Cybercycling Effects on Classroom Behavior in Children With Behavioral Health Disorders: An RCTApril Bowling, James Slavet, Daniel P. Miller, Sebastien Haneuse, William Beardslee, Kirsten Davison
Download PDFAbstractBACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Exercise is linked with improved cognition and behavior in children in clinical and experimental settings. This translational study examined if an aerobic cybercycling intervention integrated into physical education (PE) resulted in improvements in behavioral self-regulation and classroom functioning among children with mental health disabilities attending a therapeutic day school. METHODS: Using a 14-week crossover design, students (N = 103) were randomly assigned by classroom (k = 14) to receive the 7-week aerobic cybercycling PE curriculum during fall 2014 or spring 2015. During the intervention, children used the bikes 2 times per week during 30- to 40-minute PE classes. During the control period, children participated in standard nonaerobic PE. Mixed effects logistic regression was used to assess relationships between intervention exposures and clinical thresholds of behavioral outcomes, accounting for both individual and classroom random effects. RESULTS: Children experienced 32% to 51% lower odds of poor self-regulation and learning-inhibiting disciplinary time out of class when participating in the intervention; this result is both clinically and statistically significant. Effects were appreciably more pronounced on days that children participated in the aerobic exercise, but carryover effects were also observed. CONCLUSIONS: Aerobic cybercycling PE shows promise for improving self-regulation and classroom functioning among children with complex behavioral health disorders. This school-based exercise intervention may significantly improve child behavioral health without increasing parental burden or health care costs, or disrupting academic schedules.
What This Study Adds:Using a randomized controlled crossover design, we investigated whether an aerobic cybercycling physical education curriculum could successfully engage and improve behavioral regulation and classroom functioning among children and adolescents with complex BHD. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 13% to 20% of children living in the United States experience behavioral health disorders (BHD) in a given year; such disorders are among the most costly conditions to treat in children.1 Those experiencing BHD have other chronic health conditions (eg, asthma, diabetes) more often than children without BHD.1,2 Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that children with BHD are less likely to engage in aerobic exercise/physical activity than their typically developing peers.3,4 This can occur for many reasons, including exclusion from sports due to behavioral problems, comorbid sensory issues, delayed motor skills, and anxiety.4,5 Low engagement in aerobic activity is linked with lower fitness, which may then additionally discourage exercise participation.3 Low engagement in exercise is particularly troubling given these children’s increased risk for chronic diseases and evidence that exercise may have cognitive, behavioral, and emotional benefits. Relatively short bouts of exercise have been shown to improve impulsivity and mood state among typically developing children and those with a single BHD, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, or depression.6–8 Exercise intensity has also been linked to cognitive effects in children; 1 study found that vigorous intensity exercise resulted in better executive function outcomes than moderate/light intensity exercise.9 These findings emphasize the importance of finding aerobic exercise modalities that overcome the engagement challenges facing this population of children with BHD. However, this research has not been translated into special education settings or extended to examine effects in children with heterogeneous BHD. Thus, in this study, we examine if a cybercycling physical education (PE) intervention, which successfully engages children with BHD in aerobic exercise,10 is linked to improvements in behavioral self-regulation and classroom functioning relative to standard nonaerobic PE. MethodsSetting and ParticipantsThe study was conducted at a therapeutic day school affiliated with Harvard Medical School. The school enrolls ∼110 children each year in kindergarten through 10th grade with diagnosed BHD, many of whom have learning disabilities, but does not serve children with intellectual disabilities. Students are predominantly boys and have multiple diagnoses; in an average school year, ∼40% of enrolled students are diagnosed with autism, 60% with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, 40% with an anxiety disorder, and 30% with a mood disorder. There are 14 classrooms, each with a head teacher, an assistant teacher, and a classroom counselor. Students are engaged with a variety of in-school service providers including psychologists, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists. Intervention DesignA 14-week crossover design was used. Children were randomly assigned by classroom to receive the 7-week intervention during the fall or spring, with a 10-week washout period between treatment arms. A simple random number generator was used to assign 7 classes to the fall treatment; the remainder served as the fall control group and received treatment in the spring. Detailed information on the intervention