Topic Review
Support Needs in Intellectual Disability
“Support needs” is a psychological construct referring to the pattern and intensity of supports necessary for a person to participate in activities linked with normative human functioning.
  • 5.3K
  • 11 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Phoneme Acquisition
Speech is an acoustically variable signal, and one of the sources of this variation is the presence of multiple speakers. Empirical evidence has suggested that adult listeners possess remarkably sensitive (and systematic) abilities to process speech signals despite speaker variability. It includes not only a sensitivity to speaker-specific variation but also an ability to utilize speaker variation with other sources of information for further processing. In the present paper, we review evidence for speaker variability and speech processing in adults, and speaker variability and speech processing in young children, with an emphasis on how they make use of speaker-specific information in word learning situations. Finally, we will build on these findings to make a novel proposal for the use of speaker-specific information processing in phoneme learning in infancy.
  • 1.7K
  • 08 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Children with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities
This entry aimed to undertake an extensive exploration of the extent, range, and nature of research activities regarding the effect and emerging evidence in the field of physical activity interventions on cognitive development among children and youth (0–17.99 years) with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), and to help identify key gaps in research and determine precise research questions for future investigations. To carry out this scoping review, five electronic databases were searched. A total of 12,097 articles were retrieved via search efforts with an additional 93 articles identified from the identified review papers. Sixty articles were eligible for inclusion. The results of this scoping review revealed many positive key cognitive outcomes related to physicalactivity including, but not limited to: focus, attention, self-control, cognitive process, and alertness. No studies reported a negative association between physical activity and cognitive outcomes. Based on the findings from this scoping review, physical activity appears to have a favorable impact on the cognitive outcomes of children and youth with NDD. 
  • 1.4K
  • 23 Mar 2021
Biography
Carol Gilligan
Carol Gilligan (/ˈɡɪlɪɡən/; born November 28, 1936) is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist best known for her work on ethical community and ethical relationships. Gilligan is a professor of Humanities and Applied Psychology at New York University and was a visiting professor at the Centre for Gender Studies and Jesus College at the University of Cambridge until 2009. She is k
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Adolescent Sleep Deprivation
At this stage of adolescence, several environmental and biological factors may affect both circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep. A large part of this population does not experience adequate sleep, leading to chronic sleep restriction and/or disrupted sleep-wake cycles.
  • 1.1K
  • 01 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Attachment-Based Therapy (Children)
Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.
  • 789
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Handedness
Handedness is described as an aspect of hemispheric specialization of function. This entry shows how hand-use, skill, and preference measures are more appropriate for examining the relation of handedness to other forms of hemispheric specialization of function (speech control, praxis, motor control mechanisms, sensorimotor foundations of cognition). 
  • 770
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Principles of pH-Responsive Drug Delivery
The paradigm of drug carriers’ usage to overcome the non-specific distribution of therapeutic agents in the body, including chemotherapeutic substances that exert severe toxic stress on healthy tissues, has been actively developed. One of the main pillars of this paradigm is the increased or even selective accumulation of drug delivery systems (DDSs) carrying therapeutic agents in tumor interstitium harnessing the differences between normal and cancer tissues properties. Thus, structural features of tumors, such as hypervascularization, vascular pathologies, and impaired functionality of lymphatic drainage, can be utilized to differentiate tumors from healthy tissues and selectively accumulate drug carriers. In particular, tumor-surrounding vessels are characterized by defects in the endothelial layer lining the blood vessel wall, represented by wide fenestrations (up to several microns) and other features that lead to an increase in the permeability of this barrier for small objects, making the effective extravasation of nanosized carriers from the bloodstream to tumor interstitium possible. Methods of selective therapy via the systemic administration of therapeutic agents based on increased permeability of the tumor vessels’ wall, known under the general name of the EPR effect, have become widespread and have inspired the creation of a large number of vehicles proposed for the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents. In summary, the EPR effect implies the extravasation of nanosized drug carriers through endothelial fenestra and their retention in the interstitial volume of the tumor due to dysfunctional lymphatic drainage.
  • 709
  • 01 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Micro-Engineered Kidney, Liver, and Respiratory System Models
Developing novel drug formulations and progressing them to the clinical environment relies on preclinical in vitro studies and animal tests to evaluate efficacy and toxicity. However, these current techniques have failed to accurately predict the clinical success of new therapies with a high degree of certainty. The main reason for this failure is that conventional in vitro tissue models lack numerous physiological characteristics of human organs, such as biomechanical forces and biofluid flow. Moreover, animal models often fail to recapitulate the physiology, anatomy, and mechanisms of disease development in human. These shortfalls often lead to failure in drug development, with substantial time and money spent. To tackle this issue, organ-on-chip technology offers realistic in vitro human organ models that mimic the physiology of tissues, including biomechanical forces, stress, strain, cellular heterogeneity, and the interaction between multiple tissues and their simultaneous responses to a therapy. For the latter, complex networks of multiple-organ models are constructed together, known as multiple-organs-on-chip. Numerous studies have demonstrated successful application of organ-on-chips for drug testing, with results comparable to clinical outcomes.
  • 625
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Ecological Psychology in Infant Drowning Prevention
Drowning causes significant mortality and morbidity globally, and infants (0–4 years of age) are disproportionately impacted. In a groundbreaking approach to pediatric drowning prevention, ecological psychology has been used to investigate the relationship between infants’ perceptual–motor development and their behavior around bodies of water. Through crawling experience, infants learn to perceive the risk of falling into water and start adapting their behavior to avoid drop-offs leading into water. Infants tend to enter deep water more when the access is via a slope than via a drop-off. 
  • 558
  • 28 Jun 2022
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