Randall Waechter

St. George's University

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Christine Wekerle

McMaster University

Barbara Landon

Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation

Roberta Evans

Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation

Trevor Noël

Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation

Michelle Fernandes

John Radcliffe Hospital

Karen Blackmon

Aga Khan University Nairobi

Nikita Cudjoe

Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation

A. Desirée LaBeaud

Stanford University

C. N. L. Macpherson

St. George's University

Eman Leung

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Cooperative Institutions

St. George's University

Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation

McMaster University

Stanford University

University of Toronto

York University

University of Leicester

St. Matthew's University

Johns Hopkins University

Western University

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1 Psychometric Characteristics of the Grenada Learning and Memory Scale: An Innovative Tool for Preschool Memory Assessment in Resource-Limited Regions

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (2023)

Roberta Evans Lauren Mohammed Kemi S. Burgen Rashida Isaac Toni Murray

Objective: Neuropsychological assessment of preschool children is essential for early detection of delays and referral for intervention prior to school entry. This is especially relevant in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), which are disproportionately impacted by micronutrient deficiencies and teratogenic exposures. There are limited options for assessment of preschool learning and memory, developed and validated in resource-limited regions. The Grenada Learning and Memory Scale (GLAMS) was created for use in the Caribbean using an indigenous “ground-up” approach, with feedback from regional stakeholders at various stages of development. The GLAMS contains two subtests - a verbal list-learning task, which imagines a trip to the shop to buy culturally familiar items, and a face-name associative learning task using locally-drawn faces of Caribbean children. There are two versions: a 4-item version for 3-year-olds and a 6-item version for 4 and 5-year-olds. Here we present descriptive data and psychometric features for the GLAMS from an initial preschool sample. Participants and Methods: Participants were recruited from a social-emotional intervention study (SGU IRB#14099) in Grenada between 2019-2021. Children were between 36 and 72 months of age, primarily English-speaking, and had no known history of neurodevelopmental disorders. Trained Early Childhood Assessors administered the GLAMS and NEPSY-II in public preschools and homes across Grenada. Exploratory descriptive statistics characterized participant sociodemographics and test score distributions. Spearman correlations, MannWhitney U, and Kruskal-Wallis tests examined the impact of sociodemographics on test scores. Internal reliability was assessed with coefficient alpha. NEPSY-II subtests were used to assess convergent validity, with the prediction that the highest correlations would be observed for NEPSY-II Sentence Repetition. Test engagement (as reflected by “zero-learning”, “some learning”, and “positive learning curves”) was assessed across each age bracket (in 6-month increments). We assessed and summarized barriers to engagement qualitatively. Results: The sample consisted of 304 children (152 males,152 females). Participants were predominantly Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean. Parent education and household income (Mdn=$370-740 USD per month) were consistent with the general population. GLAMS internal consistency was reliable (a=0.713). There were age effects on list-learning (rs=0.51; p<0.001), list recall (rs=0.51; p<0.001), face-name learning (rs=0.30;p<0.001), and face-name recall (rs=0.25; p<0.001). There were gender effects on list-learning (p=0.02) and list recall (p=0.01) but not face-name learning or recall. All GLAMS subtests were correlated with NEPSY Sentence Repetition (rs=0.22-0.34; p<0.001). There was sufficient sampling of males and females across all 6 age brackets. As age increased, a higher proportion of children showed a positive learning curve (and fewer “zero-scores”) on verbal learning (X2 =30.88, p<0.001) and face-name learning (X2=22.19, p=0.014), demonstrating increased task engagement as children mature. There were various qualitative observations of why children showed “zero-scores”, ranging from environmental distractions to anxiety and inattention. Conclusions: As far as we know, the GLAMS is the first preschool measure of learning and memory developed indigenously from within the Caribbean. It shows reliable internal consistency, expected age and gender effects and convergent validity. These initial results are encouraging and support continued efforts to establish test-retest and inter-rater reliability. Plans include validation in clinical samples, scale-up to other Caribbean countries, and eventual adaptation across global LMICs.

10.1017/s1355617723003168

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PRM216 - AGREEMENT BETWEEN REVISED BRUNET-LÉZINE AND INTERGROWTH-21ST NEURODEVELOPMENTAL ASSESSMENTS

Value in Health (2018)

A Watts Randall Waechter G St. Cyr

Socioemotional selectivity theory

Agreement

10.1016/j.jval.2018.09.2334

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A Systematic Review of Severe Neurological Manifestations in Pediatric Patients with Coexisting SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Neurology International (2021)

Lauren O’Loughlin Nilo Álvarez-Toledo Leon Budrie Randall Waechter Joanna Rayner

SARS-CoV-2 infection in children produces mild respiratory symptoms or no symptoms at all in most cases. Some pediatric patients develop a severe complication associated with high mortality, the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). In both scenarios, there are reports of neurological manifestations. This article aims to review the cases of pediatric patients with severe neurological issues and a coexisting positive SARS-CoV-2 test. A literature search was performed between March 2020 and May 2021. The results included the data from 41 studies, with 159 children with severe neurological manifestations, within an age range from 24 h to 17 years. The neurological disorders included 38 cases with stroke, 32 with encephalitis, 22 with encephalopathy, and 10 with Guillain–Barre syndrome. Sixty-five out of 159 cases with severe neurological manifestations were diagnosed with MIS-C. Direct neuroinvasion and the exaggerated immune response in some patients seem to be the most critical factors triggering these manifestations. Further research in the ongoing pandemic is needed to elucidate the precise mechanism.