and its development is published elsewhere.11 The intervention, known as “Manville Moves,” featured a progressive and aerobically challenging PE curriculum using virtual-reality exergaming stationary bicycles (cybercycles). The curriculum overview is shown in Supplemental Fig 3. Existing PE efforts at the school were not successful at engaging the majority of children in extended bouts of aerobic exercise. Therefore, the exercise modality was selected to optimally engage children with complex BHD who, again, often face exercise engagement challenges, such as sensory processing disorders, low fitness levels, socialization challenges, and motor delays; the curriculum was designed to gradually accustom participants to riding for extended durations and higher intensities. During the intervention, children used the bikes 2 times per week during 30- to 40-minute PE classes, starting at 10 minutes riding duration and building to >20 minutes over the 7-week period. During the control period, children continued to participate in standard PE programming (2 times per week × 30–40 mins). Standard PE is focused on games to build socialization and team skills as well as motor skill acquisition through activities, such as basketball shooting; thus, there are only short bouts of aerobic exercise and many students struggle to remain engaged even with extensive staff attention. The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Institutional Review Board. The intervention was codesigned by school personnel and the research team and implemented during the 2014–2015 academic year. The school elected to integrate the intervention into school programming; thus, an opt-out consent process was used. Demographic/baseline data were obtained by using an online caregiver survey after an active consent process. ObjectivesThe study’s first research aim was to determine if students had improved classroom functioning demonstrated through reduced disciplinary time out of class (TOC), as well as improved self-regulation scores when participating in the intervention PE curriculum compared with standard nonaerobic PE. Thus, the first aim was to assess the combined acute and chronic effects of exercise, along with programmatic effects of the intervention, over the duration of the 7-week intervention compared with the 7-week control condition. The second research aim was to specifically assess the acute effects of exercise by examining behavioral changes only on days that children participated in the aerobic cybercycling PE intervention compared with the control condition. Exposure and OutcomesExercise exposure was measured using the data captured by the bicycles via student-specific login codes. Data compiled for each riding bout included timestamp, average heart rate, and minutes of riding. Student refusals to ride, as well as any occurrences of mechanical or electrical failure, were documented on paper. It was not feasible to collect objective exercise data for the control condition because children would not tolerate wearing heart rate monitors or accelerometers. However, the standard PE curriculum did not include programming targeting aerobic exercise while children were in the control condition. Additional information on fidelity of implementation and student engagement is described elsewhere.10 Behavioral self-regulation was operationalized by using the Conners’ Abbreviated Teacher Rating Scale (CATRS-10), a validated screening instrument for behavioral problems related to inattention, impulsivity/hyperactivity, and emotional lability.12,13 Classroom counselors completed the CATRS-10 at the end of each school day for each student. The instrument consists of 10 statements regarding the child’s behavior rated on a 4-point Likert scale, with a total score ranging from 0 to 30.13 A score of ≥15 has been the standard for screening children with symptomatology at a level of clinical concern.14–16 Equivalent screening thresholds were used for the emotional lability subscale (4 questions, ≥6 out of a possible 12) and impulsivity subscale (6 questions, ≥9 out of a possible 18). Because the classroom counselors accompanied students to PE, it was not possible to blind them to the participants’ treatment group assignment. However, the counselors were not explicitly informed of the study objectives and received no incentives dependent on the participants’ treatment group assignment. They were also prevented from viewing previous recordings of CATRS-10 to help prevent manipulations of variability based on previous measurements. The study coordinator for the school reviewed counselor reporting records on a weekly basis to ensure compliance. A research assistant was also assigned to check CATRS-10 scores for variability on a bi-weekly basis; no statistically significantly decrease in reporting variability was observed during the course of the study. In addition, no differences in reporting patterns were observed on days when floating counselors filled in for classroom counselors who were absent. Of note, the floating counselors did not attend PE sessions with the class and therefore were not aware of their treatment status. Classroom functioning was operationalized based on TOC. When teachers determined a child must leave class due to unacceptable behavior, counselors recorded the event using the mobile survey platform to enter the student identification code and number of minutes for each TOC event as it occurred. This measure yielded minutes of TOC per day and number of TOC events