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A model child abuse and neglect reporting policy and procedure was developed which Utah school districts could use in preparing their own district specific policies and procedures for use by district personnel. The development of the model policy was carried out using two groups of consultants for evaluating the model's format, content, and usability. A third group of consultants, the superintendent or a designee in each of the 40 Utah school districts, was asked to evaluate the model policy for completeness, format, and adoptability. The evaluation was made with a questionnaire developed by the researcher and mailed to the 40 Utah superintendents. Accompanying each questionnaire was a letter of transmittal and a self-addressed, stamped, return envelope. Three mailings were utilized to achieve a usable 92.5%return. Examination of the data collected from the superintendents or a designee showed the following: 1. Averaging the questions regarding the completeness of the model policy, 82 . 5% of the respondents rated the overall model policy as being complete. 2. Seventy-six percent of the respondents felt that the format of the model policy would not cause a problem with existing policy format in their districts. 3 . Seventy percent of the respondents would adopt the model policy for use in their district. (Three districts have a policy dealing with child abuse and neglect and two respondents would recommend adoption.)

Tidigare forskning har visat att barn som far illa innan 18 års ålder är signifikant mer associerade med ett flertal olika mått på kriminalitet, t.ex. självrapporterad kriminalitet, officiella arresteringar, brottsfrekvens, våldsbrott samt droganvändning. Att reducera antalet barn som far illa kan därför ses som brottsförebyggande åtgärd. I Sverige har vissa yrkesprofessionella en lagstadgad skyldighet att anmäla till socialtjänsten vid misstanke om barn som far illa. Tidigare forskning har visat att yrkesprofessionella ofta misslyckas med att anmäla till myndigheter. Den här studien tar sikte på att fördjupa kunskapen och förståelsen av anmälningsprocessen. Den här studien använder kvalitativ analys och intervjuar skolpersonal om deras upplevelser av anmälningsprocessen. Intervjuerna analyseras genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultaten av denna studie återspeglar den tidigare forskningen i många aspekter. Analysen resulterade i fyra olika kategorier; utbildning, erfarenhet av socialtjänsten, rädsla för konsekvenser av att anmäla och anmälningsrutin. Vidare visar resultaten att skolpersonalen inte är tillräckligt utbildade om barn som far illa eller hur man ska anmäla det, att man har negativa erfarenheter av socialtjänsten, har rädsla för konsekvenserna av en anmälan samt att man har en rutin som inte underlättar anmälningsprocessen. Konklusionen av dessa resultat är att utbildningen bör förbättras samt att anmälningsrutinen bör förändras för att säkerställa att fler misstankar om barn som far illa når socialtjänsten i form av en anmälan. Vidare bör skolan och socialtjänsten samarbeta i en högre utsträckning än vad som sker idag. / Previous research has shown that children suffering from abuse, neglect or maltreatment before turning 18 are significantly associated with several measurements of delinquency, such as self-reported and official incidence of arrest, offending frequency, violent crimes and drug-use. Thus, reducing child maltreatment can be seen as a crime prevention strategy. In Sweden, certain professionals have a mandatory responsibility to report child maltreatment to authorities. Previous research has shown that professionals often fail to report to authorities. This thesis aims at deepen the knowledge and understanding of the process of reporting and adopts a qualitative approach, interviewing school personnel about their experience, and their perceived barriers to report. The interviews are analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results of this thesis mirrors in many aspects what have been found in previous research. The analysis found four main categories, education, experience of the social services, fear of consequences of making a report and reporting routine. The results indicate that school personnel are not sufficiently educated on child maltreatment or how to report it, have negative experience of the social services, holds fear about various aspects of reporting and deploy reporting routines that might not facilitate reporting. The implications drawn from this thesis is that school personnel need to be educated to facilitate reporting, but also that reporting routines need to be altered in order to increase reporting. Further, schools and the social services need to collaborate to a greater extent than today.

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TITLE Efficacy of physiotherapeutic interventions in stroke patients with pusher and neglect syndrome. OBJECTIVES The aim of the thesis is to summarise current literature concerning two peculiar phenomena following stroke - pusher syndrome and neglect. Furthermore the work focuses on evaluation of efficacy of physiotherapeutic interventions. METHODS The thesis represents a critical review of a literature and it consists of three parts. The first one summarize issues concerning the pusher syndrome and neglect in general. In a special part you can find a detailed description of physiotherapeutic methods that are widely used in a rehabilitation treatment of these two neuronal symptoms. This work is concluded by evaluating results of effects of the therapeutic interventions that are discussed with respect to the future research. RESULTS Up till now there are no clinical trials concerning efficiacy of physiotherapeutic methods in a treatment of a pusher syndrome. The similar situation seems to be in case of a neglect syndrome as number of available clinical trials testing the efficiacy of physiotherapeutic techniques is very limited. The studies show positive results of a training of visual and spatial orientation or prism adaptation to effectively treat neglect patients. On the contrary, pharmacological...

