At 1 year, children with AFM demonstrated functional gains but weakness persisted. EMG changes correlated with persistent deficits better than imaging. Despite improvements, AFM had substantial long-term functional effects on affected children.

Background Pediatric stem cell transplant (SCT) is a demanding procedure for children and parents. Interventions to promote positive adjustment of parents in this setting are needed. Method 171 patient/parent dyads from 4 sites received one of 3 interventions to reduce SCT-related distress: a child intervention with massage and humor therapy, an identical child intervention plus a parent intervention with massage and relaxation/imagery, or standard care. Parents completed weekly self-report measures of distress and positive affect during the acute phase of treatment (weeks −1 through +6), and measures of depression, posttraumatic stress (PTSD), and benefit-finding at baseline and week +24. Results No significant differences across treatment arms were observed on repeated measures of parental distress. There was a marginally significant effect of the child intervention on parental positive affect. Over time, parental distress decreased significantly and positive affect increased significantly in all groups. Similarly, there were no significant intervention effects on the global adjustment outcomes of depression, PTSD, and benefit finding. However, reports of depression and PTSD decreased significantly and reports of benefit-finding increased significantly from baseline to week +24 for all groups. Conclusion Across all study arms, parent adjustment improved over time, suggesting that parents demonstrate a transient period of moderately elevated distress at the time of their child’s admission for transplant, followed by rapid improved to normative levels of adjustment. Similar to results previously reported for their children, these parents appear resilient to the challenges of transplant.

Objective This study examined the relationships between parental posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), child PTSS, and parent-child concordance for child PTSS. Method Participants were children with cancer (n = 199) and healthy children (n = 108) and their parents. Children self-reported on PTSS and parents completed measures of child and parent PTSS. Results In the cancer group, child and parent report of child PTSS were significantly correlated with no mean differences between reporters. In contrast, correlations were non-significant in the control group, and parents reported significantly lower levels of child PTSS than children. Increased parental PTSS was associated with better concordance in the cancer group, but not in the control group. In fact, in the cancer group, parent-child concordance was strongest at the highest level of parental PTSS. Conclusions Parents of children with cancer were found to be accurate reporters of their children’s distress, even with high levels of reported personal distress. In contrast, parents of healthy children appear primarily influenced by personal distress when reporting child PTSS. Although multiple informant assessments are always desirable, it appears that utilization of a single informant may be reasonable in the cancer setting when access to informants is limited.

To provide multi-dimensional support for undergraduates from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds who aspire to careers in research, the BUILD EXITO project, part of a major NIH-funded diversity initiative, matches each scholar with three mentors: peer mentor (advanced student), career mentor (faculty adviser), and research mentor (research project supervisor). After describing the aims of the diversity initiative, the institutional context of the BUILD EXITO project, and the training program model, this article devotes special attention to the rationale for and implementation of the peer mentoring component within the context of the multi-faceted mentoring model.