (ITL organization) and intent to leave the nursing profession (ITL profession) in a prospective way. A total of 1,531 health care workers who remained in their job filled in a self-administered questionnaire at baseline and I year later. ERI was measured at baseline by a 23-item questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. Within a population with low intent to leave at baseline, we found that an imbalance between high efforts and low rewards (extrinsic hypothesis) increased the risk of high ITL organization (OR 4.98; 95% CI 2.07-11.97) and high ITL profession (OR 1.84; 95% CI I.O3-3.3O), I year later. A high level of overcommitment (OC; intrinsic hypothesis) was not predictive for both intent to leave outcome variables, neither was the interaction between high efforts/low rewards and a high level of OC (interaction hypothesis). Our results showed that a perceived effort-reward imbalance (ERI) at work is a significant predictor of intent to leave among health care workers. This contribution concludes with some directions aimed at boosting nurses' retention and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]