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This study validates behavior development screening for toddlers (BeDevel), which utilizes a combination of short caregiver interviews (BeDevel-I) and semistructured play observations (BeDevel-P). The data of 431 toddlers (male 66.2%; mean age (SD) = 29.11 (8.59) months; ASD, n = 201; developmental delay, n = 46; typically developing, n = 184), aged 18 ~ 42 months, were included in the validation of BeDevel. The best clinical estimate diagnosis, screening rate, validity, sensitivity, and reliability of BeDevel were determined based on data cross-sectionally collected using BeDevel and existing diagnostic/screening instruments: autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS), autism diagnostic interview (ADI-R), Vineland adaptive behavior scales-II (VABS-II), social response scales (SRS), sequenced language scale for infants (SELSI), Korean childhood autism rating scale (K-CARS), and Korean social communication questionnaire (K-SCQ). The k values of BeDevel-I and BeDevel-P were 0.055 ~ 0.732 and 0.291 ~ 0.752, respectively. Items related to social referencing in BeDevel-P had a particularly high diagnostic validity (k = 0.483 ~ 0.684). Reliabilities of BeDevel-I and BeDevel-P were sufficient (Cronbach's alpha = 0.86 ~ 0.88 and 0.92 ~ 0.95, respectively). BeDevel-I and BeDevel-P showed high sensitivity (BeDevel-I: 85.00 ~ 89.29%; BeDevel-P: 85.00 ~ 91.75%), specificity (BeDevel-I: 77.55 ~ 89.55%; BeDevel-P: 85.09 ~ 97.01%), PPV (BeDevel-I: 70.83 ~ 88.54%; BeDevel-P: 81.52 ~ 94.68%), and NPV (BeDevel-I: 76.00 ~ 95.24%; BeDevel-P: 84.62 ~ 95.45%). The agreement between the composite BeDevel score and ADOS, ADI-R, K-CARS, and K-SCQ was >67.6% (range = 67.6 ~ 90.8%). Combining a short caregiver interview and direct play observation is a valid and reliable screening process. More studies on social referencing as an important early marker are needed. BeDevel can be utilized as a secondary screening instrument before diagnostic confirmation in clinical and community settings. LAY SUMMARY: BeDevel, which consists of a short caregiver interview and direct play observation, is a valid and reliable screening instrument for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We suggest that BeDevel can be utilized as a secondary instrument before administering diagnostic assessments in clinical and community settings. More studies examining social referencing as a potential behavioral marker of ASD are needed.

Objectives Early detection of developmental issues in infants and necessary intervention are important. To identify the comorbid conditions, a comprehensive evaluation is required. The study’s objectives were to 1) generate scale items by identifying and eliciting concepts relevant to young children (12–71 months) with developmental delays, 2) develop a comprehensive screening tool for developmental delay and comorbid conditions, and 3) assess the tool’s validity and cut-off. Methods Multidisciplinary experts devised the “Infant Comprehensive Evaluation for Neurodevelopmental Delay (ICEND),” an assessment method that comes in two versions depending on the age of the child: 12–36 months and 37–71 months, through monthly seminars and focused group interviews. The ICEND is composed of three parts: risk factors, resilience factors, and clinical scales. In parts 1 and 2, there were 41 caretakers responded to the questionnaires. Part 3 involved clinicians evaluating ten subscales using 98 and 114 questionnaires for younger and older versions, respectively. The Child Behavior Checklist, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Infant- Toddler Social Emotional Assessment, and Korean Developmental Screening Test for Infants and Children were employed to analyze concurrent validity with the ICEND. The analyses were performed on both typical and high-risk infants to identify concurrent validity, reliability, and cut-off scores. Results A total of 296 people participated in the study, with 57 of them being high-risk (19.2%). The Cronbach’s alpha was positive (0.533–0.928). In the majority of domains, the ICEND demonstrated a fair discriminatory ability, with a sensitivity of 0.5–0.7 and specificity 0.7–0.9. Conclusion The ICEND is reliable and valid, indicating its potential as an auxiliary tool for assessing neurodevelopmental delay and comorbid conditions in children aged 12–36 months and 37–71 months.

