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Background: Despite standardization in disease assessments and curative interventions for childhood cancer, palliative assessments and psychosocial interventions remain diverse and disparate. Aim: Identify current approaches to palliative care in the pediatric oncology setting to inform development of comprehensive psychosocial palliative care standards for pediatric and adolescent patients with cancer and their families. Analyze barriers to implementation and enabling factors. Design: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines framed the search strategy and reporting. Data analysis followed integrative review methodology. Data sources: Four databases were searched in May 2014 with date restrictions from 2000 to 2014: PubMed, Cochrane, PsycINFO, and Scopus. A total of 182 studies were included for synthesis. Types of studies included randomized and non-randomized trials with or without comparison groups, qualitative research, prior reviews, expert opinion, and consensus report. Results: Integration of patient, parent, and clinician perspectives on end-of-life needs as gathered from primary manuscripts (using NVivo coding for first-order constructs) revealed mutual themes across stakeholders: holding to hope, communicating honestly, striving for relief from symptom burden, and caring for one another. Integration of themes from primary author palliative care outcome reports (second-order constructs) revealed the following shared priorities in cancer settings: care access; cost analysis; social support to include primary caregiver support, sibling care, bereavement outreach; symptom assessment and interventions to include both physical and psychological symptoms; communication approaches to include decision-making; and overall care quality. Conclusion: The study team coordinated landmark psychosocial palliative care papers into an informed conceptual model (third-order construct) for approaching pediatric palliative care and psychosocial support in oncology settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates students' ways of attending to linear sequential data in two tasks, and conjectures possible relationships between those ways and elements of the task design. Drawing on the substantial literature about such situations, we focus for this paper on linear rate of change, and on covariation and correspondence approaches to linear data. Data sources included a survey instrument of six tasks that was developed in collaboration with a group of teachers, and the tasks for this paper are two concerned with linear functions. The whole survey was given to 20 students from each of UK years 7-11 and 10 students from each year 12-13 (total of 120 students). Our analytical approach was to identify what all students appear to do, not how correct they were or what pre-determined methods they might use. Our analysis uses theories of dual-process and dynamic graded continuum to suggest conjectures about how students' capabilities in acting with sequential data depend to some extent on task features, as well as on curriculum and pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early warning scores calculated by registered nurses (RNs) are used in hospitals to enhance the recognition of and communication about patient deterioration. Tiffs study evaluated workflow variables surrounding calculation and documentation of one pediatric hospital's use of an early warning score. Results indicated that there were significant delays in documentation of early warning scores by RNs and inconsistencies between the early warning scores and vital signs collected and documented by non-RN personnel. These findings reflected information obtained from the RNs about how they prioritize tasks and use work-arounds to specific systems issues regarding assessment and documentation in the electronic medical record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little research exists on the effectiveness of assistive technology (AT) for children and almost no outcome instruments exist. The Student Performance Profile (SPP) and the School Function Assessment-Assistive Technology (SFA-AT) are instruments %are specifically designed to measure AT outcomes in special education. Purpose: The present study reports on the measurement properties and compares the time needed to use the SFA-AT and the SPP. Materials and methods: The SFA-AT and the SPP were used to measure the effect of AT for 13 children with intellectual, behavioural, or learning disabilities in a public school, and were compared regarding time acceded for their administration, rating and scoring, and measurement properties. Findings: The SPP required less time to administer, score, and analyse than the SFA-AT. Both were sensitive to change in student performance over a four-month period when the conditions of pretest without AT was compared to posttest with AT. The SFA-AT scores did not correlate with the SPP scores at pretest without AT or at posttest with AT. Conclusions: Both the SFA-AT and the SPP have advantages, but the SPP appeared most efficient and sensitive for this population of students in special education. Further studies with larger and alternate participant samples are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research conducted over the last few decades has consistently highlighted the importance of the quality of infant attachment to primary caregivers in the fostering of positive child developmental outcomes both during the infancy period and beyond. However, the evidence is less conclusive regarding specification of the antecedent infant and caregiver behaviors, contextual factors, and interactive processes likely to produce optimal attachment relations. Although for many years the search for antecedents has focused primarily on caregiver sensitivity, researchers have recently recognized that attachment emerges based on a complex array of individual and environmental factors interacting in complex and often nonlinear ways. Scientific attempts to more precisely specify the origins of attachment behavior seem to have been thwarted by the limitations inherent in traditional models of development. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore application of dynamic systems theory to the study of attachment relations. Attachment theory and research are reviewed initially, followed by an overview of the basic tenets of dynamic systems theory. Based on specification of the dynamic components of attachment relations and an analysis of the central tenets of the dynamic systems perspective, an effort is made to illuminate the appropriateness of a dynamic systems framework as a guide for future conceptual and empirical work in the area of attachment. Specific ideas for applying a dynamic systems methodology to the study of attachment in early childhood are provided.Copyright © 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Introduces papers published in the February 2001 issue of `Support for Learning' journal concerning the mathematical abilities of children. Description of pupils who do well in mathematics; Reasons for failure in mathematics; Background on the papers.