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Performance on an emotional labeling task in response to schematic facial patterns representing five basic emotions without the concurrent presentation of a verbal category was investigated in 40 parents of children with autism and 40 matched controls. "Autism fathers" performed worse than "autism mothers," who performed worse than controls in decoding displays representing sadness or disgust. This indicates the need to include facial expression decoding tasks in genetic research of autism. In addition, emotional expression interactions between parents and their children with autism, particularly through play, where affect and prosody are "physiologically" exaggerated, may stimulate development of social competence. Future studies could benefit from a combination of stimuli including photographs and schematic drawings, with and without associated verbal categories. This may allow the subdivision of patients and relatives on the basis of the amount of information needed to understand and process social-emotionally relevant information. (Contains 2 tables.)

The relationship between grammatical and lexical development was compared in 233 English and 233 Italian children aged between 1;6 and 2;6, matched for age, gender, and vocabulary size on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Four different measures of Mean Length of Utterance were applied to the three longest utterances reported by parents, and to corrected/expanded versions representing the "target" for each utterance. Italians had longer MLUs on most measures, but the ratio of actual to target MLUs did not differ between languages. Age and vocabulary both contributed significant variance to MLU, but the contribution of vocabulary was much larger, suggesting that vocabulary size may provide a better basis for crosslinguistic comparisons of grammatical development. The relationship between MLU and vocabulary size was non-linear in English but linear in Italian, suggesting that grammar "gets off the ground" earlier in a richly inflected language. A possible mechanism to account for this difference is discussed. [This research was partially funded by the National Council of Research Institute of Psychology.]

Hypoparathyroidism is the only endocrine deficiency for which hormone replacement therapy is not the standard of care. Although conventional treatments may control hypocalcaemia, other complications such as hyperphosphatemia, kidney stones, peripheral calcifications, and bone disease remain unmet needs. This meta‐analysis (PROSPERO registration number CRD42019126881) aims to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of PTH1−34 and PTH1−84 in restoring calcium metabolism in chronic hypoparathyroidism. EMBASE, PubMed, and CENTRAL databases were searched for randomized clinical trials or prospective studies published between January 1996 and March 2021. English‐language trials reporting data on replacement with PTH1−34 or PTH1−84 in chronic hypoparathyroidism were selected. Three authors extracted outcomes, one author performed quality control, all assessed the risk of biases. Overall, data from 25 studies on 588 patients were analyzed. PTH therapy had a neutral effect on calcium levels, while lowering serum phosphate (−0.21 mmol/L; 95% confidence interval [CI], −0.31 to −0.11 mmol/L; p < 0.001) and urinary calcium excretion (−1.21 mmol/24 h; 95% CI, −2.03 to −0.41 mmol/24 h; p = 0.003). Calcium phosphate product decreased under PTH1−84 therapy only. Both treatments enabled a significant reduction in calcium and calcitriol supplementation. PTH therapy increased bone turnover markers and lumbar spine mineral density. Quality of life improved and there was no difference in the safety profile between PTH and conventionally treated patients. Results for most outcomes were similar for the two treatments. Limitations of the study included considerable population overlap between the reports, incomplete data, and heterogeneity in the protocol design. In conclusion, the meta‐analysis of data from the largest collection to date of hypoparathyroid patients shows that PTH therapy is safe, well‐tolerated, and effective in normalizing serum phosphate and urinary calcium excretion, as well as enabling a reduction in calcium and vitamin D use and improving quality of life. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the serial position curve based on free recall of spatial position sequences. To evaluate the memory processes underlying spatial recall, some manipulations were introduced by varying the length of spatial sequences (Exp. 1) and modifying the presentation rate of individual positions (Exp. 2). A primacy effect emerged for all sequence lengths, while a recency effect was evident only in the longer sequences. Moreover, slowing the presentation rate increased the magnitude of the primacy effect and abolished the recency effect. The main novelty of the present results is represented by the finding that better recall of early items in a sequence of spatial positions does not depend on the task requirement of an ordered recall but it can also be observed in a free recall paradigm.

Background. The restrictive, but not the obstructive respiratory dysfunction, is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus. Our aim was to verify in an elderly nondiabetic population whether a restrictive respiratory pattern was associated with a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome and increased insulin resistance than were obstructive and normal respiratory patterns. Methods. We performed a cross-sectional study of 159 consecutive nondiabetic elderly persons attending two social centers. According to their spirometric pattern, volunteers were classified into the following categories: normal spirometry, obstructive (forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity < 0.70), and restrictive pattern (forced vital capacity < 80% predicted, forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity [greater than or equal to] 0.70). Independent correlates of the metabolic syndrome were identified. Results. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was higher in restrictive (56%) than in both normal (21.4%, p = .001) and obstructive volunteers (12.9%, p = .001). Insulin resistance, as assessed by the log transformation of the HOmeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA), was higher in restrictive than in obstructive and normal volunteers (1 [+ or -] 0.6 vs 0.3 [+ or -] 0.6 and 0.5 [+ or -] 0.5, p < .001). Restriction was an independent correlate of metabolic syndrome, also after adjustment for waist circumference and body mass index (odds ratio = 3.23, 95% confidence interval, 1.23-8.48: p = .01). Conclusion. Restrictive, but not obstructive respiratory pattern, is associated with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, and does not only reflect a limitation of ventilation due to visceral obesity. Metabolic abnormalities likely mediate cardiovascular risk in patients with restrictive respiratory impairment.