People believe that treatments for illnesses are effective when they target the cause of the illness. Prior work suggests that biological essentialist explanations of mental illness lead people to prefer medications or other pharmacological treatments. However, prior work has not distinguished between biological and essentialist explanations. In…

Background: The use of traditional/alternative medicine for health care in Africa has been examined for various conditions. However, there is limited research about traditional/alternative health care for intellectual disability. The present authors explored the explanatory models (EMs) of intellectual disability held by traditional/faith healers…

Psychiatric/neurodevelopmental diagnoses have expanded in number and scale with increased influence over matters of education and upbringing. One of the most common psychiatric diagnoses among children and adolescents is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The dominant perspective of ADHD is biomedical, where ADHD is defined as a…

Some children experience more difficulty than others becoming literate, often at great emotional, intellectual, social, and economic cost to themselves, but also to those who love and care for them, and for society at large. The causes of those difficulties and what to do about them have been the source of much research and sometimes heated…

EBP -- evidence-based policy and practice -- has generated intense controversy. A rough continuum of positions can be discerned: At one pole are "tough-minded" commentators distinguished by their support of EBP; however, there are serious internal differences in this camp, for some regard randomised field trials (RFTs) as the gold…

The Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (stuttering) reflects a marked impairment in speech fluency that is not attributable to stroke or another medical condition, and developmental or mental disorder (Birstein, 2015). This article examines Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering): An interruption in the flow of speaking. The focus is on the…

Mental health problems in early childhood (e.g., depression, anxiety) have a similar prevalence as for older individuals, with 10-15% of preschoolers meeting criteria for clinical diagnosis. Research has shown that intervention to support mental health in early childhood is important to mitigate later problems. However, early intervention is…

Children living in rural areas are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder later than their non-rural counterparts. In rural areas, caregivers have limited access to ASD information and services. Caregivers play a central role in early diagnosis and intervention, only when they have current knowledge about early ASD symptoms. The purpose of this…

Iron consumption among mothers has recently been found to decrease the risk of autism in offspring. However, epidemiological evidence of an increasing iron deficiency among mothers or infants is lacking, and evidence within an individual-level framework of iron deficiency confers doubt upon iron's role as a direct cause of autism. We attempt to…

Objective: This study aims to investigate the level of peripheral blood mononuclear cells and their ratios which may point to the immunological mechanisms involved in the etiopathogenesis of ASD. Method: The complete blood count parameters of the 45 ASD cases were compared with those of healthy controls.Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) was…

The Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (stuttering) reflects a marked impairment in speech fluency that is not attributable to stroke or another medical condition, and developmental or mental disorder (Birstein, 2015). This article examines Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering): An interruption in the flow of speaking. The focus is on the…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are common heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by disruptions in social interactions, communication, and limitations in behavior. Early diagnosis is an important step to prevent progression of ASD. Recent developments in genetic technology provide useful tools to investigate the molecular…

Language of risk and causation pervades modern media sources. In response, statistical literacy is often framed as a critical means of understanding such discourse. At Michigan State University, several faculties have worked to create a new mathematics course, entitled Quantitative Literacy, to fulfill the University's general education…

Research indicates that students with autism tend to show more levels of non-engagement compared to their peers with other types of disabilities, and teachers struggle to enhance their participation in mainstream classrooms. The aim of this paper was to understand how teachers arrive at their teaching decisions to promote the participation of…

Aim and Objectives: Although inclusive education of children with intellectual disability is currently an accepted practice, it is often challenged by negative attitude of schoolteachers. We undertook two surveillance studies aimed at Study A - identifying knowledge and teachers' attitudes towards children with intellectual disability and…