Lawmakers' use of scientific evidence can be improved.

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress-evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation.

Peer Victimization and Communication Skills in Adolescents with Down Syndrome: Preliminary Findings.

In this preliminary study, we examined peer victimization in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and how it relates to language and communication skills. We modified the Childrens' Social Experience Questionnaire (Crick and Grotpeter in Dev Psychopathol 8:367-380, 1996) to better suit adolescents with DS by simplifying vocabulary and syntax, using two step interview response format. Internal reliability was adequate, and all peer victimization measures were significantly elevated compared to a typically developing sample. Further, peer victimization (especially relational victimization) correlated with speech intelligibility, pragmatic judgment, conversational behavior, and receptive vocabulary. These preliminary data suggest that having DS may put adolescents at risk for peer victimization, but having relatively good language/communication skills may be a protective factor. Further research is warranted on this topic.