The study's significance lies in shedding light on the Impact of a Structured Sensory Diet on Neural Regulation of Attention and Task Engagement in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This study holds substantial significance for both scientific understanding and practical intervention in supporting children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many children with ASD experience sensory processing difficulties that directly influence their ability to regulate attention, engage in tasks, and participate meaningfully in learning environments. Although sensory diets are widely used in therapeutic and educational settings, there remains limited empirical evidence—especially neurocognitive evidence— demonstrating how structured sensory input influences neural regulation and behavioral functioning.
Children who are developmentally lagging require quick and tailored supports- this is why focusing on potential development is important. AI has advanced by integrating multiple forms of speech, behaviour, physiology, and vision, and emerging AI systems for speech triage and multi-modal systems are demonstrating promise for comprehensive pediatric assessment. This literature review examines the most recent XAI approaches and applications to developmental screening and assessment of learning and development from 2016-2025. Under the PRISMA model, 34 studies were selected that involve data fusion, explainable AI, and stakeholder-driven explainable AI. The review explores various AI model approaches, data fusion, explainable AI, and evaluation with explainable AI trust, ethical, bias, and generalization frameworks. Survey results of the various frameworks show that XAI approaches and selected strikingly high attribution approaches of clinician educator explanation dominated stakeholder-controlled assessment and understanding and maintained high diagnostic and predictive accuracy levels. The issues of availability and sustaining longitudinal studies and accountability for cultural and demographic bias are persistent. This review suggests discussing adaptive and transparent AI systems that are equitable, scalable, and reliable. This synthesis aids the creation of efficient and useful AI technologies for fair access to early childhood assessment and intervention tools.
Background Intimate partner controlling behavior (IPCB) is a key manifestation of coercive control and an important precursor to other forms of intimate partner violence. Despite its adverse consequences for women’s autonomy, mental health, and well-being, evidence on the prevalence and factors associated with IPCB in Somaliland remains limited. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and identify the individual- and community-level factors associated with IPCB among ever-married women in Somaliland. Methods A secondary analysis of the 2020 Somaliland Demographic and Health Survey (SLDHS) was conducted using a weighted sample of 9,428.14 (unweighted n = 9,593) ever-married women aged 15–49 years. IPCB was defined as experiencing at least one of five partner controlling behaviors reported for the respondent’s current husband/partner. Multilevel logistic regression models, incorporating the DHS sample weight (V005) and clustering by primary sampling unit (135 clusters), were fitted to account for the hierarchical structure of the survey data and to identify factors associated with IPCB. Adjusted odds ratios (AORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were reported, and statistical significance was declared at p < 0.05. Results The prevalence of IPCB was 26.7% (95% CI: 25.8–27.6%; unweighted prevalence 25.1%). Women aged 25–29 years (AOR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.01–2.53), those with primary education (AOR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.44–2.00), and women from middle- (AOR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.20–1.77) and rich-wealth households (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.30–1.88) had higher odds of experiencing IPCB. Conversely, joint healthcare decision-making (AOR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.60–0.79), current pregnancy (AOR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.63–0.85), marriage at ages 19–26 years (AOR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.63–0.80) or >26 years (AOR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.49–0.81), household size of 4–7 members (AOR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.71–0.92), partner employment (AOR = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.68–0.87), and residence in Marodijeh, Togdheer, Sool, and Sanaag regions were associated with lower odds of IPCB. Conclusion Approximately one in four ever-married women in Somaliland experienced intimate partner controlling behavior, underscoring IPCB as an important public health and gender equality concern. Both individual- and community-level factors were significantly associated with women’s odds of experiencing IPCB, highlighting the need for multilevel interventions that strengthen women’s decision-making autonomy, delay early marriage, promote girls’ education, and implement context-specific strategies to prevent coercive control and advance gender equality.