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde das spontane visuelle Explorationsverhalten von 31 Patienten mit einem idiopathischen Parkinson-Syndrom und von 17 gesunden Kontrollpersonen aus der gleichen Altersgruppe systematisch untersucht. Die Analyse der initialen visuellen Exploration (IVE) wurde mit Hilfe von Texturvorlagen durchgeführt, die aus Elementen der Texton-Forschung aufgebaut waren und die einen attentiven okulomotorischen Suchvorgang voraussetzten. Da ein Teil der Vorlagen differente Zielelemente in der linken und rechten Hälfte beinhaltete, konnte aus den Antworten der Versuchspersonen über das zuerst entdeckte Zielelement, auf die Seite der initialen Exploration geschlossen werden. In einer vorherigen Studie konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Mehrzahl der Normalpersonen ihre Exploration in der linken Hälfte der Vorlagen beginnt, während die meisten Neglect-Patienten mit rechtshemisphäralen Läsionen auf der rechten Seite anfangen. Standarduntersuchungen auf Neglect-Symptome (Linienteilungstest, Ausstreichtest, doppelseitige simultane Stimulation) wurden bei unseren Versuchspersonen als Referenztests ebenfalls durchgeführt. Bei der IVE-Aufgabe starteten 65 Prozent der gesunden Kontrollpersonen und 64 Prozent der Parkinson-Patienten mit überwiegender Beeinträchtigung der rechten Körperhälfte (RPD) und linkshemisphäral betontem Dopamindefizit den Suchvorgang erwartungsgemäß auf der linken Seite des Texturenfeldes. Im Gegensatz zu dieser Verteilung zeigten nur 12 Prozent der Parkinson-Patienten mit vornehmlicher linksseitiger Beteiligung (LPD) eine linksgerichtete IVE, während der Rest keine (35%) bzw. eine rechtsseitige (53%) Bevorzugung bei der initialen Exploration aufwies, die damit IVE-Veränderungen bei Neglect-Patienten glich. Die Ergebnisse der Referenztests ergaben bei keiner Untersuchungsgruppe einen Hinweis auf eine spatiale Vernachlässigung. Das atypische Explorationsverhalten der vornehmlich linksbetroffenen Parkinsongruppe sollte im Zusammenhang mit jüngst entwickelten Konzepten zur Aufmerksamkeitsregulation interpretiert werden, welche eine frühe automatische Orientierung in Richtung des ipsiläsionalen Halbraumes als milde Neglect-Manifestation bzw. als Residualzustand nach einem Hemineglect ansehen. Da dieser subtile Orientierungsvorzug, verglichen mit schwereren und offensichtlicheren klinischen Symptomen des Neglects, weniger einem Kompensationsmechanismus unterliegt, ist die Sensitivität der IVE-Untersuchung bei Patienten mit einem aus chronischen Störungen resultierenden subklinischen Neglect höher, als die der konventionellen Tests. Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse steuern dem komplexen Bild der kognitiven und visuospatialen Veränderungen bei Parkinson-Patienten wichtige neue Aspekte bei. Des weiteren ergänzen unsere Resultate das bisherige Wissen über Neglect-Mechanismen sowie über die Rolle dopaminerger Transmittersysteme bei der Regulation von Aufmerksamkeit. Über dies ermutigen die vorliegenden Ergebnisse zu systematischen Untersuchungen von Effekten dopaminerger Medikamente auf Neglect-Phänomene. / In the present study side preferences in spontaneous visual exploration were assessed systematically in 31 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and 17 age-matched controls. The analysis of the initial visual exploration (IVE) was based on the exploration of texture-arrays derived from texton research requiring attentive oculomotor scanning. Since the left and right half of the arrays contained two different target-elements respectively the side of initial exploration could be deduced from the response of the subject which of the two target-elements was discovered at first. As shown in a previous study most healthy subjects exhibit a marked asymmetry of IVE with a strong left-sided bias when assessed by this paradigm while most neglect-patients with structural right hemispheric lesions initiate exploration in the right half of the arrays. Standard assessments for symptoms of neglect (i.e. line bisection, line cancellation and double simultaneous stimulation) were performed as reference tests in our patients. In the IVE-task 65 percent of normal controls and 64 percent of patients with predominant involvement of the right body half (RPD) started exploration expectedly on the left half of the arrays. In contrast to this distribution only 12 percent of patients with predominantly left-sided disease (LPD) showed a leftward IVE while the rest had an ambiguous (35%) or rightward (53%) directional bias for initial exploration and thus a behavior that corresponded to the IVE-abnormalities found in neglect-patients. The results of the reference-assessments did not reveal further signs of neglect in any of the patient-groups. The atypical IVE in patients with predominantly left-sided Parkinson's disease should be interpreted in the context of recent concepts of attention postulating that a bias in early spontaneous orientation directed to the ipsilesional hemifield reflects a mild and residual manifestation of hemineglect. Since this subtle orientational bias is less subject to compensation than more conspicuous clinical signs of neglect sensitivity is higher in IVE-testing than in conventional neglect-assessments in chronic disorders with subclinical neglect. The present findings contribute a new aspect to the complex picture of cognitive and visuospatial abnormalities in Parkinson's disease. Furthermore our results extend previous knowledge on the mechanisms of neglect and the role of dopamine in the mediation of attention. Additionally our results encourage systematic investigations on dopaminergic medication effects on neglect phenomena.

This project examines how Georgia draws the line between religious freedom and child abuse. In Georgia, certain religious parents are granted spiritual exemptions for conduct that would otherwise be prohibited due to its potential harm to children, while other parents must alter their religious practices to conform to the law. An examination of Georgia law governing conduct that is both religiously-motivated and poses a risk of physical harm to children illustrates that Georgia’s spiritual exemptions have contributed to producing legally-defined religious orthodoxy, inconsistent regulation of religious conduct, and less stringent state protection from harm for the children of some religious parents.