Stroke

Pandemic

10.3390/neurolint13030041

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Citations (40)

Mental Health, Substance Use, Dating Violence, and Risky Sexual Practices in Child Welfare Youth: Gender Specific Mediation Models

PsycEXTRA Dataset (2006)

Christine Wekerle Anne-Marie Wall Harriet L. MacMillan Nico Trocmé Michael H. Boyle

Dating violence

10.1037/e528622007-001

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Cannabis Use Among Aboriginal Youth in the Non-Aboriginal Child Protection Services System

First Peoples Child & Family Review An Interdisciplinary Journal Honouring the Voices Perspectives and Knowledges of First Peoples (2020)

Randall Waechter Eman Leung Christine Wekerle Marlyn Bennett

The social, cultural and political contexts of vulnerability need to be considered in defining, understanding, and reducing substance abuse among maltreated youth with an Aboriginal background (MacNeil, 2008; Tatz, 1999). Aboriginal cultures tend to incorporate an ideology of collectivism that manifests in shared childrearing responsibilities within aboriginal families and communities (e.g., Dilworth-Anderson & Marshall, 1996). As such, Aboriginal children may identify with multiple and equally important attachment figures, and be more accepting of multiple caring adult guardians who can direct them away from risky behaviour (Christensen & Manson, 2001). We examined the relationship between cannabis use and reported identification with a caseworker among youth-identified Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adolescents randomly drawn from the active caseload of a large urban non-Aboriginal Child Protection Services (CPS) system. While an Aboriginal-specific child welfare agency exists in this catchment area, youth need to be identified as Aboriginal to be involved in that system and some youth with Aboriginal heritage inevitably end up in non-Aboriginal CPS agencies. There were no significant differences in rates of maltreatment, trauma symptomatology, or overall cannabis use between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth in this study. However, Aboriginal youth who reported a more negative (i.e., low) identification with their caseworker were five times more likely to use cannabis in the past 12 months compared to Aboriginal youth who reported a more positive (i.e., medium-high) identification with their caseworker. These results suggest that having a moderate-to-high positive identification with caseworker may be a protective factor in regard to abstinence from cannabis use among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth in the non-Aboriginal CPS system.

Child Protection

Vulnerability

Identification

10.7202/1068900ar

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Citations (3)

Young Women's Transition From Child Welfare Services

PsycEXTRA Dataset (2009)

Maria M. N. Chen Christine Wekerle Bruce M. Leslie Eman Leung Randall Waechter

10.1037/e635252009-001

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Prevention of mental illness within public health: An analysis of progress via systematic literature review and a pathway forward

Preventive Medicine Reports (2023)

Randall Waechter Cassandra Gallant Kristen De Wilde Gabrielle Arens Taylor Brady

Primary prevention is the cornerstone of public health. Prevention is especially important for chronic diseases of significant burden such as mental illnesses because many of them have limited treatment options, an onset in childhood or in adolescence, and are linked to adverse childhood experiences requiring a focus on early childhood and maternal-child health (MCH). Despite this need, there appears to be a paucity of research into prevention of mental illnesses within public health. To confirm this, we performed a systematic literature review to quantify the proportion of articles in public health that focus on prevention of mental illness versus intervention for these illnesses after their onset, and the proportion of published articles within MCH that focus on mental health. Between November 2019 and August 2021, we reviewed 211,794 published articles from 147 Scimago-ranked English public health journals with no limit on year of publication. As hypothesized, a very small portion (2.2%) of mental health articles included primary prevention and a small portion of MCH articles (7.8%) included mental health. These results are consistent with the existence of a research gap in mental illness prevention within the public health field. Given the early onset of mental illness, the importance of early childhood experiences in the later development of mental illness, and the importance of the social-emotional connection between mother and child for building resilience, public health professionals must incorporate evidence from the field of MCH to develop and assess more primary prevention programs for mental illness.

10.1016/j.pmedr.2023.102249

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Citations (1)

Working Memory, Trauma Symptomatology, and Negative Behavioral Outcomes Among Maltreated Youth

PsycEXTRA Dataset (2010)

Randall Waechter Christine Wekerle

10.1037/e627002010-001

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Preliminary Evaluation of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire Short Form

Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2011)

Masako Tanaka Christine Wekerle Eman Leung Randall Waechter Andrea González

Despite advances in child maltreatment research, accurate measurement of exposure remains a key issue. In this study, we evaluated a short form (CEVQ-SF) of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire (CEVQ) in a sample of adolescents involved with child protection services in an urban city in Ontario, Canada. Focusing on the two most readily defined maltreatment types, physical and sexual abuse, we evaluated the short form’s comparability with the full version of the CEVQ. Both versions had good internal consistency and moderate-to-good 2-week test-retest reliability. The criterion validity of the two CEVQ versions in comparison with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was satisfactory. Construct validity for both versions was demonstrated: physically and sexually abused youth had higher odds of reporting clinical traumatic symptoms compared with either type alone. The CEVQ-SF is as reliable and valid as its full version. Implications for its use in large population-based surveys are discussed.

Comparability

10.1177/0886260511416462

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Citations (55)

The Relationship Between Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms and Substance Use Among Adolescents Involved with Child Welfare: Implications for Emerging Adulthood

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction (2011)

Abby L. Goldstein Christine Wekerle Lil Tonmyr Tiffany Thornton Randall Waechter

Health psychology

Longitudinal Study

10.1007/s11469-011-9331-8

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Citations (33)