per day for each student. Teachers followed a school-wide policy when determining whether a child receives TOC and, unlike counselors, were blinded to treatment status. Because recording TOC has been a longstanding procedure, and any TOC must be reported to parents, we feel that this measure is less vulnerable to subjective interpretation or bias if the treatment status was learned by teachers. School clinicians established a priori thresholds for clinically relevant TOC per day that constituted either a disruption to a student’s ability to learn classroom material (defined as ≥1 events per day regardless of cumulative time or ≥10 minutes per day regardless of total number of events), or prevented meaningful learning for that day (defined as ≥5 events per day or ≥90 minutes per day). Sample Size and Analytical PlanBecause exposures and outcomes were measured each day, the relevant unit of analysis for the study is a child-day. A logistic-normal mixed effects regression model17 was used to assess relationships between intervention exposures and clinical thresholds of behavioral outcomes accounting for both individual and classroom random effects. Outcome variables were dichotomous indicators of whether a child exceeded clinical or screening thresholds for either classroom functioning, measured by TOC, or self-regulation by using the CATRS-10. The maximum possible sample size was 109 based on school enrollment, and a priori power calculations indicated that a sample of at least 75 students would provide power >90% to detect the small to moderate effect sizein executive functioning evident in the literature.6,18,19 Given nearly universal participation, daily outcome measurements, crossover design, and minimal attrition, the sample size was more than adequate. The number of child-days varied by outcome and are described in the results section. The primary models tested aim 1 (ie, the overall treatment effect of the intervention) for each outcome measure. Treatment status and treatment order were included in each model as independent variables to evaluate overall treatment effects while accounting for potential seasonality/contamination effects. The secondary models assessing aim 2 (ie, the acute exercise effects of the intervention) additionally included terms indicating whether a child participated in the cybercycling PE class intervention on that day. Finally, the models were also run introducing a dichotomous variable representing whether the students used the bikes in the virtual course mode or the video gaming mode to test for potential exergaming effects. All statistical analyses were conducted in Stata version 13.1 (Stata Corp, College Station, TX), by using a two-tailed significance level of P = .05. ResultsDemographic CharacteristicsFigure 1 shows the CONSORT enrollment, randomization, and attrition flow diagram. The final enrollment was N = 103 students; the fall intervention arm included n = 51 students in 7 randomly assigned classrooms, and the spring intervention arm included n = 52 students in the remaining 7 classrooms. Baseline demographic data are contained in Table 1. Participants were 83.5% boys, and ages ranged from 7 to 16 years with a mean of 11.8 years. No adverse events occurred during the intervention. FIGURE 1Enrollment, randomization, and attrition flow diagram (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials). Lower, elementary school classroom; Middle, middle school classroom; Upper, high school classroom. TABLE 1Baseline Participant Characteristics Documentation of the Exposure and Outcome VariablesThere were 913 cybercycling PE days; average cycling duration in class was 16.1 (±5.3) minutes, while average heart rate was 146.6 (±25.3) beats per minute. This indicates that students achieved sustained aerobic exercise20 during cybercycling PE classes on average. For the classroom functioning outcome of TOC, there were 6419 observations recorded over both intervention periods (fall, n = 3318, mean minutes per day, = 17.44 ± 50.11; spring, n = 3101, = 17.48 ± 54.18), of which there were 2122 instances of students having ≥1 removals from class in a day (fall, n = 1205; spring, n = 917). There were 5252 observations of CATRS-10 scores recorded (fall, n = 2378, mean score, = 9.03 ± 7.02; spring, n = 2874, = 8.50 ± 6.52); of those, 955 exceeded the clinical screening threshold for disruptive behavior (fall, n = 475; spring, n = 480). Treatment order was not found to be significant in any of the models. Individual and classroom random effects are controlled for in all analyses; children serve as their own controls and group level differences in outcome variables between fall and spring do not affect the validity of analyses. Compared with days in the control condition, percentages of children exceeding screening thresholds for overall CATRS-10 score and both impulsivity and emotional lability subscores declined on days in the intervention condition and were lowest on days when the children participated in cybercycling PE class (Fig 2). Post-hoc tests found no evidence of time-of-day effects for morning versus afternoon PE classes. FIGURE 2Percentage of participants exceeding CATRS-10 screening thresholds as a function of study condition. Models Testing Overall Intervention Effect (Aim 1)Results (Table 2, Model 1) show clinically significant intervention effects. While in the 7-week intervention, students experienced significantly reduced odds of exceeding screening thresholds for total CATRS-10 score (odds ratio [OR], 