The effect of the National Birth Defects Intervention Project on the prevention of congenital disabilities among children in China: a natural experiment

Most childhood disabilities are caused by congenital factors such as birth defects. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of periconceptional nutrition intervention on the prevention of congenital disability among Chinese children using the National Birth Defects Intervention Project as a natural experiment. We obtained individual-level data from the Second National Sample Survey on Disability, a nationally representative survey, and 110 365 children born between September 1999 and August 2003 were included for analysis. Difference-in-differences estimates of the project effects on congenital disability were captured by exploiting temporal variation in the timing of project exposure across four birth cohorts along with geographical variation in project category at the province level. The findings contribute to an emerging body of evidence showing that prenatal micronutrient intervention before and during early pregnancy could substantially reduce the risk of congenital disability in childhood (OR 0·73; 95 % CI 0·57, 0·94). The National Birth Defects Intervention Project improved the awareness of reproductive health and disability prevention in the population. It highlights the need for a potential policy change focusing on early-life health investment in China.

Born that way or became that way: Stigma toward congenital versus acquired disability

Stigma may differ depending on the timing of group-membership entry, whether a person was “born that way” or “became that way.” Disability, a highly understudied minority group, varies on this domain. Three studies demonstrated that congenital disability is more stigmatized than acquired disability and essentialism and blame moderate and mediate this effect. Congenital disability was more stigmatized than the acquired version of the same disability (Studies 1–2). People with congenital disability were more essentialized, but less blamed than people with acquired disability (Study 2). Manipulating onset and essentialism revealed that when disability was acquired, low essentialism predicted greater stigma through blame (Study 3). However, when disability was congenital, essentialism did not affect stigma through blame. For stigmatized groups unlikely to be blamed for their group membership, reducing essentialism could ameliorate stigma, but for groups that might be blamed for their group membership, increasing essentialism may be a tool to reduce stigma by reducing blame.

Non-Combatants and Other Peace Activists: “Everyday” disability in a time of war

<p>While depictions of war-related disability would come to dominate the novels of male combatants in the decades following the First World War, congenital disability continued to be represented in the works of female novelists who were advocating peace. Even as the figure of the disabled veteran became hypervisible in Britain, civilians with disabilities frequently came to be overlooked where charitable aid, vocational training, and governmental assistance were concerned. We can chart a similar movement in the literature of the period, as representations of the war maimed came to eclipse "civilian" or congenital disability. In Rose Macaulay&rsquo;s <em>Non-Combatants and Others</em> (1916) and Rose Allatini&rsquo;s <em>Despised and Rejected </em>(1918), characters with physical disabilities become outspoken activists for the anti-war movement as they openly combat the illogic of the war and continue to labor as artists and intellectuals. Besides making these disabled bodies visible again, Allatini and Macaulay draw attention to what fitness means in sexual, intellectual, and physical terms, and encourage readers to consider what it means for the &ldquo;unfit&rdquo; to reject a war that has already rejected them.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Keywords: First World War; Congenital disability; War disability; Women writers</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

The Syndrome of Visual Alexia with Colour Agnosia

Cases showing alexia which is not part of a general visual agnosia or of a speech disorder (letter or word blindness, cécité verbale pure) are uncommon and deserve careful study for a variety of reasons. The conception of word blindness as loss of visual memories due to a localized cerebral lesion (Hinshelwood, 1917) has been challenged by later investigators who aimed at a more general analysis of impairment of cerebral functions. The application of the principles of Gestalt psychology has introduced new aspects into the study of word blindness. Investigations into acquired word blindness, apart from their psychological and neuro-pathological interest, are of value for the understanding of congenital word blindness which has been found to be a condition of considerable practical importance. It was the investigation of cases of acquired word blindness which led Hinshelwood to the first full description of the congenital disability.