Including Youth with Intellectual Disabilities in Health Promotion Research: Development and Reliability of a Structured Interview to Assess the Correlates of Physical Activity among Youth.

BACKGROUND: The input of youth with intellectual disabilities in health promotion and health disparities research is essential for understanding their needs and preferences. Regular physical activity (PA) is vital for health and well-being, but levels are low in youth generally, including those with intellectual disabilities. Understanding the perceptions of and barriers to PA as reported by youth with intellectual disabilities themselves is important for designing effective interventions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed a structured interview that queried youth with intellectual disabilities and typically developing youth (ages 13-21 years) about their enjoyment, preferences and perceived barriers to PA. We describe the development of this interview and present its test-retest reliability on 15 youth with intellectual disabilities and 20 typically developing youth. RESULTS: Twenty-three of 33 questions were reliable in both groups. The results suggest that youth with intellectual disabilities can reliably report activities that they do or do not enjoy, as well as their beliefs and perceived benefits of PA. CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported information on the experiences, preferences, beliefs and perceptions about among youth with intellectual disabilities is key for research efforts in health promotion and health disparities.

Behavioral and neural evidence of increased attention to the bottom half of the face in deaf signers.

PURPOSE: This study examined the effects of deafness and sign language use on the distribution of attention across the top and bottom halves of faces. METHODS: In a composite face task, congenitally deaf signers and typically hearing controls made same/different judgments of the top or bottom halves of faces presented with the halves aligned or spatially misaligned, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. RESULTS: Both groups were more accurate when judging misaligned than aligned faces, which indicates holistic face processing. Misalignment affected all ERP components examined, with effects on the N170 resembling those of face inversion. Hearing adults were similarly accurate when judging the top and bottom halves of the faces, but deaf signers were more accurate when attending to the bottom than the top. Attending to the top elicited faster P1 and N170 latencies for both groups; within the deaf group, this effect was greatest for individuals who produced the highest accuracies when attending to the top. CONCLUSIONS: These findings dovetail with previous research by providing behavioral and neural evidence of increased attention to the bottom half of the face in deaf signers, and by documenting that these effects generalize to a speeded task, in the absence of gaze shifts, with neutral facial expressions.

Behavioral Health in Developmental Disabilities: A Comprehensive Program of Nutrition, Exercise, and Weight Reduction.

We review the literature on the prevalence and conditions resulting in overweight and obesity in people with intellectual disability (ID), followed by obesity treatment research with typically developing children and adaptations for children with ID. In addition to proposing directions for future research and practice, we report a comprehensive randomized control trial (RCT) of family-based behavioral intervention targeting weight loss among adolescents with Down syndrome.