0.68; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57–0.81), emotional lability subscore (OR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.52–0.77), and impulsivity/hyperactivity subscore (OR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.36–0.67), relative to when they participated in standard nonaerobic PE (ie, the control condition). Students also experienced significantly lower odds of having ≥5 TOC events (OR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.32–0.91). The overall treatment effect was not significant for learning disruptive TOC outcomes (1+ events, 10+ minutes) or preclusive to learning TOC minutes (90+ minutes). TABLE 2Overall Intervention and Cybercycling PE Effects on Behavioral Outcomes Compared With Control Condition Models Testing Acute Exercise Effects (Aim 2)The effects of acute exercise were significantly more pronounced than the overall intervention effects (Table 2, Model 2). On days that students participated in an intervention PE class, they experienced clinically and statistically significantly reduced odds of exceeding screening thresholds for total CATRS-10 score (OR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.14–0.61), emotional lability subscore (OR, 0.24; 95% CI, 0.11–0.53), and impulsivity/hyperactivity subscore (OR, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.13–0.59), relative to the control condition. Acute effects of cybercycling PE class also resulted in significantly reduced odds of both learning-disruptive and preclusive TOC events (OR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.26–0.72; OR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.02–0.61) and minutes (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.29–0.89; OR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.14–0.84). Treatment order and video gaming mode were not significant in any of the models. DiscussionThis study provides compelling evidence that children and adolescents with multiple, heterogeneous BHD in a school setting can successfully engage in and experience behavioral benefits from an aerobic, cybercycling PE curriculum. Across the intervention period, odds that children would display clinically disruptive behaviors, including impulsivity and emotional lability, were 32% to 51% lower than during the control condition. These effects strengthened on days when children participated in an intervention cybercycling class; here, odds of disruptive levels of behavioral dysregulation declined between 71% and 76% relative to the control condition. Acute exercise led to significant declines in odds of receiving learning disruptive and preclusive amounts of disciplinary TOC. These results build on previous research showing positive effects of aerobic exercise on mood and impulsivity in children, and translate those findings into a program implemented in a real world setting with children with multiple BHD. The primary research aim was to determine whether intervention participation resulted in improved behavioral outcomes for students; this was the case; however, effects were more pronounced on days when the children participated in the structured, aerobic cybercycling PE classes. So although there seemed to be chronic exercise and programmatic effects of this intervention on behavioral self-regulation and classroom functioning even on days when children did not bike, acute exercise is the primary driver of the intervention effect. This finding is consistent with previous studies and proposed mechanisms by which neuroendocrine and reticular-activating systems affect mood and functioning in areas of the brain related to executive function and impulse control.21 Although it was impossible to blind counselors to the intervention condition, we feel risk of bias in recording student behaviors due to knowledge of treatment status was low. Neither teachers nor counselors were aware of the primary study hypotheses. Also, the outcome of disciplinary TOC is determined by classroom teachers who were not aware of treatment condition. Post-hoc tests for bias included comparison of CATRS-10 by blinded (floating) and nonblinded counselors, which indicated no reporting differences, and examination of scores on days students electively rode. If counselors were aware of the hypothesis/biased in reporting, scores should have been lower for children on those days as they were for cybercycling PE days because counselors accompany them to ride; in fact, point estimates indicated worse scores than on nonriding days (not statistically significant). In addition to aerobic exercise, the cybercycling PE classes may hold several other advantages over standard PE programming. They require fewer transitions, which are often challenging to children with BHD. Also, the cybercycling PE allowed students to avoid peer judgments of performance, because other students could not see their performance data unless they shared it. It was also less noisy and chaotic than standard PE classes.10 However, it is important to note that a standard PE class may confer its own benefits, including motor skill acquisition, team sports practice, and socialization. Cybercycles are also relatively expensive; because the key is overcoming aerobic exercise engagement barriers, other modalities should be explored with similar populations. Because the intervention was implemented as part of school programming, participation was nearly universal; therefore, selection biases that generally accompany active participant recruitment and