Frequency Of Opportunities Research Articles

Adherence and Opportunity Frequency as Predictors of Communication Outcomes from Pivotal Response Parent Training.

Access to intervention is a barrier for children with autism. As parent-mediated interventions have emerged to address this need, understanding implementation components contributing to child gains is critically important. Existing literature documents relationships between parent treatment adherence and child progress; however, less is understood about components, such as frequency of learning opportunities, which could also affect child outcomes. This study is a secondary analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial evaluating Pivotal Response Treatment group parent training (PRTG) compared to psychoeducation. Linear regression and mediational models were employed to identify potential predictors and mediators of outcome. PRTG produced large increases in adherence and learning opportunities. In general, greater frequency of learning opportunities and adherence predicted better child outcomes. The best-fitting cross-sectional mediational models indicated at least partial mediational effects, whereby increased learning opportunities mediated the relationship between greater adherence and improved child outcomes. This study provides preliminary evidence of how early gains in adherence may support parents to provide more frequent learning opportunities, which, in turn, yield positive effects on child social communication. Future large-scale research, with greater granularity of measurement, is needed to further understand the temporal relationships between these variables.

Family Meal- and Related-Practices in Families of Preschoolers: Differences by Family Income

The present study asked parents of preschool-aged children from differing socioeconomic groups to complete a questionnaire regarding the frequency of specific behaviors that comprise the food environment. Participants were 94 mothers of preschool-age children who attended either Day Care (middle-income) or Head Start (low-income) programs. Many of the items tested showed similar characteristics for the food environment between the Head Start and Day Care centers, including the frequency that children were involved in meal preparation, the frequency that children were encouraged to finish the food on their plate, the frequency that a parent ate a meal at the table with the child, and the frequency of opportunities to try foods that the parents disliked themselves. Relative to the Head Start children, however, children attending Day Care were more restricted from eating desserts and salty snacks, more encouraged to try new foods, and more often consumed breakfast. Aside from characteristics of the food environment, children in Day Care spent more minutes in outdoor play and slept nearly an hour more each night, while those who attended Head Start spent more time watching television and playing video games. It is recommended that families make a better effort to create an optimal food environment for their children.

Opportunities for and Success in Dribbling, Passing, Receiving, and Shooting in Youth Basketball

The aims of this study were to analyze: a) the relation between the frequency of opportunities for and success in dribbling, passing, receiving, and shooting; and b) the relation between the frequency of dribbling, passing, receiving and shooting. Participants were 59 children from six basketball teams, between 9–11 years of age ( M = 10.80, SD = 0.57). The sample consisted of 25,177 dribbles, 8,160 passes, 7,515 receptions, and 3,075 shots from 30 games. An idiographic, ongoing, and multidimensional design was used. The games were recorded, and four trained collaborators ( ICC > .95) observed the recordings. In all the motor skills, there were more opportunities than successful actions ( p < 0.000). Opportunities for and success in dribbling were higher than opportunities for and success in passing, receiving, and shooting. In view of the results, various practical considerations are suggested.

Clear-air Seeding: Opportunities and Strategies

Clear-air seeding is the artificial creation or enhancement of cloud cover in clear air which is between saturation with respect to ice and saturation with respect to liquid water. Previous work has demonstrated that clear-air seeding is possible, and may be economically worthwhile through its effects on the radiation balance near the ground. Order-of-magnitude arguments, contrail observations and direct measurements are used to assess the frequency and horizontal extent of opportunities for clear-air seeding in the upper troposphere. Clear, ice-supersaturated air is a common occurrence in the mid-latitude upper troposphere at all times of year, typically appearing over 100 km-wide regions downstream of cyclonic or convective storm systems. The frequency of opportunities was also estimated for a particular application of clear-air seeding-cloud cover enhancement during winter nights to reduce space heating costs. Opportunities were studied for the middle and lower troposphere through a careful analysis of radiosonde humidity data, and for the upper troposphere through observalions of natural cirrus. Under suitable cloud cover and wind conditions, five to ten opportunities each season are estimated for locations in the northeastern United States, a frequency sufficient for economic advanlage based on a previous analysis. Two methods are discussed for seeding clear, ice-superssLurated air to create clouds. Seeding with ice crystals is studied using a numerical simulation of ice crystal cloud growth, which includes both ice physics and radiative transfer. Ice crystal seeding is most effective when the seeding rate is greatest and the moist layer seeded is deepest. Aircraft contrails generally utilize only a small fraction of the available water vapor in excess of ice saturation, before they settle out of the moist layer in which they were created. The development of clouds seeded with ice-nucleating aerosols, rather than ice crystals, depends greatly on the rate at which the seed material nucleates ice crystals. This type of seeding would produce a longer lasting, lower density cloud than would seeding with ice crystals.

