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Challenging behavior exhibited by young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities is known to negatively affect their optimal development and families’ quality of life. Although some support exists for English-speaking parents of children with autism who live in high-resource countries, it is scarce for others. Such disparity may also be heightened during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with its various societal restrictions. To mitigate the treatment gap, we developed and adapted a series of online training modules on behavioral principles and examined its effectiveness with 88 South Korean parents using a randomized controlled trial. We found significant interaction effects on increasing parents’ knowledge of behavioral principles, increasing positive parenting practices, and decreasing parental stress. Qualitative social validity data also indicated that parents were highly satisfied with the goals, procedures, and outcomes and that the program positively affected their parenting styles.

The importance of family engagement in their children’s education and treatment is emphasized by researchers, professional organizations, and legislatures. Providing services with caregivers via telepractice has gained more support and is becoming especially timely due to the current pandemic and social distancing requirements. Professionals, such as board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs), who work with caregivers with children with disabilities may benefit from receiving professional development on strategies for building better rapport with caregivers and coaching them to bring about maximum clinical efficacy. The current pilot study replicated an earlier study by Meadan et al. to examine the effects of the Coaching Caregiver Professional Development (CoCarePD) intervention package, in which BCBAs received training and coaching from researchers via telepractice, on their caregiver coaching practices. A single-case, multiple-probe design study across three BCBAs was conducted, and findings support a functional relationship between the CoCarePD and BCBAs’ use of coaching practices.

Although the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) mandates parent participation in their children’s education programs, the implementation of IDEA results in parent effort beyond participation, specifically, an expectation of advocacy. To date, research on the advocacy expectation is mixed, with some parents perceiving advocacy as an obligation to ensure appropriate services for their children, whereas others argue it is unreasonable and has cultural dissonance, disadvantaging some parents. We examined parent perspectives of the advocacy expectation in special education through 19 focus groups with 127 parents of children with disabilities across four states. Findings included a nuanced understanding of the advocacy expectation, with participants reporting the importance of advocacy and some describing that advocacy was part of their social role. However, under adversarial circumstances with school personnel, participants described feeling overwhelmed because the advocacy expectation felt more difficult than it needed to be. We discuss implications for policy and practice.

Although parent involvement is a cornerstone of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), few individual parents of children with disabilities participate in civic engagement to voice their suggestions for the next IDEA reauthorization. To address this gap, a civic engagement training was conducted with 95 parents of children with disabilities across four states. At the end of the training, participants completed videotaped testimonials voicing their suggestions for the next IDEA reauthorization. Participant suggestions clustered around three themes: expanding IDEA to address specific concerns; adding text to provide specificity and clarity in IDEA; and implementing the current version of IDEA. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

In the past, parents of children with disabilities have spearheaded several policies for individuals with disabilities. However, little is known about their experiences with legislators. To address this gap, focus groups and surveys about legislative advocacy were conducted with 127 parents of individuals with disabilities across four states. The purpose of the study was to explore parent perceptions about experiences with legislative advocacy including the frequency of, strategies for, and barriers to legislative advocacy. Descriptive statistics were conducted to analyze the survey data; constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the focus group data. Participants reported engaging in various forms of legislative advocacy. Participants shared positive and negative experiences interacting with legislators, including individual and collective advocacy efforts. Some participants did not engage in legislative advocacy due to intimidation. Relationships facilitated legislative advocacy for participants. Implications for future research about legislative advocacy and practices to facilitate legislative advocacy are discussed.

Parents of autistic children have historically reported hardships related to raising their children. However, the access to resources related to the childrearing of an autistic child is not equitable, therefore resulting in exacerbated difficulties for parents in low-resource settings. In these situations, peer support may be a protective factor for parental resilience in which they receive various supports from other parents of an autistic child with similar experiences. Despite its potential utility, little is known about such parent-to-parent support as evidenced by no synthesis of relevant literature. To address this gap, we present a scoping review of 25 studies that included parent-to-parent support among parents of autistic children. Across these studies, a total of 141 and 747 parents participated as parent mentors and mentees with some heterogeneity in their demographic characteristics. We also identified how parent mentors were trained to provide support to their peers and social validity data related to parent-to-parent support and provided implications for future intervention research. Lay Abstract Parents of autistic children have long reported feelings of isolation and increased stress during and after receiving their child’s diagnosis. Increasing global prevalence of autism also calls for increased services and supports to meet the needs of these families, but most parents who live in low-resource settings still report exacerbated barriers. This may indicate the need for diversifying intervention delivery models to increase contextual fit and enhance implementation effects for different populations. For example, many parents have reported parent-to-parent (P2P) model to be a source of emotional support, advocacy, and knowledge related to their child’s diagnosis, and practical advice. However, little is known about this topic due to the lack of synthesis of relevant autism literature. To address this gap, we conducted a literature review to gain a deeper understanding of how P2P support is used. We identified 25 studies based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, which we coded to extract variables such as demographic information of participants, types of P2P, dosage, target outcomes, and social validity. About half of studies focused on providing support groups for parents, and the other half focused on individual matching and mentoring for skill acquisition of parents. Across the included 25 studies, a total of 141 parents participated as parent mentors and 747 parents as parent mentees. We also present implications for future research.

