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Importance: Testicular adrenal rest tumors (TARTs), often found in male patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), are benign lesions causing testicular damage and infertility. We hypothesize that chronically elevated adrenocorticotropic hormone exposure during early life may promote TART development.Objective: This study aimed to examine the association between commencing adequate glucocorticoid treatment early after birth and TART development. Design and participants: This retrospective multicenter (n = 22) open cohort study collected longitudinal clinical and biochemical data of the first 4 years of life using the I-CAH registry and included 188 male patients (median age 13 years; interquartile range: 10-17) with 21-hydroxylase deficiency (n = 181) or 11-hydroxylase deficiency (n = 7). All patients underwent at least 1 testicular ultrasound. Results: TART was detected in 72 (38%) of the patients. Prevalence varied between centers. When adjusted for CAH phenotype, a delayed CAH diagnosis of >1 year, compared with a diagnosis within 1 month of life, was associated with a 2.6 times higher risk of TART diagnosis. TART onset was not predicted by biochemical disease control or bone age advancement in the first 4 years of life, but increased height standard deviation scores at the end of the 4-year study period were associated with a 27% higher risk of TART diagnosis. Conclusions and relevance: A delayed CAH diagnosis of >1 year vs CAH diagnosis within 1 month after birth was associated with a higher risk of TART development, which may be attributed to poor disease control in early life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the theoretical and methodological framework for the application of the most popular models of coaching in education, specifically in the practical training of future teachers, within the teaching practice placements, which could be much improved if the principles and strategies of coaching for performance were capitalised. For an optimizing approach to education based on coaching,one does not need just conceptual clarification, but also new practice models to support the personal and professional training of students in their academic career. The purpose of the research was to experiment with established models of coaching which, applied in teaching practice placements, generated analyses, reflections, resizing of the process of initial training for future teachers and ultimately led to best practices and positive changes at the behavioural, attitudinal and value level. The methodology is of the qualitative type. The conclusions of the work emphasize the value of coaching models, the specific nature of the process based on the evidence of the research into the practical training of future teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a common opinion about the fact that the training of future teachers must be made not only by running through several theoretical courses but, especially, in the concrete field of performing this activity. The idea of the necessity to make mentoring activities efficient is stated more and more firmly, even insistently. At a national and European level (especially after 2000) important steps were made to optimize mentoring activities. According to some authors (Fairbanks, C. M., Freedman, D., Kahn, C., 2000) there are three areas of support and challenge for efficient mentoring: the support of beginner teachers to survive their first teaching experiences and define their teaching style; the building of relationships based on dialogue and reflection; the creation of professional partnerships. The teachers' training mentoring and this professional category training issue was approached relatively recently in national specialty documents (Gliga, L., 2002). The current bill of the National education law provides that the 1-year probation period is an important stage in a teacher's career and makes an express reference to the activity of the teachers' training mentor (Art.220-223). The teachers' training mentor is the experienced teacher in the school unit in which the probationer activates, especially trained to be a mentor and who monitors the professional development of the probationer in view of practicing the didactical profession at quality standards. The main mission of this professional category is therefore to facilitate beginners' professional insertion process in the school education units where they perform their activity. The teachers' training mentor establishes a professional connection to the probationer and collaborates with all the factors involved in his/her assistance. This article offers answers to important questions raised as regards the teachers' training mentoring activity: What are the functions performed by the teachers' training mentor for the career evolution of the education beginner? Which are the roles exercised by the teachers' training mentor in the context of the mentoring relationship? Also, the article launches a useful work instrument in the teachers' training mentoring activity: the sheet for the systematic observation of the probationer's performance in the didactical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social pedagogy paradigm crystallized itself at the beginning of the XX century through the contribution of the universal philosophic and pedagogical thinking systems which approached education from the perspective of social exigencies and positioned it to the fore of the researches regarding social reality. According to the Romanian pedagogy history, the social pedagogy paradigm is at a socio-pedagogic current level, mainly related to the Sociologic School of Bucharest. The evolutive process of the social pedagogy paradigm is axiomatically grounded on the fact that education became a permanent dimension of social life. At present, the social pedagogy paradigm defines and analyzes education from the social demands perspective, having as a general function the optimization of the relationships between school and community, with applications at the level of family, work activities, mass media and school group. (Cristea S., 2003) These research directions specific to the social pedagogy paradigm made their mark under the conditions of the continuous amplification of the unit between psycho-centrism and socio-centrism generated by the curriculum psychological and sociological substantiation. In the current praxis, the social pedagogy paradigm asserts an emancipator pedagogical program based on holistic education and welfare, in the sense of becoming aware of the real possibilities of children, the young and adults to become autonomous responsible persons who can actively participate in their own welfare and happiness. (Hämäläinen J., 2003) Considered by some pedagogues as the most important field of pedagogical experimentation, the current social pedagogy paradigm is oriented mostly to the settlement, by means of the socio-educational methodology, of different problems and obstacles which at a given moment hinder the social development and integration of the young /adults. (Rauschenbach Th., Thole W., 2001). This article answers essential questions related to the current socio-emotional praxis in which the main actors are the social pedagogues/educators: What is the current status of the social pedagogue profession in Romania? Which are the current Romanian experiences accumulated in the social pedagogues' training field? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]