This study investigates the ways in which parents consider and rate their child’s temperament in relation to the ways in which their child interacts with them during play. Participants were typically developing children (TD, n = 26) ages 2-5, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 25) ages 2-12, and children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD, n = 18) ages 4-9. Attentional focusing was assessed with a parent-report child temperament questionnaire; child’s age determined which Rothbart Childhood Temperament Questionnaire was given (for example, the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire for ages 3-7). Play sessions were unscripted, free play time between the parent and child with a consistent set of toys (M = 14.4 minutes, SD = 2.8). The number of child attention switches (to a different toy, person, or object) was coded from video. Preliminary results indicate that parents rated TD children as more attentive in comparison to children with ASD and FASD based on the attentional focusing score from the Child Temperament Questionnaire (p< .001). There were fewer attention switches during the play sessions by TD children in comparison to children with ASD and FASD (p<.05). There is no significant difference in either of these measures between children with ASD and FASD. There is also no correlation between parent-reported attentional focusing scores and the observed number of attention switches. These results suggest that TD children demonstrate more attentiveness in both parent-reported and examiner-rated measures. Children with ASD and FASD were not distinguishable from each other based on parent report or direct observation of attention. Overall, attention should be considered as a contributor in a child’s interactions with their environment, relationships to others, and further growth and development.

The Indian education system, like many countries, focuses strongly on annual national exams. This results in an emphasis on rote learning, discourages student participation and engagement in lessons, and yields a lack of motivation to learn. Prioritization of rote learning is ubiquitous across India, but is especially detrimental for students from adverse backgrounds and resource-poor settings. Parikrma Humanity Foundation is a non-profit school in Bangalore India that serves students from “the poorest of poor” backgrounds. The school integrates a “360-degree” model that prioritizes student happiness, while emphasizing student and family health as central to learning. Despite these well-established values, students at Parikrma are not exempt from national exam requirements and are also subject to the implications of the heightened importance of exam results. We sought to understand whether key stakeholders perceived that exclusive focus on rote learning hinders development of social-emotional life skills. We conducted over 70 interviews with students, teachers, school faculty, and alumni and analyzed these qualitative results through a method of conceptualization. From this we developed a scale to determine the degree to which the absence of explicit instruction of psychosocial skills impacts overall well-being. Respondents overwhelmingly reported that the lack of material to develop psychosocial skills such as teamwork and active listening results in students with less established life skills and limits access to future opportunities. We aim to develop a curriculum that promotes psychosocial skills key to professional success and overall happiness to be integrated within the context of Parikrma by establishing a cross-aged peer mentorship program that encourages students accountability to each other and themselves. We seek to engage teachers and students through the administration of comprehensive surveys that empowers individuals to self- report the impact of the program in order to assess results.
 

Executive function (EF), a broad term for an individual’s higher-order cognitive abilities, has been shown to be an important factor in proper development of play in childhood. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been noted to score significantly lower on tasks requiring EF and are often noted to engage in more simplistic levels of play compared to typically developing peers. We investigated within-group associations of average play level for children with ASD, as observed during parent-child play sessions, in relation to parent-reported EF scores, as measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). Participants with ASD (n = 28, age = 3-11 years) and participants with typical development (n = 27, age = 2-7 years) engaged in a video-recorded, 15-minute unscripted parent-child play session. Blind coders determined the child’s level of play, ranging from object manipulations to pretend play, on a numeric scale of 1-13. The highest level of play was coded at each one-minute epoch of engagement using Behavior Observation Research Interactive Software. Participant’s play scores were averaged and analyzed with their BRIEF scores using Pearson’s correlations. Results indicated no significant correlation between average play level and the BRIEF working memory, planning, and inhibition subscales, with Pearson’s correlations ranging from less than .01 to 0.03 (p > 0.8). Likewise, for participants with typical development, there was no correlation between average play level and BRIEF global composite scores, with Pearson’s correlations less than 0.01 (p > 0.9). Our current analysis did not account for parental support of the child’s play, which may contribute to why parent-reported EF scores did not relate to child play level in these unscripted parent-child play sessions. Future directions include examining the relationship between EF and play in children with other developmental disabilities.

More than 442 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with diabetes, many of which regulate their glucose levels using the pump/catheter system. However, just 2-3 days after the catheter is inserted into the body, the tissue clogs due to the foreign body reaction (FBR), an immune reaction elicited by the body in response to any foreign material injected in the body. At this point, the patient must remove the catheter and insert a new device into fresh skin elsewhere, resulting in excess scar tissue. Our project focuses on preventing the FBR by reducing its triggering event--protein attachment--so that insulin catheters can last longer (2-3 weeks) and can reduce fibrotic accumulation in patients. To combat the frequency of delivery site changes, we have designed a nonfouling zwitterionic polymeric brush coating for the surface of the catheter to reduce protein attachment. For the coating, zwitterionic sulfobetaine methacrylate (SBMA) was surface-polymerized onto the catheter using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). SBMA has been shown to resist protein adsorption down to less than 1ng/cm². The ATRP initiator was plasma-deposited to robustly adhere to the unique geometry of the catheter. In this work, we used a full factorial design of experiment (DOE) to determine significant experimental factors to the polymerization protocol to maximize the amount of SBMA on the surface. The coating was characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to confirm the presence of SBMA and the radiolabeled protein adsorption assay to measure the amount of protein adsorbed to the coating. We plan to use the results of the DOE screening to further optimize the nonfouling coating and ultimately plan to test this coating on insulin-delivering catheters in a diabetic mouse model to observe sustained lowered blood sugar levels and histologically review the extent of the FBR through collagen accrual.