Adaptation and pilot testing of the Early Learning Outcome Measure (ELOM) (4&5) Years Assessment tool in South African Sign Language.

Early Childhood Development is a key national priority in South Africa which has developed the Early Learning Outcome Measure (ELOM 4&5) specifically designed to measure the progress of 4- and 5-year-old children across 5 domains of early childhood development. This age-validated, population-standardised instrument has been shown to have measurement equivalence and lack of bias across South Africa's 11 official spoken languages. In 2023, South African Sign Language was formally recognised as 12th official language of South Africa, but no ELOM (4&5) exists in SASL despite over 6,000 deaf children being born annually.

Using Data Tools and Systems to Drive Change in Early Childhood Education for Disadvantaged Children in South Africa.

In line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.2, South Africa's National Development Plan commits to providing high-quality early childhood education to all children by 2030 to drive improved child outcomes. Prior to 2016, South Africa lacked reliable, locally standardised, valid, and cross-culturally fair assessment tools for measuring preschool quality and child outcomes, suitable for use at scale within a resource-constrained context.

The development of a South African Early Learning Outcomes Measure: A South African instrument for measuring early learning program outcomes.

Background: Assessment of early childhood development programme effectiveness in South Africa is hampered by a lack of suitable measures that account for variations in cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and can be administered by non-professionals. This contribution reports the standardisation of the South African Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM), an instrument designed for population level monitoring of the developmental status of children aged 50-69 months and for evaluation of early learning programmes.

Methods: The development of the ELOM was informed by South Africa's National Curriculum Framework from Birth to Four and its National Early Learning and Development Standards.

pyomyositis with complications: a quadriceps quandary in a dialysis patient.

The authors report an extremely rare case of pyomyositis of the left thigh in a patient with type II diabetes mellitus on renal replacement therapy (haemodialysis), with untreated hepatitis C. This patient presented via the dialysis unit with fevers, rigors and a swollen left thigh and knee. Initial differential diagnoses included deep vein thrombosis with systemic inflammatory response syndrome, septic arthritis and crystal arthropathy-all of which were subsequently excluded.

Child and adolescent mental health in South Africa.

Mental health problems in childhood and adolescence pose a major threat to public health. Epidemiological studies in high, middle and low income countries indicate that approximately one in five children and adolescents suffer from a mental disorder. In many instances these persist into adulthood.

Violence, violence prevention, and safety: a research agenda for South Africa.

Violence is a serious problem in South Africa with many effects on health services; it presents complex research problems and requires interdisciplinary collaboration. Two key meta-questions emerge: (i) violence must be understood better to develop effective interventions; and (ii) intervention research (evaluating interventions, assessing efficacy and effectiveness, how best to scale up interventions in resource-poor settings) is necessary. A research agenda to address violence is proposed.

Scaling up child and adolescent mental health services in South Africa: human resource requirements and costs.

Background: Children and adolescents with mental health problems have poor service cover in low- and middle-income countries. Little is known about the resources that would be required to provide child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in these countries. The purpose of this study was to calculate the human resources and associated costs required to scale up CAMHS in South Africa.

Absorption-induced trapping in an anisotropic magneto-optical trap.

We report on a simple anisotropic magneto-optical trap for neutral atoms that produces a large sample of cold atoms confined in a cylindrically-shaped volume with a high aspect ratio (100:1). Due to the large number of trapped atoms, the laser beams that propagate along the optically thick axis of the trap to cool the atoms are substantially attenuated. We demonstrate that the resulting intensity imbalance produces a net force that spatially localizes the atoms.

Youth violence: A review of risk factors, causal pathways and effective intervention.

This paper presents a review of theoretical and empirical research on risk factors for: 1) the development of violent and other antisocial behaviour; 2) international interventions targeting antisocial, including violent youths; and 3) outcome evaluations and meta-analyses of interventions targeting antisocial, including violent youths. Taken together, the international literature indicates that interventions which effectively reduce violent and other antisocial behaviours are informed by a number of generic principles which should guide the development and implementation of South African violence-prevention programmes. Common characteristics of interventions which effectively reduce youth violence are presented, with the aim of informing the design and delivery of local interventions.

Youth violence risk assessment: gaps in local knowledge and directions for future research.

There is a lack of research on violence risk assessment in South Africa, particularly on the assessment of risk for violence in children and adolescents. This is problematic, because of the strong association between conducting sound assessments and the appropriate referral of youths to intervention programmes. Considering the very high levels of violence in our country, the effective treatment of violent youths is imperative.

Women coping with AIDS in Africa: contributions of a contextually grounded research methodology.

The primary objective of this report is to describe a contextually grounded approach to the investigation of coping and psychological functioning in AIDS-sick mothers. Five AIDS-sick women on antiretroviral therapy who had at least one child under 6 years of age living in their households were interviewed. Among the issues that emerged was the complexity of the women's psychological functioning, the fact that they made strategic decisions about disclosure aimed at protecting important social support networks, and that their well-being was dynamically influenced by factors in the home and community.

Direct observation of optical precursors in a region of anomalous dispersion.

We create optical precursors by propagating a step-modulated optical pulse through a linear resonant dielectric absorber. The field emerging from the dielectric consists of a several-nanosecond-long spike with near 100% transmission, which decays to a constant value expected from Beer's law. This high-transmission spike might be useful for imaging applications requiring penetrating optical radiation.

Epidemiological measurement of children's and adolescents' exposure to community violence: working with the current state of the science.

A number of measures have been used in epidemiological studies of children's exposure to community violence, yet the quality of these instruments is not uniformly good. This paper undertakes a systematic review of the most commonly used (or most promising) self-report or interview-administered instruments, with regard to their conceptual bases and psychometric properties. Based on the review, recommendations are made for working with the current state of the science in order to move the field forward.

Distortion management in slow-light pulse delay.

We describe a methodology to maximize slow-light pulse delay subject to a constraint on the allowable pulse distortion. We show that optimizing over a larger number of physical variables can increase the distortion-constrained delay. We demonstrate these concepts by comparing the optimum slow-light pulse delay achievable using a single Lorentzian gain line with that achievable using a pair of closely-spaced gain lines.

All-optical switching in rubidium vapor.

We report on an all-optical switch that operates at low light levels. It consists of laser beams counterpropagating through a warm rubidium vapor that induce an off-axis optical pattern. A switching laser beam causes this pattern to rotate even when the power in the switching beam is much lower than the power in the pattern.