Kachina Allen

Background Generative AI (GenAI) presents both opportunities and challenges for higher education. While it offers the potential to personalise learning and improve educator processes, concerns around academic integrity and output accuracy persist. Health professionals must navigate this landscape carefully to ensure technology augments, rather than compromises, the development of core clinical and professional competencies in higher education. Objective This study aimed to develop a framework for implementing GenAI into the curriculum. To achieve this, a synthesis of the existing evidence on the applications, benefits, and challenges of GenAI in health professions education was required. Methods To achieve the required knowledge for the development of the framework, a systematic scoping review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology and reported using the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. A comprehensive search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC databases was performed to identify relevant studies. A narrative synthesis was used to map the literature across key themes to inform the framework’s development. Results: The review included 21 studies, which highlighted the use of GenAI by educators and students to aid in productivity and learning. Key challenges identified included the risk of generating inaccurate content, the potential for misuse, and the critical need for enhanced GenAI literacy among both students and staff. The findings were synthesised into three primary domains: educator use, student use, and assessment design and purpose. Conclusion The integration of GenAI in health education requires a structured, proactive approach. We propose an evidence-informed framework centred on three core pillars: Student GenAI Literacy, Educator Capability, and Assessment Design. This framework provides a roadmap for institutions to harness GenAI responsibly, ensuring it serves as a tool to support critical thinking and professional judgement.

Autistic trans and gender diverse (TGD) individuals face unique voice and communication challenges compounded by minority stressors, impacting wellbeing and access to care. Speech pathologists are crucial in providing gender-affirming and neurodiversity-affirming support; however, guidance for working with this intersectional population remains limited. This scoping review mapped current knowledge on voice and communication challenges, identifies available supports, and demonstrates the limitations of existing guidance for speech pathologists. This review draws on 40 sources, including 29 peer-reviewed articles, 8 clinical guidelines, 2 books, and 1 position statement, identified through comprehensive searches of databases such as CINAHL, ERIC, Medline, APA PsycINFO, and grey literature in May 2024. Findings indicated that 96.8% of identified challenges pertained to communication, while fewer (3.2%) focused on voice-specific issues. Similarly, supports primarily addressed communication (91.3%), with 8.7% targeting voice needs. Communication challenges included barriers faced by autistic TGD individuals and those interacting with them, including healthcare professionals, peers, and family. Supports were identified as strategies and resources to enhance service delivery and client wellbeing, such as using visual aids or offering multiple communication options. However, significant gaps remain in addressing the unique voice and communication needs of this population, particularly regarding voice dysphoria, camouflaging versus identity disclosure, and communication within healthcare settings. Autistic TGD individuals represent a unique population whose needs are not sufficiently addressed by current guidance. This review highlights significant gaps in research and clinical practice and calls for improved clinical guidelines and specialized training for speech pathologists to enhance care.

Smartphones are commonly used for socializing, entertainment, and information-seeking. However, excessive and problematic usage may lead to smartphone addiction, which is linked to cognitive and attentional deficits and mental health issues globally. Historically, age and gender have been found to influence smartphone usage. Furthermore, the relationship between communication preferences (via mobile-technology versus in-person) and usage, and addictive tendencies is understudied. Past research has seldom explored older age groups. This study investigates generational (“Gen-Z,” “Gen-X,” “Gen-Y,” and Baby-Boomers) and gender differences in smartphone usage, communication preferences, and factors predicting smartphone addiction scores (SAS). The study surveyed 894 adults aged 18–80 years to examine interpersonal communication preferences, daily hours of smartphone usage, and SAS. Participants were recruited via snowball sampling through digital and printed media. Daily hours of usage and SAS were closely related and shown to reduce after the age of 40 years. Generations “Z” and “Y” reported the highest daily use and scored higher in SAS than the older generations. Women scored higher in SAS than men in all generations except “Gen-X.” Age, hours of usage, and preference for mobile communication predicted SAS, but gender did not. Overall, people prefer to communicate with others in-person more than via mobile-technology. The findings identify significant generational and gender differences in daily usage, addiction scores, and communication preferences. Preference to communicate more via mobile-technology than in-person predicted SAS. Future research needs to investigate smartphone usage among all age groups and genders to clarify the risks and protective factors associated with smartphone addiction.

