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Background: Aspects of the school environment, such as school attachment levels, are linked to adolescent offending. Previous research has not clarified whether a school- or individual-level intervention approach to improving pupil school attachment and commitment is most likely to reduce adolescent offending. Aim: The present study assessed the impact of individual- and school-level variables on offending behaviour from ages 14-16 years. Sample: The participants were 4,049 young people from 42 mainstream schools who took part in the Belfast Youth Development Study. Method: Multilevel modelling was used to examine the relative influence of individual- and school-level variables on offending behaviour in adolescence. Results: Pupils who had high levels of school commitment and attachment and were involved in fewer fights at age 13 reported lower levels of offending at age 14 years. Differences between schools accounted for 7% of the variation in offending. Lower individual-level commitment was associated with higher initial levels of offending at age 14 if the school-level ethos was of higher commitment. Lack of safety at the school level appeared to be detrimental for young people not exposed to socio-economic deprivation. Conclusions: Individual-level targeted interventions are likely to be a more cost-effective approach of reducing offending behaviour in adolescence. Additional, albeit smaller, reductions in offending levels could be achieved through school-level interventions in some school types (e.g., deprived areas).

Background: The oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is the gold standard for detecting gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). However, during the COVID‐19 pandemic, screening practices were reevaluated due to the risk of infection associated with the prolonged hospital visit required for the OGTT. Some countries have published novel screening protocols for GDM, suggesting the utilization of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), random plasma glucose (RPG), or fasting plasma glucose (FPG) in favor of OGTTs during the pandemic. Therefore, differences in screening methods before and after the epidemic need to be examined. Methods: A systematic search was carried out across five electronic databases (Cinahl, Medline, Embase, Pubmed, and Web of Science) between 2016 and 2023. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist for cohort studies was used to evaluate the quality of included papers. Results: A total of 13 eligible studies were included. Prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic, the OGTT was the recommended measure to screen GDM, internationally based on various official guidelines. During the pandemic, it was recommended that HbA1c or FPG, or RPG be used as a substitute for OGTTs. However, the new methods have low sensitivity, may not reflect accurately the prevalence of GDM, and may lead to many false‐negative results in women and to adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes. Conclusion: The new screening methods for GDM have poor accuracy and a high risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Comparatively, targeted screening tests to detect GDM according to the risk level are more effective in an emergency. In the future, the alternatives to OGTTs still need to be further explored in more depth. This study aims to compare the screening methods for gestational diabetes mellitus before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The new screening methods for GDM had poor sensitivity, which resulted in many misdiagnosed pregnant women. It also prompts reflection on the post‐pandemic era. OGTTs remain the gold standard, and there must be future planning so that future pandemics or emergencies do not significantly alter the effectiveness of screening practices for GDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of the growing recognition of the need for a holistic perspective on health behaviour, we aim to identify longitudinal patterns of multiple health behaviours, and to assess associations of such patterns with depressive symptoms among older people in China. Using three waves of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study data (n = 8439), we performed latent class growth analyses (LCGAs) to identify longitudinal patterns of multiple health behaviours. Random-effects models were estimated to assess associations between health behaviour patterns and depressive symptoms. The best fitting LCGA model had seven classes: (1) connected active non-smokers (average posterior probability: 21.8%), (2) isolated active non-smokers (24.7%), (3) isolated inactive non-smokers (17.0%), (4) isolated active smokers (14.5%), (5) connected active smokers (12.2%), (6) increasingly connected and active non-smokers (5.4%), and (7) moderately connected inactive smokers (4.4%). Depressive symptoms were highest in the four classes with lower probabilities of social participation across waves. No evidence was found of change over time in depressive symptomatology gaps between people with different health behaviour trajectories. Health behaviour patterns characterized by consistently low social participation were associated with raised depressive symptomatology, suggesting that focusing on social participation may benefit later-life mental health promotion strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to claims that the quality (and in particular linearity) of children's mental representation of number acts as a constraint on number development, we carried out a longitudinal assessment of the relationships between number line estimation, counting, and mathematical abilities. Ninety-nine 5-year-olds were tested on 4 occasions at 3 monthly intervals. Correlations between the 3 types of ability were evident, but while the quality of children's estimations changed over time and performance on the mathematical tasks improved over the same period, changes in one were not associated with changes in the other. In contrast to the earlier claims that the linearity of number representation is potentially a unique contributor to children's mathematical development, the data suggest that this variable is not significantly privileged in its impact over and above simple procedural number skills. We propose that both early arithmetic success and estimating skill are bound closely to developments in counting ability. (Contains 2 tables.)

