REGULARS | IN CASE YOU MISSED ITBACK TOCONTENTSIN CASE YOU MISSED ITOur round-up of some of the key disability/SEN stories you may have missedBilateral Versus Unilateral Cochlear Implants in Children: AStudy of Spoken Language Outcomesrespondents who reported they had been physically abused duringtheir childhood or adolescence also reported being diagnosed withdyslexia in comparison with 7.2% of those who did not report beingphysically abused. ‘Our data do not allow us to know the directionof the association,’ says Stephen Hooper, professor of psychiatryand pediatrics at University of North Carolina School of Medicineand coauthor of the study. ‘It is possible that for some children, thepresence of dyslexia and related learning problems may place themat relatively higher risk for physical abuse, perhaps due to adultfrustrations with chronic learning failure. Alternatively, given the knownassociation between brain dysfunction and maltreatment, it could bethat the experience of physical abuse may also contribute to and/orexacerbate such learning problems, secondary to increased neurologicburden.’Detecting Infant Hearing Loss in IndiaA five-year study carried out by researchers at the University ofMelbourne, Australia, has found that children who are fitted withbilateral Cochlear Implants (CIs) at an early age achieve significantlybetter vocabulary outcomes and significantly higher scores on keyvocabulary tests than do comparable children with unilateral CIs. Thestudy, published in Ear and Hearing, the official journal of the AmericanAuditory Association, was conducted across Victoria, New SouthWales, Queensland, South Australia, and New Zealand, and involvedcochlear implant clinics and early intervention centres with more than160 children. The effects of some parenting practices (family readinghabits and child screen time) that had not previously been investigatedin any studies of language outcomes in children with CIs and theirrelationships to language outcomes were also examined.The Association Between Childhood Physical Abuse and DyslexiaA study carried out by researchers at the University of Toronto, Ontario,Canada and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, ChapelHill, North Carolina, USA to determine the relationship between ahistory of dyslexia and childhood physical abuse in a large populationbasedepidemiological sample found that one third (34.8%) ofRolex Awards/Ambroise TézenasIndian designer Neeti Kailas has won a prestigious 2014 Rolex Awardfor Enterprise after she and engineer husband Nitin Sisodia createda battery-operated, non-invasive mobile device to screen babiesfor hearing loss. The device works by measuring the child’s auditorybrainstem response. Three electrodes are placed on the baby’s headto detect electrical responses generated by the brain’s auditory systemwhen stimulated. If the brain does not respond to these aural stimuli,the child cannot hear. A patented, in-built algorithm filters out ambient10WWW.SPECIALWORLD.NET | ISSUE 1 | SEPTEMBER 2014
BACK TOCONTENTSREGULARS | IN CASE YOU MISSED ITnoise from the test signal. The device is still a prototype, and RolexAward funds will allow Kailas to start clinical trials later this year. Anestimated 100,000 hearing-impaired babies are born in India eachyear.Assistive technologies to enhance the quality of life of peoplewith intellectual disabilities and autismThe European Union has launched ASSISTID, a €9 million, Irish-ledresearch programme into the development and application of assistivetechnologies to enhance the quality of life of people with intellectualdisabilities and autism. The ASSISTID programme, which will fund 40post-doctoral fellows, is co-funded by the European Commission andthe charity RESPECT, and is coordinated by the DOCTRID ResearchInstitute. The DOCTRID Research Institute includes the Daughters ofCharity Disability Support Services, all of the universities on the islandof Ireland, RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland), Dublin and TraleeInstitute of Technology and the US universities Michigan State Universityand the University of Massachusetts.The Correlation Between Reading and Mathematics Ability at Age12 Has a Substantial Genetic Componentthese tests was combined with DNA data, showing a substantialoverlap in the genetic variants that influence mathematics andreading. While mathematics and reading ability are known to run infamilies, the complex system of genes affecting these traits is largelyunknown. The finding deepens scientists’ understanding of how natureand nurture interact, highlighting the important role that a child’slearning environment may have on the development of reading andmathematics skills, and the complex, shared genetic basis of thesecognitive traits.Gene Mutation Linked to Distinct Type of AutismThe UK’s NHS Choices provides a valuable service in debunking someof the ‘imprecise’ reporting around major health <strong>issue</strong>s, includingthose linked to conditions like autism. On this occasion its target wasa tabloid story headlined ‘Have scientists found the autism GENE?Breakthrough as specific link between DNA and the condition isdiscovered’, which appeared in the Mail Online. The story was basedon a genetic study originally published in the journal Cell that foundchildren with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were more likelyto have a mutation in a gene called CHD8 than children without thedisorder. Researchers sequenced the DNA of 3,730 children withdevelopment delay or ASD looking for variations in the CHD8, a genepreviously associated with ASD. They looked to see if any geneticvariations were associated with being diagnosed with ASD overall,but also for any links to specific characteristics of subsets of peoplewith ASD. The genetic analysis revealed 15 different and independentgenetic variations (mutations) in the CHD8 gene in the childrenwith development delay or ASD. Specific CHD8 mutations were alsoassociated with distinct characteristics, but as this aspect of theresearch only involved 15 people with ASD, the results ‘cannot beviewed as reliable’.A UK-led study into the genetic basis of cognitive traits has foundthat around half of the genes that influence how well a child can readalso play a role in their mathematics ability. The collaborative study,published in Nature Communications as part of the Wellcome TrustCase-Control Consortium, used data from the Twins Early DevelopmentStudy (TEDS) to analyse the influence of genetics on the reading andmathematics performance of 12-year-old children from nearly 2,800British families. Twins and unrelated children were tested for readingcomprehension and fluency, and answered mathematics questionsbased on the UK national curriculum. The information collected fromWWW.SPECIALWORLD.NET | ISSUE 1 | SEPTEMBER 2014Re-envisioning Reading with 3D-printed Picture BooksVisit any education show these days and there is a good chanceyou will come across a booth/stand demonstrating the wonder thatis 3D printing. But for a team of researchers based in the Sikuli Labat the University of Colorado Boulder the challenge is how to use thistechnology to make books more accessible to visually impaired preschoolage children. The project is the brainchild of lab leader Tom Yeh,who conceived the idea while reading Goodnight Moon to his threeyear-oldson. The goal is ‘to represent 2-D graphics in a 3-D, tactileway, and on a scale that’s appropriate for young children’s cognitiveabilities and interests’. By combining these factors into computationalalgorithms, Yeh and his team hope to develop an interface that willallow parents to print their own customised books at home using a 3-Dprinter. ‘Every kid needs a <strong>special</strong> book that provides the experiencehe or she needs,’ says Yeh. ‘It is impossible for mass productionprinting to do that so that it’s easy to make changes and customise.With the price of 3-D printers coming down, it’s not out of reach for aschool classroom or a parent to print books. For a child, being able toread together with a parent is very important.’ You can find out moreabout the Tactile Picture Books Project here.11
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