Background: Anxiety is common among head and neck cancer (HNC) patients undergoing standard radiotherapy, with varying levels reported throughout treatment. While most studies suggest an overall...Show moreBackground: Anxiety is common among head and neck cancer (HNC) patients undergoing standard radiotherapy, with varying levels reported throughout treatment. While most studies suggest an overall decrease in anxiety during the treatment trajectory, some report no significant changes over time. Limited evidence exists regarding the role of social support and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in predicting anxiety. Aim: This study investigated levels of anxiety throughout radiotherapy, and whether pre-treatment levels of social support as well as PTSS predicted post-radiotherapy anxiety. Hypotheses: It was hypothesized that overall anxiety would decrease during radiotherapy, while also indicating individual differences. Additionally, pre-radiotherapy anxiety was expected to be negatively associated with social support and positively associated with PTSS symptoms. Finally, both pre-radiotherapy social support and PTSS were hypothesized to predict post-radiotherapy anxiety. Method: 16 HNC patients undergoing radiotherapy at a university hospital completed self-report questionnaires at pre-treatment, including the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Social Support Questionnaire-Interaction (SSL-I), and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5). The BAI was also administered multiple times during treatment. Results: Friedman’s test showed no significant changes in anxiety levels before, during, or after radiotherapy. No clinically significant individual differences in anxiety were observed between pre- and post-radiotherapy, but some were detected between pre-radiotherapy and day 10 (control). Spearman’s rank-order correlation revealed no significant associations between pre-radiotherapy anxiety and social support (ρ = -0.352, p = 0.239) or PTSS (ρ = 0.324, p = 0.279). The Generalized Linear Model indicated that neither social support (ß = -0.010, p = 0.943) nor PTSS (ß = -0.028, p = 0.720) predicted post-radiotherapy anxiety. Conclusion: No support was found for an overall decrease in anxiety levels throughout radiotherapy. Although the direction of the associations between anxiety and social support as well as anxiety and PTSS symptoms were supported, there was no support that social support, as well as PTSS symptoms predicted post-radiotherapy anxiety. Future research recommends a larger study sample and a questionnaire measuring situational anxiety multiple times throughout treatment. This could provide a deeper insight into anxiety during radiotherapy.Show less
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the interactive digital reading program ePrent&ABC on the development of vocabulary depth and phonological awareness during the early...Show moreThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the interactive digital reading program ePrent&ABC on the development of vocabulary depth and phonological awareness during the early literacy development period. The program ePrent&ABC combines digital living storybooks with theory-based instruction methods for learning new vocabulary to enhance the development of early literacy. A total of 90 Dutch kindergarten students aged between 53 and 70 months (M = 62,22 months, SD = 4,825) participated in this study. Over the course of five weeks, teachers read five different Dutch storybooks four times each during group reading. During each reading, new words and phonemes were taught to the kindergartners using different forms of consolidation, except for in the last condition (condition A) in which no new words were taught. During the other conditions (B: semantics; C: print knowledge; D: phonological awareness), eight new words per storybook were taught and measured the next week to investigate the growth in vocabulary depth and phonological awareness. Results show that the use of ePrent&ABC causes more growth in phonological awareness than regular storybooks. There is a significant result when comparing children with a high receptive vocabulary and children with a low receptive vocabulary (p<.001, ηp2= .205). Children with a high vocabulary have a statistically significant higher mean on phonological awareness than children with a low vocabulary. When looking at vocabulary depth, no statistically significant results were found. This result can be attributed to faults in the instructional methods and measuring materials of vocabulary depth. Even though ePrent&ABC has shown no effect on vocabulary depth, certain working aspects like phonological awareness instruction can be used to aid children with literacy difficulties during primary school years. Keywords: early literacy development, phonological awareness, vocabulary depth, digital storybooks, ePrent&ABC, vocabulary consolidationShow less