Empirical research indicates that high rates of mental health issues in members of marginalised population groups are predicted in part by their decisions to disclose or conceal their stigmatized identities from others—a field of study known as outness research. Transgender outness research is a nascent branch of this field. It reflects neither the multidimensional view of disclosure and concealment adopted in other branches, nor the ability to address unique aspects of trans outness, such as the practical challenges of concealment and the difference between concealing one’s gender identity and concealing one’s assigned sex. Consequently, prior literature may not accurately represent the effects of transgender identity disclosure and concealment. This scoping review explores the theoretical and operational definitions of trans disclosure and concealment in 46 English-language papers, identified from extensive database searches, addressing relationships between these concepts and mental health factors. Findings indicate that the issues outlined above remain unresolved, even in the widely-used nondisclosure subscale of the Gender Minority Stress and Resilience Measure, and are rarely recognized as a potential source of error. Although small detrimental effects of concealment and beneficial effects of disclosure on mental health were reported in the reviewed studies, reliable conclusions about these relationships and their importance to health and safety in the trans community cannot be drawn while these shortcomings are overlooked. We encourage researchers to address these neglected areas, reevaluate the language used in measurement questions, and conduct longitudinal research to support an accurate understanding of trans outness phenomena.

Introduction: The projection of the human male urogenital system onto the paracentral lobule has not previously been mapped comprehensively. Aim: To map specific urogenital structures onto the primary somatosensory cortex toward a better understanding of sexual response in men. Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we mapped primary somatosensory cortical responses to self-stimulation of the penis shaft, glans, testicles, scrotum, rectum, urethra, prostate, perineum, and nipple. We further compared neural response with erotic and prosaic touch of the penile shaft. Main Outcome Measure: We identified the primary mapping site of urogenital structures on the paracentral lobule and identified networks involved in perceiving touch as erotic. Results: We mapped sites on the primary somatosensory cortex to which components of the urogenital structures project in men. Evidence is provided that penile cutaneous projection is different from deep penile projection. Similar to a prior report in women, we show that the nipple projects to the same somatosensory cortical region as the genitals. Evidence of differential representation of erotic and nonerotic genital self-stimulation is also provided, the former activating sensory networks other than the primary sensory cortex, indicating a role of “top-down” activity in erotic response. Clinical Implications: We map primary sites of projection of urogenital structures to the primary somatosensory cortex and differentiate cortical sites of erotic from nonerotic genital self-stimulation. Strength & Limitations: To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive mapping onto the primary somatosensory cortex of the projection of the components of the urogenital system in men and the difference in cortical activation in response to erotic vs nonerotic self-stimulation. The nipple was found to project to the same cortical region as the genitals. Evidence is provided that superficial and deep penile stimulation project differentially to the cortex, suggesting that sensory innervation of the penis is provided by more than the (pudendal) dorsal nerve. Conclusion: This study reconciles prior apparently conflicting findings and offers a comprehensive mapping of male genital components to the paracentral lobule. We provide evidence of differential projection of light touch vs pressure applied to the penile shaft, suggesting differential innervation of its superficial, vs deep structure. Similar to the response in women, we found nipple projection to genital areas of the paracentral lobule. We also provide evidence of differential representation of erotic and nonerotic genital self-stimulation, the former activating sensory networks other than the primary sensory cortex, indicating a role of top-down activity in erotic response.

Purpose Musical training is often linked to enhanced auditory discrimination, but the relative roles of pitch and time in music and speech are unclear. Moreover, it is unclear whether pitch and time processing are correlated across individuals and how they may be affected by attention. This study aimed to examine pitch and time processing in speech and tone sequences, taking musical training and attention into account. Method Musicians (16) and nonmusicians (16) were asked to detect pitch or timing changes in speech and tone sequences and make a binary response. In some conditions, the participants were focused on 1 aspect of the stimulus (directed attention), and in others, they had to pay attention to all aspects at once (divided attention). Results As expected, musicians performed better overall. Performance scores on pitch and time tasks were correlated, as were performance scores for speech and tonal stimuli, but most markedly in musicians. All participants performed better on the directed versus divided attention task, but again, musicians performed better than nonmusicians. Conclusion In general, this experiment shows that individuals with a better sense of pitch discrimination also have a better sense of timing discrimination in the auditory domain. In addition, although musicians perform better overall, these results do not support the idea that musicians have an added advantage for divided attention tasks. These findings serve to better understand how musical training and attention affect pitch and time processing in the context of speech and tones and may have applications in special populations. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5895997