Comprehensive Infant Clinic for Sickle Cell Disease: Outcomes and Parental Perspective.

INTRODUCTION: Comprehensive care for children with sickle cell disease (SCD) includes penicillin prophylaxis, pneumococcal immunization, hydroxyurea therapy, and transcranial Doppler screening for stroke prevention. Along with caregiver education, these strategies have been shown to be effective in reducing early morbidity and mortality in this population. The subspecialty Infant Sickle Cell Clinic was initiated to improve access, education, patient outcomes, and family satisfaction. METHOD: Telephone surveys were conducted with parents to assess satisfaction with the Infant Sickle Cell Clinic, compliance with guidelines, and comfort level with managing their child's SCD. RESULTS: This quality improvement project reported high levels of parent satisfaction and improved outcomes with the proposed approach but also presents areas for improvement. DISCUSSION: Our report presents a unique model of providing care to families with infants newly diagnosed with SCD. The group format serves as a useful model to allow families an interactive educational session with guest speakers.

Female incarcerated adolescents with language problems talk about their own communication behaviors and learning.

UNLABELLED: Qualitative methodology was used to explore communication behaviors of 13 female adolescents with language problems who resided in a correctional facility. Girls between ages of 13 and 17 were interviewed on four questions about their communication behaviors and school learning experiences. Data were analyzed from three triangulated sources that included interviews, a review of school records, and test results from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-3, the Adolescent WORD Test (WORD Test), the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL), and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III). Themes emerging from the interviews were: (a) how teenagers communicate with friends, parents, and authority; (b) participants' views about themselves; and (c) how they describe their learning in school. Many spoke about their feelings and interactions as well as their struggles with listening, thinking, speaking, and reading. Implications raise concerns of whether the current educational system is adequately considering how language deficits and disorders impact this troubled population. LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) Readers will understand how female adolescents with language problems who resided in a correctional facility view their communication with friends and authority figures such as parents, teachers, and correctional educators. (2) Readers will understand the views of adolescents about their learning experiences at school prior to when they were committed to a correctional facility. (3) Readers will understand examples of language behaviors that may have related to why some of the participants struggled with learning in school.

Service delivery framework for adolescents with communication problems who are involved in violence.

UNLABELLED: The purpose of this article is to provide speech-language pathologists (SLPs) with a framework to address the communication problems of adolescents involved in violence. Although it is not considered to be a comprehensive framework for planning intervention programs, it will provide suggestions to assist SLPs to conceptualize their role in addressing the communication needs of these individuals. Recommendations acquired through observations, interviews, and empirical data will form the basis for suggestions. Youth in correctional facilities come from schools and return to schools following their commitment, therefore, research from incarcerated adolescents serves as an appropriate foundation to form the basis for intervention recommendations. Hence, suggestions will apply to SLPs working in correctional facilities and school settings. Intervention programs containing socially and academically relevant activities that focus on assessment, general intervention principles, conversational interaction skills, and multidisciplinary interventions are included in the article. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Readers will understand (1) a framework to address the communication problems of adolescents involved in violence and (2) how research findings support the role of SLPs in addressing the needs of adolescents involved in violence.