The article presents an overview of the problems of child violence, a wide range of its variants-physical, sexual and psychological violence, etc. It is shown that child violence has the quality of transgeneration, in one form or another, is reproduced in the next generations. The experience of violence is also a negative predictor of violent behavior that will manifest itself in the upbringing of their own children. Indicators of the epidemiology of violence are presented. The data vary greatly, for example, the prevalence of sexual violence ranges from 3% to 36%. Sexual violence mainly affects children between the ages of 6 and 13. Children under the age of 4 are most likely to suffer from physical and psychological abuse. Up to a third of victims of sexual violence may show appropriate behavior towards their own or other children. An overview of the factors that predispose / retard the formation of child violence is presented. These are factors such as age, gender, ethnic origin, disability, and social status of the parents. Prevention work should be based on a multi-level concept (multiple participants or institutions are involved). Appropriate measures to prevent violence should not (cannot) only target children / young people, but should also affect, in particular, parents and schools.
This article addresses topical issues of protection of children from domestic violence in the national legal system. Special attention is paid to the forms of domestic violence, protection of the rights and freedoms of victims.
Type II focal cortical dysplasia (FCD II) is a major cause of drug-resistant epilepsy in children, with balloon cells representing a defining histopathological feature of FCD IIb. Although diagnostically important, the biological identity and epileptogenic contribution of balloon cells remain incompletely understood. Current evidence links balloon cells to disrupted cortical development, often driven by somatic mosaic mutations in the PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway, resulting in impaired differentiation, cellular enlargement, and hybrid neuroglial phenotypes. This review examines current evidence on the developmental origins and lineage states, molecular signatures, electrophysiological features, and network effects of balloon cells in FCD II. Persistent mTOR hyperactivation appears to interact with cytoskeletal abnormalities, oxidative stress, and local inflammatory signaling, thereby creating a microenvironment that favors epileptogenic remodeling. Despite being largely electrically silent, BCs are embedded within lesion microenvironments characterized by disrupted inhibitory circuitry, altered neurotransmitter homeostasis, and complement-associated synaptic remodeling. BCs may participate indirectly in these processes, although their cell-specific causal contribution remains unresolved. Recent single-cell and spatial transcriptomic studies further distinguish balloon cells from dysmorphic neurons and implicate them in local immune activation. Understanding balloon cell biology may reveal cell-specific therapeutic targets and support precision treatment strategies beyond surgical resection.
Violence against children has clearly proven demographic, health, educational, social, and economic consequences which are not limited to immediate trauma and increased child mortality rates. Establishing and maintaining sustainable data collection systems is a key component of the effort to address child abuse. The review of the indicators collected by the institutions in Bulgaria shows that there are partially collected data that are relevant to the topic of violence against children. However, it remains unclear how the collected data is integrated into a general framework. The use of the data collected by the institutions for the improvement of the existing mechanisms, as well as for the planning of effective policies to deal with violence against children, is also in question.
Traditional gender roles persist in modern societies. A division would not be detrimental to women if it were not based on their subordination. Unfortunately, gender inequality is part of a burdensome historical legacy that is common to both Western and non-Western religious and social contexts. Ironically, in patriarchal communities, women are responsible for passing on this legacy of subordination to future generations. Their role of pillars of family honour and custodians of cultural heritage highlights the ambiguity of the term "intangible cultural heritage" and the need to draw a line between what is worth protecting and what should be relegated to the past. The last sentence of Article 2 of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage draws this line, but more research is needed to clarify its content and scope. Until then, armed conflicts seem to be a decisive factor in the selection of historical legacies that survive from the devastation they cause, both in terms of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Violence against women in armed conflict is used as a means of disrupting the enemy's community. The individual and social trauma caused by mass rape leads to the alienation and loss of social identification of the victims in their social environment. Feeling rejected by the community to which they would naturally belong, women and children lose their cultural heritage. Paradoxically, however, armed conflict can also create unexpected opportunities for the living cultural heritage. In some scenarios, the need for social reconstruction following dramatic demographic changes has led to faster progress towards women's empowerment. This article emphasizes the potential impetus of a visible common trend towards gender equality, which makes it possible to reconcile tradition and evolution in the protection of intangible heritage. By suggesting the adoption of a diachronic perspective, it highlights the need for future avenues of research that can demystify the opposition between the universality of women's rights and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.
