A survey was sent to classroom teachers in Central Florida educating students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to investigate: 1) intervention practices currently used in the classroom for students with ASD; 2) if the interventions being used are evidence-based, and; 3) if there a difference in use of evidence-based interventions between teachers with the Florida Autism Endorsement and teachers without the Endorsement. A nonprobability purposive study was conducted via an email-based survey. The survey was designed using the tailored design method and was created in Qualtrics.com, an online survey software program. The survey was divided into three major sections: an intervention section which included a variety of evidence and non-evidenced-based practices drawn from the current research literature; a section focused on how teachers select the interventions they use in their classrooms; and, a demographic section. The survey was sent via email to classroom teachers registered with University of Central Florida Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. Participant inclusion criteria included: 1) currently a classroom teacher in a Central Florida, and 2) at least one student with ASD in the classroom. Forty surveys were completed for a ten percent response rate. Results indicated that a variety of evidence- based and non-evidence-based interventions were being used in classrooms. The top three reported interventions were Visual Supports (95 %), Computer Program Applications (93%), and Social Stories (73 %). Based on current empirical evidence, these top three interventions have insufficient evidence regarding their efficacy for use with students with ASD. In addition, two of the interventions reported to be used have a negative evidence base suggesting they may be harmful for some students with ASD. There were no significant differences between teachers with the Florida ASD Endorsement and teachers without

Previous studies have examined how the language skills of children with adolescent mothers differs from children of older mothers. However, there is limited information on what specific strategies adolescent mothers utilize to increase early language and emergent literacy skills in their children. The aim of the present study is to examine adolescent mothers’ use of strategies to increase the early language and emergent literacy skills of their young children. A sample of 14 adolescent mothers enrolled in a teen parenting program were surveyed on their use of common strategies that are shown to facilitate early development of language and literacy skills in young children, and they provided a self-report of their child’s language development using a norm-referenced tool. A researcher developed questionnaire was used to determine the frequency of strategies used by the adolescent mothers. The MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories were used to gather child language development data to compare with the frequency of strategy usage. The measures were analyzed with ANOVAs, Pearson Correlations and Spearman’s rank-order correlations to determine the significance and relationship between variables. Adolescent mothers were found to generally score low on the Self-Assessment of Language and Literacy Implementation (SALLI), with deficits specifically in the areas of Directiveness and Home Environment. The CDIs showed that the children were reported to have below average language development, and their scores were significantly related to aspects of the adolescent mother’s reported implementation.

22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q) is the most common microdeletion known in humans. Studies have hypothesized that larger nasopharyngeal proportions lead to velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) in individuals in 22q.22q patients that undergo the pharyngeal flap surgery to correct their velopharyngeal insufficiency have been reported to experience an increased rate of surgical complications due to their complex anatomical differences.Treatment of velopharyngeal insufficiency among patients with 22q therefore requires quantitative anatomical data of the nasopharyngeal area for surgical planning. No studies to date have analyzed the nasopharyngeal volume in a non-sedated pediatric population with 22q. The aim of this study was to investigate the volumetric and linear characteristics of the nasopharyngeal port among children with 22q using a novel, non-sedated 3D imaging protocol. MRI data were obtained on 20 participants, 10 with a confirmed diagnosis of 22q and 10 control subjects. All participants were between 4-12 years of age. 3D MRI data were collected while the velum was relaxed as the participants lay in the supine position. The 3D scan involved a 0.8 in-plane isotropic resolution with an acquisition time of less than 5 minutes.MRI data were transferred into Amira 6 Visualization Volume Modeling software (Visage Imaging GmbH, Berlin, Germany). Both volumetric and linear measurements of the nasopharyngeal port were taken. The measures were selected based on relevance to speech resonance features and comparable studies in the literature. Linear measurements were taken of the velopharyngeal (VP) width, anterior cranial base angle (ACBA), pharyngeal depth, osseous pharyngeal depth, and adenoid-nasopharyngeal ratio (ANR). Volumetric measurements included adenoid volume (AV), nasopharyngeal volume (NPV), and oronasopharyngeal volume (ONV) . Independent samples t-tests were used to assess differences between the control and clinical groups. The total volume of the nasopharynx was found to be significantly larger in the 22q group (2890.70 mm3) compared to the control group (1542.10 mm3). Significant differences were additionally noted among linear measures, including a more obtuse angle of the ACBA in the 22q group. These results support our initial hypothesis regarding larger nasopharyngeal airways in patients with 22q compared to the control group. Quantitative anatomical data of nasopharyngeal proportions in children with 22q can be used to tailor surgery to provide a more personalized treatment approach to enhance speech and surgical outcomes in the 22q population.

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