Objective: To examine whether students' school engagement, relationships with teachers, educational aspirations and involvement in fights at school are associated with various measures of subsequent substance use. Methods: Data were drawn from the Belfast Youth Development Study (n = 2968). Multivariate logistic models examined associations between school-related factors (age 13/14) and substance use (age 15/16). Results: The two factors which were consistently and independently associated with regular substance use among both males and females were student-teacher relationships and fighting at school: positive teacher-relationships reduced the risk of daily smoking by 48%, weekly drunkenness by 25%, and weekly cannabis use by 52%; being in a fight increased the risk of daily smoking by 54%, weekly drunkenness by 31%, and weekly cannabis use by 43%. School disengagement increased the likelihood of smoking and cannabis use among females only. Conclusion: Further research should focus on public health interventions promoting positive relationships and safety at school. (Contains 4 tables.)

The control of social attention during early infancy was investigated in two studies. In both studies, an adult turned towards one of two targets within the infant's immediate visual field. We tested: (a) whether infants were able to follow the direction of the adult's head turn; and (b) whether following a head turn was accompanied by further gaze shifts between experimenter and target. In the first study, 1-month-olds did not demonstrate attention following at the group level. In addition, those infants who turned towards the same target remained fixed on it and did not shift attention again. In Study 2, we tested infants longitudinally at 2-4 months. At the group level, infants followed the adult's head turn at 3 and 4 months but not at 2 months. Those infants who turned towards the same target at 3 and 4 months also shifted gaze back and forth between experimenter and target. By 3 months, infants seem able to capitalize on the social environment to disengage and distribute attention more flexibly. The results support the claim that the control of social attention begins in early infancy, and are consistent with the hypothesis that following the attention of other people is dependent on the development of disengagement skills.

Interviews of 120 British adolescents and their parents (80% of a random sample of antenatal patients drawn from a representative urban population and followed longitudinally) revealed that 40 (33%) had been arrested and/or had a diagnosis of "DSM-IV" conduct disorder by 16 years of age; of those, 18 (45%) had committed violent acts. Depression in pregnancy significantly predicted violence in adolescence, even after controlling for the family environment, the child's later exposure to maternal depression, the mother's smoking and drinking during pregnancy, and parents' antisocial behavior. Mothers with a history of conduct problems were at elevated risk to become depressed in pregnancy, and the offspring of depressed women had a greater chance of becoming violent by age 16. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.)

This study investigated two hypotheses regarding the mapping of perception to action during imitation. The first hypothesis predicted that as children's cognitive capacities increase the tendency to map one goal and disregard others during imitation should decrease. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the performances of 168 4- to 7-year-olds in a gestural imitation task developed by Bekkering, Wohlschlager, and Gattis. The second hypothesis predicted that reducing the mapping between perception and action should reduce the demands on the cognitive resources of the child. This hypothesis was tested by creating a condition in which perception and action overlapped by sharing objects between experimenter and child. In three experimental conditions, an adult modelled four gestures, directed at either: 1) one of two sets of round stickers (proprietary objects); 2) the same location on the table, without any sticker (no objects); or 3) one set of round stickers, which were shared with the child (shared objects). The results confirmed both hypotheses. Four- and five-year-olds imitated less accurately when imitation involved mapping of both objects and movements (proprietary and shared objects) than when imitation involved mapping movements only (no objects). Seven-year-olds imitated accurately in all three conditions, demonstrating that increased cognitive capacity allowed them to map multiple goals from perception to action. Most importantly, reducing the mapping between perception and action in the shared objects condition facilitated imitation, specifically for the transitional group, 6-year-olds. We conclude that mapping between perception and action is not direct, but resembles mapping relations in analogical reasoning: cognitive processes mediate mapping from perception to action.

Several studies have reported imitative deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is still debated if imitative deficits are specific to ASD or shared with clinical groups with similar mental impairment and motor difficulties. We investigated whether imitative tasks can be used to discriminate ASD children from typically developing children (TD) and children with general developmental delay (GDD). We applied discriminant function analyses to the performance of these groups on three imitation tasks and tests of dexterity, motor planning, verbal skills, theory of mind (ToM). Analyses revealed two significant dimensions. The first represented impairment of dexterity and verbal ability, and discriminated TD from GDD children. Once these differences were accounted for, differences in ToM and the three imitation tasks accounted for a significant proportion of the remaining intergroup variance and discriminated the ASD group from other groups. Further analyses revealed that inclusion of imitative tasks increased the specificity and sensitivity of ASD classification and that imitative tasks considered alone were able to reliably discriminate ASD, TD and GDD. The results suggest that imitation and theory of mind impairment in autism may stem from a common domain of origin separate from general cognitive and motor skill. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)