Introduction Turkish permits grammatical non-canonical word order while morphological case marking disambiguates thematic roles. Methods We examined comprehension accuracy and verb-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) to Turkish canonical subject-object-verb (SOV) and non-canonical object-subject-verb (OSV) sentences in adults ( n = 67; 18–44 years) and children ( n = 37; 4.3–9.7 years). Results Accuracy was lower for OSV than SOV in both groups, with a significantly larger SOV-OSV accuracy difference in children. Adults showed a late posterior OSV > SOV positivity, with significant effects in several prespecified windows within the 600–1,200-ms interval, consistent with increased sentence-final processing demands associated with the non-canonical configuration at the final verb. Children showed no reliable corresponding positivity after correction for multiple comparisons. Critically, however, Group × Sentence Type interactions did not survive correction, providing insufficient evidence that the magnitude of the SOV-OSV ERP effect differed between adults and children. Within children, chronological age showed no reliable linear or quadratic association with the behavioral or ERP SOV-OSV difference across the sampled age range. By contrast, stronger grammatical ability predicted higher comprehension accuracy in both sentence types beyond age; the same general pattern was obtained for broader language ability. Neither grammatical nor broader language ability reliably modulated the SOV-OSV ERP difference. Discussion Overall, the findings suggest that the availability of morphosyntactic case cues does not by itself entail adult-like efficiency in integrating those cues during sentence comprehension, and that developmental patterns may be expressed differently across behavioral and electrophysiological measures.
Background and purpose Isolated seizures represent a distinct, rare, and underrecognized phenotype of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibody-associated disease (MOGAD). In recent years, documentation of this phenotype has been limited to sporadic reports, with dedicated case series being extremely scarce. This study aimed to describe the clinical characteristics of isolated seizures in pediatric patients with MOGAD. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of pediatric patients diagnosed with MOG antibody-associated isolated seizures between January 2019 and January 2026. Clinical manifestations, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings, laboratory data, treatment regimens, and clinical outcomes were systematically analyzed. Results Among the cohort of 172 pediatric patients with seropositive MOG antibodies, 6 (3.4%) met the inclusion criteria for isolated seizures. The median age at onset was 7.5 years (range, 5–9 years), with a male-to-female ratio of 1:2. Clinically, 4 patients presented solely with epileptic seizures, while the other 2 patients had additional transient limb weakness or headache, respectively. Focal seizures were observed in 5 patients, including 3 with focal motor seizures; additionally, 2 cases experienced status epilepticus. No patients exhibited encephalopathy or focal neurological deficits. Four patients had peripheral blood leukocytosis (range, 11.9–26 × 10 9 /L), and five had elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR; range, 22–43 mm/h). All six patients showed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis (41.1 ± 20.4/μL; range, 15–69/μL) without detectable infectious pathogens. Abnormal electroencephalogram (EEG) findings, including abnormal background activity and focal slow waves, were identified in 3 patients. No cranial MRI abnormalities were detected in any patient. All patients received immunotherapy, with one patient additionally receiving anti-seizure medications (ASMs). At final follow-up, all patients had favorable outcomes, with no recurrence of seizures or subsequent demyelinating events. Conclusion Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated isolated seizures is a rare and frequently underrecognized phenotype within the spectrum of MOGAD. For school-age children presenting with epileptic seizures, particularly focal motor seizures, along with elevated ESR and CSF pleocytosis, early testing for MOG antibody is recommended in the absence of clinical or radiological evidence of encephalitis or focal neurological deficits. Most patients achieve favorable clinical outcomes, which may be partially attributed to immunotherapy. However, the efficacy of immunotherapy in preventing seizure recurrence, subsequent demyelinating events, and subclinical radiological disease remains indeterminate.