Fragility of Traditions: The Disturbance Hypothesis for the Loss of Local Traditions in Orangutans

Chimpanzees and orangutans have increasingly well documented local traditions involving learned skillful behaviors, often involving tools, which vary from place to place and are maintained by social transmission. These local traditions are most likely the antecedents of human culture. The complexity of local traditions is thought largely to be a function of the cumulative frequency of opportunities for social learning, and hence of the extent of tolerant gregarious foraging. Data on orangutans and chimpanzees are consistent with this hypothesis. This reliance on continued social transmission makes local traditions vulnerable to interruptions of transmission. I examine the disturbance hypothesis, which suggests that local extinction, hunting pressure, selective logging, and habitat loss in general affect the key parameters of the transmission process—innovation, diffusion, horizontal transmission—and hence will significantly impoverish the repertoire of complex skills for subsistence. Given current trends in orangutan habitats, serious erosion of local traditions is taking place. I also speculate that disturbance in the past has led to a significant loss of orangutan traditions.

Regeneration of Triangle-Leaf Bursage (Ambrosia deltoidea: Asteraceae): Germination Behavior and Persistent Seed Bank

As has been well documented, many woody plants in the Sonoran Desert experience episodic recruitment as a consequence of poor seedling survival (Shreve, 1917; Steenbergh and Lowe, 1977; McAuliffe, 1986; Sherbrooke, 1989). Episodic recruitment can also be a result of infrequent opportunities for germination. Observation of emergence events in nature (Table 1) is a first step toward determining natural germination requirements and estimating the frequency of opportunities for germination. An understanding of plant population dynamics in deserts is incomplete without adequate information about the environmental conditions that foster regeneration; such conditions include influence of rain and

Adult Language Learning: The Effect of Background, Motivation and Practice on Perseverance

This longitudinal study undertaken in 1993/94 aimed to evaluate the WLPAN method of intensive language teaching by studying an academic year's intake, comprising 74 students, at Cardiff University's Centre for Teaching Welsh to Adults. Using questionnaires and interviews with students and tutors, factors affecting students' ultimate ability to speak Welsh were examined. These factors included students' motivation, their background in the Welsh language and/or foreign languages and attitudes of fluent Welsh speakers when learners attempt to practise language skills outside the classroom. Motivations associated with integration and the culture of the target language figured prominently. Students commended the intensive method. This was supported in the literature on adult Welsh learners. Overall the results provided little evidence of association between successful outcome and antecedent factors examined, for all of which a relationship was plausible. Only two associations were significant; using Welsh in subsequent investigations was associated with both anticipated, and actual, frequency of opportunity to practise. However, of all the possible relationships examined, these are the ones for which association would be practically inevitable: it would be difficult to draw a clear distinction between 'practice' and 'use' in the context of a course that emphasised the spoken language.

First Aid and Basic Life Support Skills Training Early in the Medical Curriculum: Curriculum Issues, Outcomes, and Confidence of Students

Background: The importance of training physicians and other health care professionals in first aid and basic life support (BLS) is now widely recognized. The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the United Arab Emirates University have been offering formal training in these skills to 1st-year medical students since 1989. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of the program and the extent to which it provides students with confidence to perform skills on their own after training. Description: 165 of 180 male and female students comprising 3 cohorts (91.7% response rate) completed a self-administered anonymous questionnaire. The questionnaire contained open- ended and Likert-type questions regarding course organization, content, strengths and weaknesses, teaching-learning approaches, and skills development and confidence. The authors analyzed assessment outcomes and associations between self-perceived levels of confidence and ability to practice. Evaluation: Students were uniformly enthusiastic and highly motivated by the program. Self- assessed confidence in ability to perform skills on their own after completing the program was moderately correlated with perceived frequency of opportunity to practice many skills. There was nevertheless a consistent desire for more practice time. Conclusions: The results suggest that the program provides students with sound basic knowledge and adequate practical skills in first aid and BLS and that adequacy of time and physical and human resources are important prerequisites to facilitate practice and engender confidence in skills.

Development of competence in clerkship

Students' perceptions of their educational experience on Surgery and Medicine rotations of a clerkship program were analysed. Six components of the education process, namely (1) frequency of individual teaching, (2) quality of contact with staff-clinicians, (3) appropriateness of responsibility for patient care, (4) appropriateness of supervision received, (5) frequency of admissions reviewed and (6) frequency of opportunity to follow-up patients admitted, were correlated with students' confidence in their ability to function competently. Mean scores of clerks' confidence in their competence was the same for both rotations. Breakdown by sex revealed females to feel more competent on medicine, and males on surgery. On the medicine rotation a moderate relationship was found between two of the components tested and the dependent variable; on surgery, strong correlations were found between four of the components tested and the dependent variable. Regression analysis demonstrated appropriateness of responsibility for patient care to have a low predictor value for achievement of competence on medicine, while quality of contact with staff-clinician and appropriateness of supervision received were strong predictors of achievement of competence on the surgery rotation.

Elements of a mars transportation system

Earth to Mars transportation requirements are derived for a permanent Mars base of 20 people operating in the 2035 time frame. In order to satisfy these requirements, various transportation modes are developed assuming an existing space infrastructure including propellant tankers, crew and consumable transfer vehicles, orbital facilities and extraterrestrial propellant factories. These transportation modes are compared with respect to total propellant requirements, number of vehicles required, flight times, frequency of opportunity and several other characteristics. Directions for further studies and analysis are indicated.