Theory of Mind and Parental Mental-State Talk in Children with CIs.

Previous studies have suggested that parents may support the development of theory of mind (ToM) in their child by talking about mental states (mental state talk; MST). However, MST has not been sufficiently explored in deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs). This study investigated ToM and availability of parental MST in deaf children with CIs (n = 39, Mage = 62.92, SD = 15.23) in comparison with their peers with typical hearing (TH; n = 52, Mage = 52.48, SD = 1.07). MST was measured during shared storybook reading. Parents' narratives were coded for cognitive, emotional, literal, and non-mental references. ToM was measured with a parental questionnaire. Children with CIs had lower ToM scores than their peers with TH, and their parents used more literal references during shared storybook reading. There were no significant differences in the frequencies of cognitive and emotional references between groups. Parental emotional references contributed positively to children's ToM scores when controlling for the child's age and receptive grammar only in the CI group. These results indicated some distinctive features in parents of deaf children with CIs' MST and highlighted the role of MST in the development of ToM abilities in this group.

False Belief Understanding in Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants.

Theory of mind (ToM) is crucial for social interactions. Previous research has indicated that deaf and hard-of-hearing children born into hearing families (DoH) are at risk of delayed ToM development. However, it is unclear whether this is the case for DoH children who receive cochlear implants (CIs) before and around the second year of life. The present study aimed to investigate false belief understanding (FBU) in DoH children with CIs. The relationships between false belief task (FBT) performance, sentence comprehension, age at implantation, duration of CI use, and Speech Recognition Threshold were explored. A total of 94 children with typical levels of hearing (TH) and 45 DoH children (age range: 3-8), who received their first CI between 6 and 27 months of age, were tested on the FBT and a sentence comprehension test. Results showed that 4- and 5-year-old children with CIs performed significantly worse than their peers with TH on the FBT; 6- to 8-year-old children with CIs performed similarly to age-matched children with TH. Age at implantation and duration of CI use were correlated with sentence comprehension but not with the FBT. The results indicated that FBU was delayed until the age of 6 years in most of children with CIs.

Predicting reduced left atrial appendage velocity from echocardiographic left atrial function parameters in patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing catheter ablation.

Decreased left atrial appendage velocity (LAAV) is considered a significant risk factor thrombus formation in the left atrial appendage (LAA). The aim of this study was to assess the role of echocardiographic left atrial (LA) function parameters in predicting LAAV in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) undergoing catheter ablation. We prospectively enrolled consecutive patients with persistent AF undergoing transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) directly before the first AF ablation in 2019-2022. Of the 150 patients enrolled in the study, 29.3% (n = 44) had reduced LAAV values defined as < 25 cm/s. Patients with decreased LAAV values exhibited significantly reduced left atrial reservoir and conduit strain (LASr and LAScd), LA emptying fraction, and average e' values. This group also presented with a high LA stiffness index (LASI), high LA and right atrial area, and high LA volume index (LAVI) and E/e' ratio. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, LASI and LAVI remained significant predictors of the reduced LAAV. The threshold values were 1.6 for LASI and 44.47 ml/m2 for LAVI, with area under the curve values of 0.809 and 0.755, respectively. Among all noninvasive echocardiographic parameters, LASI and LAVI were found to be the best predictors of reduced LAAV, with good sensitivity and specificity. Moreover, LASI was found to be the only significant predictor of reduced LAAV defined as < 20 cm/s as well as < 25 cm/s.

Parental Report via a Mobile App in the Context of Early Language Trajectories: StarWords Study Protocol.

Social sciences researchers emphasize that new technologies can overcome the limitations of small and homogenous samples. In research on early language development, which often uses parental reports, taking the testing online might be particularly compelling. Due to logistical limitations, previous studies on bilingual children have explored the language development trajectories in general (e.g., by including few and largely set apart timepoints), or focused on small, homogeneous samples. The present study protocol presents a new, on-going study which uses new technologies to collect longitudinal data continuously from parents of multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children. Our primary aim is to establish the developmental trajectories in Polish-British English and Polish-Norwegian bilingual children and Polish monolingual children aged 0-3 years with the use of mobile and web-based applications. These tools allow parents to report their children's language development as it progresses, and allow us to characterize children's performance in each language (the age of reaching particular language milestones). The project's novelty rests on its use of mobile technologies to characterize the bilingual and monolingual developmental trajectory from the very first words to broader vocabulary and multiword combinations.