Former recent research has shown a worrying trend in current reading skills of Dutch youth, indicating that more young people are leaving school with low literacy. Differences in literary skills...Show moreFormer recent research has shown a worrying trend in current reading skills of Dutch youth, indicating that more young people are leaving school with low literacy. Differences in literary skills exist and increase at early ages. It is important to close the gap early so that every child gets an equal opportunity to develop their literary skills. This research evaluates the effectiveness of digital readingaloud programs aimed at developing early literary skills, such as broad and deep vocabulary which form the basis for later reading comprehension. The role of active attention is studied, as differences in active attention during the reading-aloud programs might cause differences in effectiveness of the program on developing reading skills. Different reading-aloud programs are used in pre-school classrooms (groups 1 and 2 in the Dutch education system) during several weeks. A total of 88 toddlers, of which 53 girls, have participated. Participants’ levels of broad and deep vocabulary are measured prior to following the programs and each time after following one of the programs. Active attention is measured using observations. Results indicated a strong effect for the development of broad vocabulary over the programs, where a program with instructions focused on semantics had the strongest effects. Students with higher degrees of active attention showed greater increases in broad vocabulary. Deep vocabulary develops to a lesser extent and additional instructions from the teacher did not show stronger effects. Toddlers with different degrees of active attention seemed to develop their deep vocabulary similarly. Active attention might play a smaller role in the development of broad and deep vocabulary than previously thought. Follow-up research should be aimed at the development of programs that are effective for every child, especially for those at risk of falling behind.Show less
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a syndrome characterized by a decline in various cognitive domains, including prospective episodic memory (PEM) and executive functions (EF). It has been...Show moreMild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a syndrome characterized by a decline in various cognitive domains, including prospective episodic memory (PEM) and executive functions (EF). It has been recognized recently that vascular risk factors (VRF), such as hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia, can also have detrimental effects on these cognitive domains. Less research has been conducted on the synergistic influence of MCI and VRF on cognition, with available studies providing mixed results. Moreover, only one study has been conducted on the topic regarding the Greek population, so more research is needed to account for possible differences in ethnicity-related variables. Therefore, we sought to investigate how MCI with comorbid VRF influence PEM and EF, compared to VRF alone and healthy ageing. A sample of 111 Greek older adults participated in the study, divided into three groups: patients with MCI and concomitant VRF, patients with VRF and healthy controls. To assess cognition, tests were used to measure PEM, interference control, flexibility and semantic and phonemic verbal fluency. Data were analysed using MANCOVA, controlling for the educational level of the participants. Results showed that there were no differences between the two pathological groups for any of the measures, but the healthy controls outperformed the MCI+VRF (adjusted mean difference of total score being 8.94, 95 % confidence interval (CI) [3.67, 14.20], p < .001) and the VRF group (adjusted mean difference of total score being 8.20, 95% CI [2.94, 13.46], p < .001) in the semantic fluency task. Indeed, literature has shown that both MCI and VRF affect the integrity of frontal networks, which mainly support EF function. Methodological differences, such as the older age of the sample and the simplicity of the PEM task, ethnic differences and limitations in the statistical analysis can possibly account for the discrepancies with previous studies. All in all, this study suggests that there are no differences in cognition between VRF and MCI+VRF patients, while emphasizing the need for and more research into the cognitive consequences of comorbid MCI and VRF both in the Greek population and internationally.Show less
Prosocial behavior can result in favorable developmental consequences in adolescence. Therefore, gaining insight into prosocial behavior is important, so we can assist adolescents. However,...Show moreProsocial behavior can result in favorable developmental consequences in adolescence. Therefore, gaining insight into prosocial behavior is important, so we can assist adolescents. However, previous studies on prosocial did not consider that prosocial behavior takes effort, such as holding the door open for another individual. Additionally, they did not explore whether cognitive and physical effort, and different effort levels, lead to variations in prosocial behavior among adolescents. Therefore, this study examined whether there are differences in cognitive and physical effort-based prosocial behavior in adolescents aged 9-12 across three different effort levels - low, medium, and high. In addition, age was taken into account as covariate. Effort levels referred to how much effort one had to exert in order to complete a specific task. 41 participants completed two experimental effort-based prosocial tasks. The cognitive task involved reversed digit spans, and the physical task was based on the Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task, where the participant was required to tap on a predetermined number of boxes. The research question was investigated