consent protocols were avoided. The generalizability of the results is enhanced because participants had a wide variety of diagnoses, including complex comorbidities. Finally, this study demonstrates strong ecological validity because the intervention was conducted within the existing school schedule and staffing. This improves potential for scale-up/dissemination in more diverse settings catering to children with BHD. Despite these strengths, the generalizability of the results is limited by the setting and population targeted. Therapeutic day schools serve children who have been unsuccessful in public school special education environments. Thus, findings from this study are limited to students with substantial BHD. Future research that tests the intervention in special education programs in public schools is needed to determine if a broader group of children may benefit from the program. Despite overall cuts to PE class-time allocation,22 efforts are taking place across the United States to allow movement in classrooms to facilitate improved learning and behavior.23However, although children with BHD may benefit the most from the effects of aerobic exercise, they are least likely to be easily engaged in such activities. This study shows that a cybercycling PE curriculum can successfully engage children with a variety of complex BHD in high-quality aerobic exercise and, as a result, they experience significant improvements in important behavioral measures. Critically, such a curriculum can successfully affect student behavior within existing school programming with short durations and low frequency. AcknowledgmentsWe thank the students, families, and staff at the Manville School for their participation in the implementation and evaluation of Manville Moves, in particular Brian Wood, Bobby Hermesch, Jim Prince, and Amanda Hayes. We also thank Tom McCarthy for providing equipment technical support and expertise.
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AuthorTerry Alves-Hunter, Foster Parent Advocate Archives
February 2019
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Not in my womb, always in my heart
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Learning & Emotional Assessment Program
(LEAP)
The Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP) at Massachusetts General
Hospital assesses students and children ages 2 to 22 who have developmental
difficulties and consults with their parents, teachers and care providers.
Our clinical professionals have devoted their training, research and clinical practice to acquiring the specialized skills needed to assess children with learning disabilities, psychological and developmental disorders. Our team loves working with children and has a natural ability to put them at ease. The Department of Psychiatry offers a depth and breadth of resources available at few other hospitals or psychiatric centers, meaning your child receives comprehensive, state-of-the-art care without leaving our campus. Services available at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children include:
Referral forms Clinician's Referral From (PDF) Parent Referral Form (PDF) HIPAA Authorization Form for release of information (PDF) Learn more about: Our Services Our clinical assessments are designed to be a comfortable and often fascinating experience, and we find that many children enjoy the warm, one-on-one attention they receive. In addition, our professionals excel at discussing the benefits of assessments with even the most skeptical of adolescents. Our Staff Our experienced professional staff includes Child psychologists, Licensed clinical psychologists, Neuropsychologists, Certified school psychologists, clinical psychology interns and postgraduate fellows. Our Research Research is an ongoing companion to treatment in the LEAP program, with clinical test data collected daily. This data is used to help participants in LEAP, as well as in other programs and departments. Conditions We Evaluate LEAP treats a variety of conditions and disorders. With the trained resources of Mass General Hospital's Dept. of Psychiatry, we are able to evaluate and treat a variety of conditions and disorders. Contact Us LEAP (Learning and Emotional Assessment Program) 151 Merrimac St., 5th Floor Boston, MA 02114 Phone: 617-643-6010 Boston Medical Center Dr. Augustyn is the Director of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and is a Professor at Boston University School of Medicine. She went to medical school at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, completed her pediatric residency at UCLA and her Developmental and Behavioral Pediatric Fellowship at Boston University-Boston City Hospital. Her clinical work at BMC primarily involves the evaluation of children with various developmental delays including autism,speech and language delays, global developmental delay, learning disabilities, ADHD to mention a few. Her research work has varied across her career and includes work on the effects of both in utero cocaine exposure and violence on early childhood and parenting and recently she has been a leader in developing the Center for Family Navigation at BU, a national leader in promoting and developing the use of navigators to support families of children with developmental disabilities. Dr. Augustyn is co-editor of The Zuckerman Parker Handbook of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics for Primary Care and the section co-editor for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics