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Collaborating with parents is an important skill set for school-based mental health professionals. While school districts expect school psychologists and school counselors to facilitate family-school collaboration, most receive little training in family counseling and systems theory in their graduate programs. School psychologists and school counselors could benefit from resources that demonstrate how to use a family systems approach in a school setting. This article uses a single case study to illustrate how school-based mental health professionals can use brief family counseling to address anxiety and school avoidance. The article describes a family systems approach and interventions such as reframing, subsystems work, consultation, and encouraging gradual progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Emmetropisation is essentially a visually guided, within‐eye process. We investigated differences in global‐flash multifocal electroretinogram (gmfERG) responses to naturally occurring differences in spherical and astigmatic defocus across the retina, which might provide a basis for guiding eye growth. Methods: Experiment 1: The gmfERG responses (direct, DC, and induced, IC, amplitudes and latencies) recorded simultaneously from six retinal areas (15° eccentricity, spaced at 60°, areas 3.2°2) were correlated with the uncorrected retinal defocus measured at the six corresponding retinal locations in 20 adults with foveal refractive errors (−4.75 to +1.25D). No correcting lenses were used to avoid introduction of lens‐induced aberrations and magnification. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of superimposing astigmatic defocus (+2.00/−4.00D Jackson Cross Cylinder presented at four orientations) on gmfERG responses. Results: Experiment 1: DC and IC response amplitudes were greater in retinal regions naturally exposed to more hyperopic spherical defocus (DC: rho = 0.26, p = 0.005; IC: rho = 0.29, p = 0.001), but response latencies were unaffected by sign or magnitude of spherical defocus (DC: p = 0.34; IC: p = 0.40). Response amplitudes and latencies were unaffected by astigmatic defocus. Experiment 2: Rotating the JCC axis to four different orientations had no effect on the gmfERG responses (DC amplitude, p = 0.39; DC latency, p = 0.10; IC amplitude, p = 0.51; IC latency, p = 0.64). Conclusion: The gmfERG responses from discrete retinal areas varied with the sign and magnitude of local spherical defocus, but we found no evidence that retinal responses were affected by astigmatic defocus. Therefore, local astigmatism is unlikely to provide cues for controlling eye growth, whereas differences in response to spherical defocus between different retinal regions could potentially provide cues for controlling eye growth in emmetropisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is currently insufficient evidence to recommend vision screening for children < 36 months of age. This study assessed the effect of comprehensive vision screening, as well as the sensitivity of age-appropriate vision tests, at two years of age on habitual visual acuity at 4.5 years of age.Methods: Children born at risk of neonatal hypoglycaemia (n = 477) underwent vision assessment at 54 ± 2 months of age including measurement of monocular and binocular habitual visual acuity, assessment of binocularity and stereopsis. Of these children, 355 (74.4 per cent) had also received vision screening at two years of age (mean age = 24± 1 months), while 122 were not screened.Results: Eighty (16.8 per cent) children were classified as having reduced vision at 4.5 years of age, but the prevalence of reduced vision did not differ between children who had previously been screened at two years of age and those who had not (15.5 per cent versus 20.5 per cent, p = 0.153). However, children with reduced vision at 4.5 years of age were more likely to have had visual abnormalities requiring referral detected at two years of age (p = 0.02). Visual acuity and mean spherical equivalent autorefraction measurements were also worse (higher values) in two-year-old children who were later classified with reduced habitual visual acuity (p = 0.031 and p = 0.001, respectively). Nevertheless, unaided binocular visual acuity, non-cycloplegic refractive error, and stereopsis at two years all showed poor sensitivity and specificity for predicting visual outcomes at 4.5 years of age.Conclusion: Our findings do not support the adoption of early vision screening in children as current vision tests suitable for use with two-year-old children have poor sensitivity for predicting mild-moderate habitual vision impairment at 4.5 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:It is essential that systems for measuring changes in carbon stocks for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects are accurate, reliable and low cost. Widely used systems involving classifying optical satellite data can underestimate degradation, and by classifying the landscape ignore the natural heterogeneity of biomass. Aims:To assess the ability of repeat L-band radar to detect areas of small increases or decreases in above-ground biomass (AGB) across a Miombo woodland landscape. Methods:ALOS PALSAR L-band cross-polarised (HV) radar data from 2007 and 2009 were used to create maps of AGB, calibrated using 58 field plots. The change in AGB was assessed for land parcels with known landcover histories: (i) 500 ha of new agroforestry; (ii) 9500 ha of protected (REDD) areas; and (iii) 23 ha of land where degradation occurred between 2007 and 2009. Results:Increases in AGB were detected in both the agroforestry and REDD areas (0.4 and 1.1 Mg C ha−1year−1, respectively), while the degraded areas showed a decrease of 3 Mg C ha−1year−1. Conclusions:PALSAR data can be used to detect losses and gains in AGB in woodland ecosystems. However, further work is needed to precisely quantify the uncertainties in the change estimates, and the extent of false-positive and false-negative change detections that would result from using such a system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In pursuit of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for eye health, countries must strengthen services for older adults, who experience the highest prevalence of eye conditions. This scoping review narratively summarised (i) primary eye health services for older adults in eleven high-income countries/territories (from government websites), and (ii) the evidence that eye health services reduced vision impairment and/or provided UHC (access, quality, equity, or financial protection) (from a systematic literature search). We identified 76 services, commonly comprehensive eye examinations ± refractive error correction. Of 102 included publications reporting UHC outcomes, there was no evidence to support vision screening in the absence of follow-up care. Included studies tended to report the UHC dimensions of access ( n= 70), equity ( n= 47), and/or quality ( n= 39), and rarely reported financial protection ( n= 5). Insufficient access for population subgroups was common; several examples of horizontal and vertical integration of eye health services within the health system were described., Funding: This work was funded by Blind Low Vision New Zealand for Eye Health Aotearoa., Competing Interests: I/we declare no competing interests., (© 2022 The Authors.)