Adults with Down syndrome are at high risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), with most individuals developing clinical dementia by their late 60s. This increased risk for AD has been attributed, at least in part, to triplication and overexpression of the gene for amyloid precursor protein (APP) on chromosome 21, leading to elevated levels of amyloid…

Sensory abnormalities in autism has been noted clinically, with pain insensitivity as a specified diagnostic criterion. However, there is limited research using psychophysically robust techniques. Thirteen adults with ASD and 13 matched controls completed an established quantitative sensory testing (QST) battery, supplemented with measures of pain…

Threshold analysis has recently been proposed to be used in combination with the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) in order to assess the sensitivity to plausible bias of treatment recommendations derived from Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA). Here, it was aimed to apply the combination of threshold…

Health-related decisions make use of numeracy skills, for example counting medication dosages, extracting health-related information from food packaging or understanding statistical data. Even though the concept of health literacy is often used to explain health disparities (Freedman et al., in American Journal of Preventive Medicine 36:446-451,…

This chapter explores the impact of Upskilling Pathways (UP), a developing European programme adopted by the European Council in 2016. UP targets all people over 25 who may be in employment, or unemployed, or economically inactive, but require uplifting in literacy, numeracy and digital skills. This is at a time when 73 million adults have low…

Background: Several statistical applications including Mplus, STATA, and R are available to conduct analyses such as structural equation modeling and multi-level modeling using large-scale assessment data that employ complex sampling and assessment designs and that provide associated information such as sampling weights, replicate weights, and…

Objectives: Routine cancer screening is widely recognized as an effective preventive strategy to reduce cancer mortality -- the second leading cause of death in the U.S. However, cancer screening requires a complex array of tasks such as seeking up-to-date guidelines, making appointments, planning hospital visits, and communicating with health…

When too much visual stimuli is present, the phenomenon of clutter is known to degrade an individual's perception across a variety of domains, ranging from completing search tasks incorrectly, to decreasing reading speed when letters are too close together. However, research is lacking as to whether the negative effects of clutter impact learning…

Research in the field of reading has demonstrated the benefits of reading, including increased vocabulary (Anderson et al., 1986; Day et al., 1991) and comprehension (Anderson et al., 1986; Duncan et al., 2016), improved academic skills (Chen et al., 2017; Whitten et al., 2016), enhanced relaxation and pleasure (Gerlich et al., 2012; Kaiser &…

Despite its status as a wealthy, developed nation, the United States is plagued by widespread deficiencies in adult literacy. The problem is quite severe among individuals who were born in country, yet the situation for the nation's immigrant population is nothing short of alarming. Using the U.S. portion of the data set for the international…

This report summarises the outcomes of the first (micro) phase of the thematic country reviews (TCRs) on upskilling pathways in France, which reflect the points of view of both the beneficiaries of the outreach and guidance schemes and services under investigation, and the professionals involved in their implementation. The TCR on upskilling…

There is an increasingly large disparity in college graduation rates among low-income and first-generation college students. Research suggests that the main reason for this discrepancy is the lack of access to information and knowledge about the college process. First-generation students have fewer people in their social network who went to…

School engagement in adolescence is often associated with better academic performance at school, but what are the longitudinal associations between school engagement and adult educational and employment status? The current study explored these longitudinal associations using data spanning 40-years of life, from the 1970 British Cohort Study.…

Common descriptions of articulatory requirements for production of the alveolar trill /r/ mainly focus on describing the configuration of the anterior portions of the tongue, while in contrast, the more posterior parts receive limited attention. Understanding how the posterior portions of the tongue move is vital for understanding speech motor…

Objective: Adjustment to retirement is heterogeneous in nature, and for some, but not all individuals, may require well-being support. However, limited information is available on the types of psychosocial interventions that can be effective during this time of transition with pre-retirees or retirees. This review identified psychosocial…