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Flagging up early attention problems
Research shows that children with
ADHD show distinctive patterns in
brain maturation that are evident
on neuroimaging, suggesting the
potential to develop a neurological
growth chart similar to other types
of growth charts used in standard
paediatric care.
‘Our results invite further investigation
into the use of network growth charting to
identify patterns of brain dysmaturation
that can serve as early, objective markers
of cognitive problems and disorder
vulnerability,’ say the authors.
The study, published in JAMA
Psychiatry (http://bit.ly/sc231-10), used
data obtained from the publicly available
Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental
Cohort, a population-based sample of
9,498 young people who underwent
genomic testing, neurocognitive
assessment and neuroimaging. 1,000 of
them also underwent brain imaging. A
sample of 519 who met quality-control
criteria entered analysis, of whom 25
(4.8%) met criteria for ADHD.
Participants’ patterns of deviations
from normative maturational trajectories
were indicative of sustained attention
functioning. Moreover, these patterns
were found to be a reliable biomarker of
severe attention impairment.
Growth-charting methods are
widely used to assess the development
of physical or other biometric
characteristics, such as weight and
head circumference. This is the first
demonstration that this method can
be extended to the development of
functional brain networks to identify
clinically relevant conditions, such as the
dysfunction of sustained attention.
What does
sensory overload
feel like?
How do you convey to typically
developing pupils what it feels like
to have autism?
The National Autistic Society has
made a powerful film that has already
attracted four million views since it was
launched in March. It follows an autistic
boy as he goes through a shopping centre
and becomes overloaded by the smells,
sounds, crowds and noises around him.
http://bit.ly/sc231-07
Draft guidelines for SLTs
The Royal College for Speech and
Language Therapists has published
draft Guidelines for speech and
language therapists (SLTs) on their
roles and responsibilities under the
Children and Families Act 2014 and
associated SEND Code of practice.
Although written for SLTs, it may
be of interest to SENCOs and anyone
commissioning the SLT provision.
http://bit.ly/sc230-13
Among other things, the document aims
to offer guidance, formed by consensus, on
what constitutes appropriate professional
practice within the assessment, review,
mediation and tribunal process.
Sensory overload leads to a meltdown in a
shopping mall
Deaf babies being failed
New data shows that the benefits
of screening hearing at birth are
being lost, with a quarter of parents
of deaf babies not being given the
support they need to develop crucial
skills to communicate with their
babies following identification.
This is one example of problems in early
years support for deaf babies, leading to a
significant gap between the language and
communication skills of deaf and hearing
children when they start school.
A report called Right from the Start,
from the National Deaf Children’s Society,
coincides with the 10-year anniversary of
newborn hearing screening in England
and looks at the impact of screening and
early years services. Nearly 6.7 million
babies have been screened since the
programme was introduced; every week
around 12,645 babies are screened of whom
34 are identified
as deaf. Prior to
this, children
born deaf
were often not
identified until
aged three or
older, well past
the critical ages
for learning to read, write
and make friends – an undiagnosed deaf
child aged three will know only 25 words,
compared to the 700 words a hearing threeyear-old
will know. http://bit.ly/sc231-16
Most babies born deaf are identified
within a few weeks. However, many
are being let down because they are not
receiving the level of support needed at
this critical development stage. The report
included the following findings.
• 31% of parents don’t feel they got the
support they needed to ensure their
child made good progress after being
identified through newborn screening.
• 25% of parents said they didn’t get
any general advice on language and
communication development following
identification.
• 22% of parents said they couldn’t access
the support they needed from teachers
of the deaf, who play a pivotal role in
supporting their child’s education in the
early years and at school.
This comes at a time when the numbers of
deaf children are rising (up 18% in the last
five years) and local authorities are cutting
down on qualified teachers of the deaf
(a 4% decline in the last five years). Just
35% of deaf children are achieving their
early learning goals in literacy and writing
compared to 76% of other children.
4 Special Children 231
www.optimus-education.com/sc231