for the online journal UpToDate. She currently sits on the sub board of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the American Board of Pediatrics and is on the Board of Directors of the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. She is also on the American Academy of Pediatrics planning committee for Practical Pediatrics, their national CME Program. Deborah Frank, MD Dr. Frank is the Director of the Grow Clinic for Children and a board-certified Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She is also a Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Frank attended Harvard Medical School and completed her residency at Children's Hospital Seattle. After her residency, she went on to complete a fellowship in Child Development at Children's Hospital Boston. Dr. Frank specializes in issues of growth and nutrition and the impact of hunger on child development. Dr. Frank has written numerous scientific articles and papers. Her work has focused on breastfeeding promotion, women and children affected by substance use, nutrition among homeless pregnant women and children, Failure to Thrive, food insecurity, and the “heat or eat” phenomenon, the dilemma that many low-income families face in the winter when they have to make the critical choice between heating their homes and feeding their children. She is especially proud of successfully mentoring many pre-professional and professional colleagues. Cited as a respected authority in her fields, Dr. Frank has frequently given testimony to state and federal legislative committees on the growing problem of hunger and associated hardships in the United States and its effects on our youngest children. She has recently been nominated by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to the newly established National Commission on Hunger. She is also an invited member of the Aspen’s Dialogue on Food Insecurity and Health Care Costs. L. Kari Hironaka MD, MPH Dr. Hironaka is a board-certified Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician at Boston Medical Center. She completed her fellowship at Boston Medical Center. Dr. Hironaka specializes in health services research, health literacy and ADHD, as well as residency training. John Maypole, MD Dr. Maypole completed Pediatric Residency in 1999, and Pediatric Chief Residency in 2000 following his training at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Maypole has consistently included primary care, medical education, and in participating in and developing innovative clinical programs for complex children and their families. Dr. Maypole served as Associate Director of the Pediatric Integrative Medicine Education Project and performing Holistic Medicine consults and medical education at Children’s Hospital from 2003-2005. In 2005, Dr. Maypole became Director of the Department of Pediatrics at the South End Community Health Center while serving as an attending physician for the Comprehensive Care Program (CCP) in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center. CCP is a multi-disciplinary team of providers who provide enhanced and coordinated primary care to the most medically complex patients and higher risk families in the Pediatric Department, including ex-premature infants, children with special health needs and neurodevelopmental disabilities. In February of 2013, Dr. Maypole came to Boston University/Boston Medical Center to work full time to develop approaches and programs to address this fast-growing segment of the pediatric population. In September of 2014, Dr. Maypole received an award from the Center for Medicare Medicaid Innovation, supporting a 3 year effort for the Massachusetts Alliance for Complex Care/4C program--a consultative, multidisciplinary care support model of care for PCPs and families of medically complex children, of which he is co-principal investigator. He is an associate professor of Pediatrics at BUSM. Dr. Maypole writes child health-related articles for a lay audience, for mainstream media and online publications. Jenny Radesky, MD Dr. Radesky is a board-eligible Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician and a board-certified general pediatrician who recently joined the faculty at Boston Medical Center after completing her fellowship training here. She attended Harvard Medical School and completed her pediatrics training at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Dr. Radesky is a clinician-investigator whose clinical interests include early childhood adversity, attachment relationships, and child self-regulation, as well as teaching trainees methods of observing parent-child interaction. Her research examines mobile/interactive media use by parents and young children and how this effects parent-child interaction and child social-emotional development. She is an active member of the AAP Council on Communications and Media. Arathi Reddy, DO Dr. Reddy is a board-certified Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician at Boston Medical Center. She attended medical school at Western University of Allied Health Sciences in Pomona, CA and completed her residency at Morristown Memorial Hospital/ University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Morristown, NJ. She completed her fellowship at Einstein Montefiore and worked in NYC prior to joining the faculty in March 2011. Jodi Santosuosso, NP, MSN Jodi is a certified nurse practitioner in the Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Division at Boston