using a two-way repeated measures ANCOVA. Furthermore, an exploratory analysis was done using a three-way repeated measures ANCOVA, to investigate if adding the recipient as a within-subject variable would impact the results of the repeated measure ANCOVA. The main analysis revealed no effect of effort level, effort type, or interaction between these two. Age was not influential in the analysis either. The absence of differences highlighted the potential generalizability of neural mechanisms, the possible role of empathy as a moderator, and considered cognitive and physical effort-based prosocial behavior as constructs that vary across situations. However, the not-significant outcome could also be explained by the not-significant main effect of the recipient, found in the exploratory analysis. This study represented a new area of research that explored the nuances of effort-related prosocial behavior in adolescents. From our findings, we speculated that both kinds of prosocial behavior are equally beneficial, and result in favorable developmental consequences. Future research should investigate whether the findings are generalizable for mid and late adolescents and other forms of prosocial behavior.Show less
Dynamic testing (DT) is a method of testing that includes the provision of a form of feedback and guidance to the testing procedure, and can be used to examine children’s potential for learning in...Show moreDynamic testing (DT) is a method of testing that includes the provision of a form of feedback and guidance to the testing procedure, and can be used to examine children’s potential for learning in various cognitive functions, including working memory (WM). Furthermore, intrinsic motivation (IM) seems to be related to enhanced WM performance and learning, especially in feedback-contexts. However, research on the effectiveness of DT of WM in this age group, as well as the influence of IM, is lacking. Therefore, the current thesis aimed to study the effectiveness of our DT of WM, as well as the influence of IM. The study had a pretest-training-posttest design with two groups. The experimental group received training, whereas control group did not. The sample included 100 typically developing primary school children between 8 and 9 years old (Mage = 8.46, SD = 0.50, 51% girls). Contrary to previous findings, our results showed a decrease from pretest to posttest in WM performance in the control group and a slight increase in performance in the experimental group. Moreover, the children’s IM did not significantly influence the WM improvements when tested dynamically. The findings suggest that the training element in our DT could have protected against the decrease in WM from pretest to posttest and that IM did not have a significant influence on these results. These findings contribute to the field of research by highlighting the importance of factors such as sustained attention and time-on-task effects in the prevention of this decline in WM performance during DT. Besides these factors, future research should look into the effects of age, cognitive load and engagement on the DT of WM and IM to gain a better understanding on how to improve its effectiveness, especially in 8- to 9-year-old children. Further exploration could aid educational professionals in implementing the dynamic approach and supporting children’s learning processes and cognitive development.Show less
Over the past forty years, there has been a significant increase in the number of referrals to gender identity clinics in the Netherlands. The children referred to these clinics experience distress...Show moreOver the past forty years, there has been a significant increase in the number of referrals to gender identity clinics in the Netherlands. The children referred to these clinics experience distress due to a discrepancy between their assigned gender at birth and their experienced gender. This study aims to gain insight into parents' attitudes and thoughts regarding gender-related topics and how they convey these gender-related messages to their children. The research question formulated for this study is: Is there a relationship between the attitudes parents convey regarding gender nonconforming and the gender identity of adolescents, and is this relationship influenced by the adolescents' self-confidence? To answer the research question, fathers, mothers, and their eldest child within Dutch families participated in the study (N = 100). The eldest children completed questionnaires to measure self-confidence and gender identity. Fathers and mothers completed a questionnaire to measure attitudes towards gender nonconforming. The results indicated that fathers scored higher on gender nonconforming statements than mothers, and there was a relationship between the attitudes conveyed by fathers regarding gender nonconforming and the gender identity of the eldest children. The study also found that the relationship between the attitudes conveyed by parents regarding gender nonconforming and the gender identity of the eldest children was not influenced by the self-confidence of the eldest children. Based on the results, it is important for parents, particularly fathers, to become aware of the gender-related messages they (consciously or unconsciously) transmit to their children. By supporting fathers in this aspect, mental health professionals can improve mental health outcomes within the entire family.Show less
