Clinical Research Directory

Y of Central Maryland Head Start Asthma Implementation

Despite a strong evidence-base for the efficacy of multilevel programs in reducing asthma symptoms among low-income preschool minority children, gaps remain in our understanding of how to best translate and scale up these efficacious interventions into sustainable programs that reduce known asthma health disparities. Head Start (HS) serves over one million low income children in the US each year by focusing on early learning, physical health, and family engagement. HS is committed to implementing evidence based programs to promote overall child well-being, and is focused on addressing asthma symptoms due to the deleterious impact on school absences and child development. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of a multi-level staff and family education program (ABC Asthma) that significantly reduced asthma symptoms and courses of oral corticosteroids. However, these interventions are not successfully integrated within community organizations for long-term sustainability. It is unknown how to best scale up and implement these evidence based asthma interventions into low resource community organizations that serve children at risk. Implementation strategies are frequently developed atheoretically and may not be tailored to the setting. The overall purpose of this project is to inform best practices of implementation of an asthma education program by 1) systematically evaluating the use of intervention mapping to develop a tailored implementation strategy in partnership with Head Start stakeholders, 2) examining both staff and organizational level determinants associated with implementation of ABC Asthma, and 3) evaluating the success of tailored implementation strategies on implementation outcomes and school absences and other health outcomes. The YMCA of Central Maryland have enthusiastically agreed to implement the Maryland ABC HS Asthma within 40 sites in four communities: Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, and Prince George's County.

Feasibility Study of Home Cardiac Rehabilitation Program for Postoperative Children With Congenital Heart Disease

This single-arm feasibility study will pilot a home-based cardiac rehabilitation program for preschool children (aged 3 to 7 years) who have undergone corrective surgery for congenital heart disease. Following the development of the program through expert consensus, this phase will implement the preliminary version of the program in a selected sample of caregiver-child pairs over a 12-week period. The study will assess feasibility by evaluating caregiver adherence to the intervention, acceptability of the program components, and completeness of rehabilitation task records. Descriptive data on safety, participation rate, and delivery logistics will also be collected. Findings will inform refinement of the program prior to future effectiveness testing.

Effects of VMI on Visual Perception, Spatial Awareness and Motor Skills in Preschool Children

The preschool stage is an important period for children to develop their motor, language, cognitive, and social-emotional skills. pre-school years are the best time to intervene and correct developmental delays. VMI is linked to learning-related tasks like writing, measuring it in youngsters is essential. Earlier studies reported that children with deficits in VMI had lower academic achievements, the inadequate spatial organization of written work, and lower performance in mathematics and reading performance. The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Sixth Edition (Beery VMI-6), determined participants' VMI, VP and motor skills during the pre- and post-tests. Exposure to VMI tasks including, visual perception, spatial awareness and motor skills can be enhanced. VP is assessed by Visual Perception Task (VP Task) and Motor Coordination Task (MC Task) and spatial awareness is assessed by BAS 3.The aim of study is to analyze effects of VMI on visual perception, spatial awareness and motor skills in preschool children. The current study will be randomized control trial; data will be collected from The Leaders Lyseum School Lahore. The study will include 60 children equally divided into two groups and randomly allocated. Inclusion criteria for the study will be Children age 4 to 6 years old and all will be right-handed dominant with no history of visual or neurological abnormalities and exclusion criteria will be Children who presented a disability indicating a central nervous system dysfunction children age below 4 Years and above 6 years. One experimental group will perform Visual Motor Tasks, the other controlled group will perform routine class tasks. Pre and post assessment will be done. Outcomes to be analyzed will be enhancement in visual perception, spatial awareness and motor skills in preschool children by after performing VMI tasks. Data collection will be done before and after the intervention. Tools used for data collection will be. Data will be analyzed through SPSS version 23.00.

Combined Movement and Storytelling Intervention on Physical Performance in Children

This study protocol aims to analyze and compare the effects of combined movement and storytelling intervention (CMSI) on fundamental motor skills (locomotor skills and object control), language development (language comprehension, language expression, vocabulary and language description), and physical activity levels (light, moderate to vigorous intensity, and sedentary time) in children aged 3 to 6 years. The sample will consist of 144 children of 12 classes group, randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups (n= 72 children) and 3 control groups (n= 72 children), belonging to 4 classes group of upper middle level classes (2 experimental and 2 control), 4 transition level 1 classes (2 experimental and 2 control) and 4 transition level 2 classes (2 experimental and 2 control). The experimental groups will perform the CMSI for 3 sessions (40-minute per session) per week over 12-weeks (using one motor story per week), while the control groups will not receive any treatment. The main outcome will provide information about fundamental motor skills, language development, and physical activity levels. It is hypothesized that the CMSI has the potential to generate significant increases in selected assessments. If this intervention proves to be beneficial, if could contribute to preschoolers children curricula.