Medical Center. She attended University of Massachusetts College of Nursing and Health Sciences and completed her residency at University of Massachusetts, Boston. She joined the Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine faculty in April 2007. Jodi has had extensive training in developmental and behavioral pediatrics, gastrointestinal (GI) diseases and ear, nose and throat (ENT) disorders. Laura Sices, MD, MSDr. Sices is a board-certified Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She attended medical school at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, completed her residency at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and completed her fellowship at University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Dr. Sices was on the faculty at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, OH before joining BMC in 2007. Dr. Sices’ clinical work focuses on assessment and management of children with a variety of different concerns, including developmental delays, speech and language delays and conditions, ADHD, learning disabilities and differences, and autism spectrum conditions. Her academic focus is on developmental screening and the early identification of developmental delays. Naomi Steiner, MD Dr. Steiner is the Director of Training at the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Dr. Steiner studies how computers train the brain, which is an area of great interest in overlapping fields of ADHD, psychology, neuroscience and education, and closely followed by many as a complimentary or alternative approach to the traditional psychopharmacological treatment of ADHD. She is specifically interested in implementing neurofeedback attention training in schools. She is also interested in teaching self-regulation skills and relaxation breathing in schools. Dr. Steiner is multicultural and multilingual. In 2030 more than 50% of children will be raised bilingual in the United States! Dr. Steiner has written a book on how to successfully raise children bilingual (7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child), and instructs medical professional, teachers and parents on how children learn two languages, and how English Language Learners can be successful at school. Mary Ellen Stolecki, NP, MSN Mary Ellen is a board certified pediatric nurse practitioner in the Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Division at Boston Medical Center and an Instructor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. She specializes in primary care of the Child with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) in the Comprehensive Care Program. She also practices in the Pediatric Gastroenterology Division providing specialty care for gastrointestinal (GI) conditions. Her clinical interests are primary care for medically complex children (as well as GI issues) of CSHCN including: care of the premature infant, autism, cerebral palsy, seizures, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, Turner syndrome,achrondroplasia,and multiple congenital anomalies. Jodi Wenger, MD Jodi Wenger, MD is a graduate of Dartmouth Medical School who completed her pediatric residency at Boston Medical Center. She spent several years on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona before transitioning back to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. She served as a pediatric hospitalist, outpatient provider and educator at Dartmouth Medical School. She has always had an interest in children with special health care needs. She worked in the Comprehensive Care Program at BMC as a resident and is thrilled to return. She was the general pediatrician at the multidisciplinary spina bifida clinic at Dartmouth Hitchcock and cared for children with neurologic challenges while on the Navajo Reservation. Dr. Wenger has also had an interest in resident work hour reform and continues to support the software she and her husband created during her chief resident year. Amion, continues to allow one to make fair physician call schedules that can be easily accessed online. Barry Zuckerman, MD Dr. Zuckerman is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center. He is a national and international leader in child health and development. His research focuses on the interplay among biological, social and psychological factors as they contribute to children's health and development. Dr. Zuckerman and colleagues have developed four programs that transformed health care to better meet the needs of low income and minority children. The success of these efforts is that they are now all national programs; Reach Out and Read, Medical-Legal Partnership, Health Leads and Healthy Steps. In addition to more than 250 scientific publications, he has edited nine books, including three editions of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics: Handbook for Primary Care. He has served on prestigious national committees; National Commission on Children, Carnegie Commission on Young Children, Bright Futures, and has received numerous national and international awards including the C. Anderson Aldrich for Child Development and the Joseph St Geme Award for Leadership from AAP, and the Policy and Advocacy award and Health Care Delivery Award from the APA. He has consulted in Turkey, Bangladesh, and Thailand regarding child development. - See more at: http://www.bmc.org/pediatrics-developmentalbehavioral/team.htm#sthash.UrLgPWRv.dpuf |
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