Objective This study tested the validity and reliability of the Behavior Development Screening for Toddlers-Questionnaire-Parents (BeDevel-Q/P), a new autism spectrum disorder (ASD) screening instrument being developed in South Korea. The parents of 24-35-month-old infants were recruited to complete the questionnaire. Methods The participants were 791 infants aged 24-35 months. There were 623 typically developing infants, 88 infants with ASD, and 80 developmentally delayed infants. For test-retest, the participants were surveyed every 1-4 weeks. Participants were recruited nationwide. Subjects' parents completed the BeDevel-Q/P and concurrent validity questionnaires. The data were used for statistical analysis. Results A total of 24 items consisting of 16 items from factor 1 (F1), 6 items from factor 2 (F2), and 2 items from factor 3 (F3), were selected for the final BeDevel-Q/P items. Conclusion The factors of the screening instrument developed in this study were analyzed, and three factors were extracted, confirming the theoretical foundation of the BeDevel-Q for the parents of 24-35-month-old infants.

Background: Air pollution is associated with perceived stress in the general population, but its influence on maternal perceived stress during pregnancy has not been investigated.We aimed to investigate the relationship between air pollution and non-specific perceived stress among pregnant women.Methods: Our analysis included2162 pregnant women who had participated in the cohort for childhood origin of asthma and allergic disease study between 2008 and 2015. Maternal exposures to particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and < 10 µm (PM10), as well as to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3) for each trimesterand the entire pregnancy were determined using land-use regression models. Maternal perceived stress during the third trimester was assessed using the 14-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS): scores ranged from 0-56 with higher scores indicating increased stress. Linear regression models were applied to estimate associations between PSS scores and each air pollutant, after adjusting for socio-demographic and behavioral covariates.Results: In single-pollutant models,after adjustment, an IQR increase in the whole pregnancy exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 and O3 in the third trimester was related to 0.37 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.01, 0.74) and 0.55 (95% CI: 0.12, 0.98) and 0.29 (95% CI: 0.05, 0.52) points increase in the PSS score, respectively.This association was more evident in women with child-bearing age and lower levelofeducation, and the association of PM10was stronger in thespring season.In multi-pollutant models, exposures to PM10 and O3 were associated with higher perceived stress. Conclusion:Our findings suggest that pregnancy exposure to PM2.5, PM10and O3 is positively associated with maternal PSS score during the third trimester.

Background Air pollution is associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms in the general population. However, this relationship among pregnant women remains largely unknown. Objective To evaluate the association between pregnancy air pollution exposure and maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms during the third trimester assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scales, respectively. Methods We analyzed 1481 pregnant women from a cohort study in Seoul. Maternal exposure to particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter Results In single-pollutant models, an IQR increase in PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 during the second trimester was associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms (PM2.5 RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.27; PM10 RR = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.23; NO2 RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.29) after adjusting for relevant covariates. Similarly, an IQR increase in O3 during the third trimester was associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms (RR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.18), while the IQR increase in O3 during the first trimester was associated with a decreased risk (RR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.82, 0.96). Exposure to PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 during the second trimester was significantly associated with anxiety symptoms. The associations with PM2.5 and O3 in single-and multi-pollutant models were consistent. Conclusions Our findings indicate that increased levels of particulate matter, NO2, and O3 during pregnancy may elevate the risk of depression or anxiety in pregnant women.

Adults’ linguistic background influences their sequential statistical learning of an artificial language characterized by conflicting forward-going and backward-going transitional probabilities. English-speaking adults favor backward-going transitional probabilities, consistent with the head-initial structure of English. Korean-speaking adults favor forward-going transitional probabilities, consistent with the head-final structure of Korean. These experiments assess when infants develop this directional bias. In the experiments, 7-month-old infants showed no bias for forward-going or backward-going regularities. By 13 months, however, English-learning infants favored backward-going transitional probabilities over forward-going transitional probabilities, consistent with English-speaking adults. This indicates that statistical learning rapidly adapts to the predominant syntactic structure of the native language. Such adaptation may facilitate subsequent learning by highlighting statistical structures that are likely to be informative in the native linguistic environment. Ministry of Education (MOE) We are grateful to Sook Whan Cho and Hongoak Yun for facilitating data collection at Asan Hospital in Seoul, South Korea, and Jae-un Kim and Young-In Lee for running Experiment 2. Support came from a Start Up Grant and a Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 grant (RG81/14) to L.O.