This research presents results from the 2009 and 2011 evaluations of a biweekly program offered by Sunday Friends, a nonsectarian, nonprofit organization in Santa Clara County, California. The central focus of Sunday Friends is to empower families to “break the cycle of poverty” by providing programming that strengthens families and promotes healthy development of children and youth. Targeting financially needy families, the program uses a unique token economy to reward participation in educational and prosocial activities. Participants earn tickets that may be used to purchase a variety of goods and supplies. Most of the participating families are immigrant, Latino, and bilingual. The primary goal of the evaluations was to determine whether Sunday Friends fosters developmental assets for children and youth. Data were gathered from family members (i.e., adults and minors) and volunteers in 2009 and 2011. Questionnaires were administered to families face-to-face in English or Spanish during program hours, while volunteers were surveyed via an Internet questionnaire in English. We conclude that the token economy at Sunday Friends encourages a positive work ethic and motivates participation in transformative activities. Within an atmosphere of respect, helpfulness, and friendliness, the program fosters healthy family relationships, positive attitudes and behaviors, educational engagement, social capital, and healthy eating. Program volunteers are liked, respected, and viewed as role models. Data from volunteers confirm the reports by family members that the program has positive influences on participants’ lives.

This paper presents a coarse-grained non-equilibrium simulation (CG-NES) model based on an atom-based continuum (ABC) method for the multi-element crystal. The main objective of CG-NES model is to establish a nodal ensemble that provides a more efficient way to compute the thermal properties for non-equilibrium systems. In this work, a generalized Nosé-Hoover thermostat network is proposed for each finite element node to control the temperature of the system. Several numerical examples have been carried out and it has been demonstrated that CG-NES has the capability and efficiency to study the non-equilibrium system, including thermal-mechanical coupling phenomena and thermal-electromagnetic effects.

This paper reviews the fundamentals of micropolar fluid dynamics (MFD), and proposes a numerical scheme integrating Chorin’s projection method and time-centred split method (TCSM) for solving unsteady forms of MFD equations. It has been known that Navier–Stokes equations are incapable of explaining the phenomena at micro and nano scales. On the contrary, MFD can naturally pick up the physical phenomena at micro and nano scales owingto its additional degrees of freedom for gyration. In this study, the analytical and exact solutions of Couette and Hagen–Poiseuille flow are provided. Though this study is limited to the steady flow cases, the unsteady term in the MFD has been taken into account. This present work initiates the development of a general-purpose code of computational micropolar fluid dynamics (CMFD). The discretization scheme in space is demonstrated with nearly second-order accuracy on multiple meshes.

A nonlocal nonlinear multiscale field theory is briefly introduced in this paper. The theory is then reduced to a nonlocal linear elastic theory. A meshfree method is applied to solve the governing equation. The entire process of microcrack propagation in the cortical bone, including the propagation of microcrack toward the osteon, around the osteon, and out of the osteon, is simulated. The results show that the cement line between the osteanal bone and the interstitial bone serves as a protective barrier for the Haversian canal. We also observed that, with healing process incorporated in the simulation, cement line serves as a barrier for the microcracks propagation.

Mechanical properties of ZSM-5 zeolites are investigated through molecular dynamics simulation in this work. Negative thermal expansion (NTE) of ZSM-5 is observed and the mechanism of NTE at atomic scale is discussed. Effects of environment temperature and material defects are studied. It is shown that tensile strength decreases when the ambient temperature is increased. It is found that introducing defects into the material leads to lower tensile strength. With the onset of failure of the sample, there occurs a sudden drop of virial stress.

