Parent coaching to enhance community participation in young children with developmental disabilities: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Parent coaching emerges as a preferred approach for enhancing performance and participation of children with developmental disabilities (DD), but limited clinical trials examine its effects on community participation. AIM: To evaluate whether parent coaching, specifically using Occupational Performance Coaching (OPC), enhances community participation among young children with DD. METHOD AND PROCEDURES: A pilot double-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted. Parents of 50 children with DD (31 male, 19 female, mean age 4 years 10 months) were randomly assigned to the OPC group (n = 25) or parent consultation group (n = 25). Each parent received a maximum of eight coaching sessions or consultations. The primary outcome was children's community participation as assessed through parent-report measures at baseline, pre-intervention, post-intervention, and an 8-week follow-up. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Both groups showed significant improvements in parent-identified, goal-specific community participation after the intervention (mean difference [MD]=2.26-2.56), and these improvements were sustained during the follow-up. Despite a trend favoring parent coaching, the group difference in the improvements was not evident (MD=0.18-0.28). Both groups displayed positive improvements in children's overall community involvement post-intervention (MD=0.32); however, the time effects were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: OPC, by coaching parents, could enhance goal-specific community participation in children with DD, producing effects similar to those achieved through parent consultation.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials for evaluating the effectiveness of virtual reality therapy for social anxiety disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of VR therapy (VRT) for symptoms related to social anxiety disorder (SAD), namely fear and avoidance of social interactions and performance situations (FASIP), fear of negative evaluation (FNE), anxiety and depression, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed. METHODS: Medline, PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsychINFO and Scopus were searched to include randomised controlled trials of VRT for SAD that met the criteria. A total of 15 RCTs with 720 participants published between 1998 and 2022 were included. Hedge's g with a 95 % confidence interval (CI) was adopted to compute the effect sizes. RESULTS: Results showed no difference between the effect of VRT and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on FASIP, FNE, anxiety and depression and a large effect size for VRT versus the waitlist control group on FASIP (g = -1.170, 95 % CI: -2.056-0.283; p < 0.010). The moderator analysis demonstrated that VRT was superior to the controlled group in addressing FASIP, FNE and anxiety when the sample size was smaller than 50 and the number of sessions was five or fewer. LIMITATIONS: Differences in hardware, software and intervention duration for VRT across studies. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed the feasibility of VRT in alleviating the FASIP in patients with SAD, with the waitlist control group as a comparison. However, the effectiveness of VRT was not significant in FASIP, FNE, anxiety and depression compared to CBT. Additional social interaction scenarios should be developed in VRT, standardised hardware should be used and the proper length of exposure time to VR should be determined to enhance the efficacy of VRT.

EEG-based vibrotactile evoked brain-computer interfaces system: A systematic review.

Recently, a novel electroencephalogram-based brain-computer interface (EVE-BCI) using the vibrotactile stimulus shows great potential for an alternative to other typical motor imagery and visual-based ones. (i) Objective: in this review, crucial aspects of EVE-BCI are extracted from the literature to summarize its key factors, investigate the synthetic evidence of feasibility, and generate recommendations for further studies. (ii) Method: five major databases were searched for relevant publications. Multiple key concepts of EVE-BCI, including data collection, stimulation paradigm, vibrotactile control, EEG signal processing, and reported performance, were derived from each eligible article. We then analyzed these concepts to reach our objective. (iii) Results: (a) seventy-nine studies are eligible for inclusion; (b) EEG data are mostly collected among healthy people with an embodiment of EEG cap in EVE-BCI development; (c) P300 and Steady-State Somatosensory Evoked Potential are the two most popular paradigms; (d) only locations of vibration are heavily explored by previous researchers, while other vibrating factors draw little interest. (e) temporal features of EEG signal are usually extracted and used as the input to linear predictive models for EVE-BCI setup; (f) subject-dependent and offline evaluations remain popular assessments of EVE-BCI performance; (g) accuracies of EVE-BCI are significantly higher than chance levels among different populations. (iv) Significance: we summarize trends and gaps in the current EVE-BCI by identifying influential factors. A comprehensive overview of EVE-BCI can be quickly gained by reading this review. We also provide recommendations for the EVE-BCI design and formulate a checklist for a clear presentation of the research work. They are useful references for researchers to develop a more sophisticated and practical EVE-BCI in future studies.

Information Communication Technology as Instrumental Activities of Daily Living for Aging-in-Place in Chinese Older Adults With and Without Cognitive Impairment: The Validation Study of Advanced Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale.

Background: The capability in applying information communication technology (ICT) is crucial to the functional independence of older peoples of community living nowadays. The proper assessment of individuals' capability of ICT application is the corner stone for the future development of telemedicine in our aging population. Methods: With the recruitment of 300 participants of different functional and social background in home-living, hostel-living, and care-and-attention home living; and through assessing the ability of individuals in instrumental activities of daily living and cognitive assessments, this study aimed at capturing the content validity and construct validity of the Advanced Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (AIADL scale). In addition, this study assess the ability of older peoples in applying ICT and how the functional and social background affects their independence in aging-in-place. Results: The AIADL scale showed good test-retest reliability and good-to-excellent internal consistency. To determine if items of the AIADL scale measure various aspects of community living, exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure with "home living and management" and "community living". Validity analysis with the known-groups method showed a high overall accuracy of prediction of individuals' capability of independent living in the community. Conclusions: The AIADL scale is a valid and reliable instrument to assess the ability of older adults in handling ICT as part of their instrumental activities in daily living. The scale can reflect capability of older peoples in applying ICT. This instrument can serve as a reference in measuring readiness of individuals in receiving telemedicine and their ability of aging-in-place.