Associations of language-based bedtime routines with early cognitive skills and academic achievement: A follow-up from kindergarten to middle school.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the extent to which language-based bedtime routines (LBR) reported by parents before kindergarten were associated with early cognitive skills at kindergarten and subsequent academic achievement in typically developing children. METHOD: We followed a community-based sample of 664 French-speaking adolescents from kindergarten (5-6 years) to the end of middle school (15 years). Kindergarten measures included a parental questionnaire aimed at assessing the presence or absence of any kind of LBR, such as storytelling, looking at children's books, reading a story, listening to songs, or singing nursery rhymes, as well as family contextual characteristics. Children also performed standardized assessments of oral language, pre-reading skills, and non-verbal reasoning. In middle school, children sat a national diploma typically used as an indicator of general academic achievement in Grade 9. RESULTS: After adjusting for family characteristics, the presence of language-based bedtime routines (57%) predicted cognitive-academic skills in kindergarten, and was positively associated with academic achievement at Grade 9, related to the beneficial effect on children's vocabulary in kindergarten. CONCLUSION: The presence of language-based bedtime routines may provide an indicator of positive parental behaviour including exposure to literacy activities, contributing to children's early cognitive development and subsequent academic achievement.

Maternal stress and pediatric brain cancer: A French study.

BACKGROUND: Despite evidence that pediatric cancer induces a trajectory of parental stress, studies including mothers of children with malignant brain tumors remain scarce. The present work aims to add to the scientific literature by evaluating maternal stress with a French translation of the Pediatric Inventory for Parents (PIP) in a population of mothers whose children have been diagnosed with a brain tumor. PROCEDURE: The mothers of 35 children with malignant brain tumors completed the Pediatric Inventory for Parents (PIP), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Family Assessment Device (FAD) at a mean time since diagnosis of 2.3 years. RESULTS: The PIP showed good internal consistency and correlated significantly with the STAI and the FAD. Maternal stress scores were higher in younger mothers and in mothers of younger children. Emotional functioning was the most affected domain. CONCLUSIONS: Emotional stress as assessed by the PIP in mothers of children with malignant brain tumors is considerable, and should be routinely assessed, in order to implement appropriate specific psychosocial interventions when needed.

Parental stress and paediatric acquired brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: Studies on parental stress following childhood acquired brain injury (ABI-including brain tumours (BT) and other brain injuries) are scarce. The aim of this study was to assess maternal stress in a sample of children and adolescents diagnosed with severe paediatric ABI. METHODS: Seventy-eight French-speaking mothers of 37 with BT and 41 with other ABIs completed the Paediatric Inventory for Parents (PIP), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Family Assessment Device (FAD) at a mean time since diagnosis of 1.5 years. RESULTS: The PIP correlated significantly with the STAI and the FAD. Socio-demographic factors, such as the age of mother and child, and the mother's educational level, were correlated with both maternal stress and anxiety. Maternal stress scores were comparable between groups. Emotional functioning was the most markedly affected domain, followed by parental role. CONCLUSIONS: Emotional stress as assessed by the PIP in mothers of children with ABI is significant and should motivate specific psychosocial interventions.

Time knowledge difficulties following treatment for malignant cerebellar tumors.

In children treated for malignant cerebellar tumors, there are only a few studies investigating temporal skills, despite the role of the cerebellum in time processing being generally acknowledged. Children's time knowledge has been defined as the correct representation and use of familiar time units. The present study compares time knowledge in 38 children treated for malignant cerebellar tumors (mean age 11.6 years) with 105 typically-developing (TD) children. The performances on all time knowledge subtests were significantly lower in the tumor group. The results also confirm a lower mean IQ in the children treated for cerebellar tumors, related to slower processing speed and poorer performance on working memory and non-verbal tasks. However, the lower IQ does not explain the considerable difficulties in the acquisition of time knowledge. These results are discussed in the light of the role of the cerebellum in time processing and in the context of two different models of temporal processing: the internal clock model and the neural network state model.

[Measures of parental stress in cases of pediatric cancer]. / Évaluation du stress parental en cas de cancer de l'enfant.

This paper aims firstly to introduce a definition of parental stress (PS) and to detail the criteria of PS in case of pediatric cancers. Several reports have shown that pediatric cancers lead to posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) for all parents and induce stress trajectories throughout diagnosis, treatment and recovery or relapse. Secondly, several predictors of SP are presented, such as parent's perceptions of children's medical treatment, psychological characteristics (e.g. anxiety) and sociodemographic factors. Lastly, several measures of PS are reviewed, which underline the existence of specific tools aimed at evaluating PS in pediatric cancers; however, the availability of a French version of these tools remains scarce. This review advocates systematic measures of PS in order to provide better care for children with cancer through the improvement of their family's feelings about the injury.

Time knowledge acquisition in children aged 6 to 11 years and its relationship with numerical skills.

Acquisition of time knowledge (TK; the correct representation and use of time units) is linked to the development of numerical abilities, but this relationship has not been investigated in children. The current study examined the acquisition of TK and its association with numerical skills. A total of 105 children aged 6 to 11 years were interviewed with our Time Knowledge Questionnaire (TKQ), developed for purposes of this study, and the Zareki-R, a battery for the evaluation of number processing and mental calculation. The TKQ assessed conventional time knowledge (temporal orientation, temporal sequences, relationships between time units, and telling the time on a clock), estimation of longer durations related to birthday and life span, and estimation of the duration of the interview. Time knowledge increased with age, especially from 6 to 8 years, and was strongly linked to numerical skills. Regression analyses showed that four numerical components were implicated in TK: academic knowledge of numbers and number facts (e.g., reading Arabic numerals, mental calculation), number line estimation (e.g., correspondence between a number and a distance), contextual estimation (e.g., many/few leaves on a tree, children in a family), and numerical tasks involving verbal working memory (e.g., comparison of numbers presented orally). Numerical correlations with TK varied according to children's age; subtests based on academic knowledge of numbers, working memory, and number line estimation were linked with TK in the younger children, but only contextual estimation was associated with TK in the older children.

Conceptions of time in children treated for malignant cerebellar tumours.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: Conceptions of time in children having survived malignant cerebellar tumours (CT) and healthy children matched for chronological age (HCCA) were compared, knowing that the cerebellum has been involved in time perception. METHODS AND PROCEDURE: Study participants included 20 children with CT (13 boys) and 20 HCCA (10 boys) aged 6-12 years. All children with CT were at least 1 year after the end of treatment without relapse. A time questionnaire (TQ) exploring duration of daily activities, time units, planning and diachronic thinking was used, as well as a video animation (VA) displaying cyclic and linear time. MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Children with CT obtained similar results as HCCA for time units, planning and diachronic thinking, but showed more difficulties than controls in estimating the duration of daily activities and understanding linear and cyclic time concepts (VA). CONCLUSIONS: These findings are not in favour of impaired time conceptions in children with CT and are probably linked to the specific life experience among children treated for a malignant pathology, rather than to the role of the cerebellum in time processing.