This article reports an evaluation of an archaeology project carried out by the University of South Alabama (USA) Center for Archaeological Studies to complement an Intensive Aftercare Program for juvenile delinquents in Mobile, Alabama. The project was an eight-week field school for 14 adjudicated youth. The goals of the project were to teach archaeology, provide job skills, improve pro-social attitudes of delinquents, improve delinquents' attitudes toward their local community, and reduce recidivism among delinquents. The evaluation was completed using a mixed methods approach including pre- and post-project questionnaires, weekly evaluations, comparisons with a matched sample, observations, and focus groups with staff. Findings are that students learned archaeology and formed positive relations with staff. There is no evidence that pro-social attitudes, ties to the community, or recidivism were altered. The quality of archaeology performed by the participants was high and the project beneficial to the Center. Such programs promise to be valuable components of juvenile intervention programs, adding education and job skills opportunities, but should not be expected to work as stand-alone interventions.

Research indicates that programs designed to target first year students increase their likelihood of success during that year and their chances of completing an undergraduate education (Bureau & Rromrey, 1994; Conner & Colton, 1999). Theoretically, such programs should help in part because they foster integration into campus communities and help align personal goals with institutional goals. In an effort to increase retention and achievement of first year students, the University of South Alabama implemented a program for resident first year students called ESSENCE in the fall of 1998. The purpose of this study is to measure the effects of that program on student success. Specifically we are interested in assessing the effects of the program on GPAs and graduation rates. In multivariate analyses, we compare GPAs and graduation rates for resident ESSENCE students, resident non-ESSENCE students, and non-resident students controlling for other predictors of success. We find that ESSENCE improves GPAs and the likelihood of graduating in five years relative to other experiences, even when controlling for other factors.

The Steno-2 study and UKPDS showed that targeted intensified intervention on modifiable cardiovascular risk factors in patients with type 2 diabetes reduces morbidity and mortality. The Alphabet POEM strategy (Practice Of Evidence-based Medicine) assessed the effect of systematic application of the Alphabet Strategy to care of patients with type 2 diabetes. In comparison to the Steno-2 intensive cohort, Alphabet POEM fared similarly with regard to diastolic blood pressure (BP), HbA1C, aspirin and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor use, but less well with respect to systolic BP, total cholesterol and use of statins. Alphabet POEM achieved better systolic and diastolic BP than UKPDS but glycaemic control was significantly worse. The standards achieved in the Steno-2 study and UKPDS are in principle, at least, partially achievable in a district general hospital in the UK, but fully achieving them in practice will probably need a radical restructuring, and greater provision of resources.

The Alphabet Strategy is a mnemonic-based approach to assist commitment to important aspects of diabetes care: Advice; Blood pressure lowering; Cholesterol and creatinine control; Diabetes control; Eye examination; Foot examination; and use of Guardian drugs. This strategy reported high standards of care of patients with type 2 diabetes. This study assesses the impact of the Alphabet Strategy on diabetes management in young adults with type 1 diabetes and compared data with those of a recently published multicentre study. Results were analysed using the chi-square test and Student's t-test. Data were collected retrospectively from 68 patients with type 1 diabetes aged 16—25 years attending the George Eliot Hospital (GEH) adolescent diabetes clinic and who were being managed as per The Alphabet Strategy. Standards of diabetes care in the GEH clinic were better than those reported in the multicentre study. GEH versus multicentre study: clinic non-attendance 12% vs. 24.6%: mean HbA1C% 8.4 vs. 9.5, p In conclusion, we found regular clinic visits and separate adolescent clinics improve glycaemic control. The Alphabet Strategy may be considered an effective approach in monitoring/screening and attaining targets in young adults with type 1 diabetes.

This article considers data from the Steno-2 multifactorial intervention study in type 2 diabetes to which are applied the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) risk engine. Mathematical analyses support the use of a `polypill' to reduce cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetes. It is suggested that the Polypill should include a statin, antihypertensive agents and aspirin.

Science, mathematics, and engineering (SME) disciplines lose potential female professionals as women move to other educational and career paths at higher rates than men. Also, the remaining women tend to cluster into particular fields. I frame these trends as identity-acquisition issues. Using identity theory, I examine links between gender, self-concepts, and perceptions of scientific others, focusing on how these contribute to students' SME interests and the resulting educational trajectories. The sample of 433 talented high school students was drawn from 10 SME summer programs conducted in 1995 and 1996. The students' interests follow common patterns by gender; identity theory helps to explain why. Key findings are as follows: (1) On average, girls' self-concepts are more like their perceptions of same-sex others than those of boys, and more unlike their perceptions of other science students. (2) Discrepancies between self-concepts and perceptions of those in science-related disciplines are associated with lower interest in those disciplines. (3) Discrepancies explain some differences, by sex, in interests.