This study aims to develop a theoretical empowerment education model to support multiculturally gifted students in Korea. To propose a theoretical model, prior studies about representative multicultural education models, gifted education models, and multicultural gifted education models have been reviewed and the contents of the 17 Korean Global Bridge Programs for multicultural gifted students have been analyzed. These models focus on cognitive abilities and curriculum factors such as transformation through empowerment at schools and in society; however, language, self-esteem, self-agency, and interpersonal skills, which affect cognitive development, must be considered in addition to the aforementioned factors for the multicultural gifted students. The Multicultural Gifted Empowerment Education (MGEE) model was developed to suit the specific needs of Korean multicultural gifted education. The MGEE model has two components: foundation and enrichment. This model focuses on cognitive development based on affective and societal supports, which most multicultural students lack

Objective This article examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (K-ITSEA). Methods Translation and back-translation of the K-ITSEA were conducted after obtaining a permission. Two thousand two hundred thirty six Korean community infants (1,199 boys and 1,037 girls) between the ages of 12 and 36 months (M=34.23, SD=3.80) and 90 clinical infant samples (60 boys and 30 girls) between the ages of 12 and 36 months (M=26.84, SD=6.24) participated in the present study. Results Confirmatory factor analyses supported the Internalizing, Externalizing, Dysregulation, and Competence domains as well as the 17 individual scales that comprise the K-ITSEA. Young children's sex and age differences emerged for some problem and most competence scales. All domains showed adequate intrascale reliability and test-retest reliability. Scale intracorrelation analyses and associations between the K-ITSEA and Korean version of PSI, Korean version of CBCL1.5-5 supported the validity of the assessment. Comparisons of the K-ITSEA scores for the Autism Spectrum Disorder, Psychiatric Disorders and Matched control groups supported the discriminant validity of the K-ITSEA. Conclusion This preliminary results indicate that the K-ITSEA would be a useful assessment for detecting the early childhood's behavior problems and competences in Korean population.

Gynosaponins have pharmacological effects on 3,4-L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA)-related or dopamine-related neurological diseases; however, the neuroprotective functions of single compound of gynosaponins remain undefined. This study investigated the cytotoxic effects of gynosaponin TN-2 on L-DOPA in pheochromocytoma 12 cells. Gynosaponin TN-2, at 0.5-3 μM, did not exhibit cytotoxicity and protected against L-DOPA (100 and 200 μM)-induced cell death. Gynosaponin TN-2 (0.5 and 1.0 μM) inhibited the L-DOPA (100 and 200 μM)-induced sustained extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases 1 and 2 phosphorylation. Gynosaponin TN-2 at 0.5 and 1.0 μM also reduced L-DOPA (100 and 200 μM)-induced JNK1/2 phosphorylation and cleaved caspase-3 expression. These results suggested that gynosaponin TN-2 exerts protective effects on L-DOPA (100 and 200 μM)-induced apoptotic cell death by modulating extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases 1 and 2 activation in pheochromocytoma 12 cells.

South Korea tried to drastically expand the capacity of wind power generation from 1.8 GW in 2020 to 24.9 GW in 2034. Moreover, the “Green New Deal” policy is being implemented to promote employment and growth by using domestic wind power facilities. This article estimates additional willingness to pay (WTP) or price premium, for electricity generated from domestic wind power facilities over that from imported ones. For this purpose, a contingent valuation survey of 1000 households was carried out employing the closed-ended question during September 2020. A spike model is utilized to reflect the zero WTP values reported by 58.3% of the interviewees. Several factors affecting the price premium were also analyzed to derive implications. The average price premium for electricity generated from domestic wind power generation facilities was estimated to be KRW 22.5 (USD 0.019) per kWh with statistical significance. This value reaches 21.4% of the electricity price for 2019 (KRW105 or USD 0.089 per kWh). It should be noted that more than half of the people reported a zero price premium, as they thought that “Green” is more important than “New Deal,” or they worried that the supply of domestic wind power facilities could raise electricity bills.

Objective We aimed to investigate the current diagnostic incidence, and medical and psychiatric comorbidities of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) using the National Health Insurance Review and Assessment (HIRA) claims data. Methods To examine the diagnostic incidence, we selected patients who were under 10-year-old and who had at least one medical claim containing a 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) code for RAD (F94.1 and F94.2) and who had not been diagnosed in the previous 360 days, from 2010 to 2012. In this study, we used the term 'reactive attachment disorder' representing for both RAD per se and Disinhibited social engagement disorder. Comorbid disorders were categorized according to ICD-10. Results Among 14,029,571, the total population under 10-year-old during 2010-2012, incident cases of RAD were 736. The mean diagnostic incidence of RAD was 5.25 per 100,000 annually. Language disorders (F80-84) were the most common psychiatric comorbidities in both boys and girls in age groups 0-3 years and 4-6 years, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was the most common in both sex aged 7-9 years. In non-psychiatric comorbidities, diseases of the respiratory system (J00-99) were the commonest in both sex in all age groups, and diseases of the digestive system (K00-99) were the next. Conclusion RAD was very rare in practice and would be disguised as other psychiatric disorders. Children with RAD might have more medical comorbidities than typically developed children.