Drawing Out the Resistance Narrative via Mapping in <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet</Emphasis>

Though many children’s texts include maps that visually demarcate their journeys, modern texts rarely involve active mapping by child characters themselves, suggesting that children cannot (or should not) conceptualise the world for themselves, but require an adult’s guidance to traverse it. Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet (2009), however, views the child as active cartographer and expands the conversation on the relationship between children and space to uncover new (or more nuanced) understandings of children’s place in society, and their constant tension in finding selfhood. This article examines how the act of mapping in literature often leads a character away from home to a place where the child can reconstruct “home” within his or her memory—a memory that instils resistance against the status quo of the child’s position in life. Cartography’s direct relationship with children experiments with and subverts the binaries of child/adult, fantasy/reality, civilised/primitive and home/memory of home, completely dismantling them in the specific example of Larsen’s novel and demonstrating that the child protagonist’s space is neither solely real nor fantastic. Mapping induces the young protagonist to move into alternative spaces, and to resist social pressures in order to assert fuller agency over his or her identity formation.     

Teaching children while they play: Cultivating emergent writing and reading

Effective teachers of young children include symbolic play in their early education curricula. They design and prepare play environments, knowing that children learn through play. Piaget's (1962) research contributed greatly to teachers' understanding of how such play functions as a medium for learning, as a vehicle for understanding and constructing knowledge. For example, the child who has experienced meal preparation and child care at home will use those experiences in the housekeeping center with available props and adultlike behavior and language. According to Piaget (1962), this symbolic representation is a way of abstracting elements from life experiences and manipulating them so the learner can facilitate his or her construction of knowledge.Carol Taylor Schrader is an assistant professor at The University of Maryland at College Park.     

Social Status and Children's Orientations to Limited Resources

6-year-old children were paired according to their sociometric status and then confronted with 3 situations in which there was only 1 toy for the 2 children. Children's responses to these limited-resource situations were coded in terms of a scheme reflecting the degree to which each child focused on his or her own concerns and/or those of the other child. Low status dyads were found to compete (i.e., focus on their own interests) more than high status dyads, who exhibited orientations focused more on mutual benefit. The implications of these results as well as the relations among general orientations and dyadic affect are discussed.     

Development and validation of the Preschool Temperament Classification System for use with teachers

The purpose of the current study is to describe the development and validation of a new measure of temperament, the Preschool Temperament Classification System (PTCS). The PTCS was developed as a typological measure that identifies children's temperament styles as undercontrolled, resilient, or overcontrolled. The PTCS is a time efficient structured interview assessing children's temperament as it is observed in the classroom environment. During the 20 min interview, teachers classify all of the children in their class into one of the three temperament styles, rank order children within each temperament group, and assign an intensity rating to each child, indicating how well the child matches his/her assigned temperament group. Data were collected on 196 preschool-age children from 25 Head Start classrooms in an urban area. Teachers assessed children's temperament and peer play behaviors, and trained research assistants assessed children's school readiness. The PTCS classified children into temperament groups that showed expected relations to peer play competence and school readiness after controlling for age and gender, indicating good validity. Test–retest reliability was moderate to high. Overall the PTCS shows promise as a valid and reliable teacher measure of preschool children's temperament.     

听力残疾孩子家庭康复的模拟实验

本例家庭康复模拟实验的目的在于探索聋儿家庭康复的规律和作法，取得指导聋儿家庭康复的发言权。我们接收了一名3．5岁，听力损失92dB的先天性聋儿来到家中施以康复训练。通过一年的努力，孩子学会了350多个词语，认识了370多个汉字（相当聋校一年级学过的字词数），能理解、表达七个音节左右的句子，开始了简单的对话，学会了使用听觉，能听辨出学过词语的90％，看话能力胜过听话能力。事实说明重度聋儿也有可能康复。裸耳只要能听见在耳边发出的大声，就可能听辨在耳边用大声说出的语言。据此，暂时买不起助听器的家庭，可利用孩子的视觉，同时大声教孩子说话。     

Child-made home learning games for V.I.P.'s (very involved parents)

The key to this article is that all of the home learning games are made by the children for their own use with their parents. Anything the child has made becomes a source of pride for both parent and child. This pride is the simplest motivator for parent-child interaction. The child wants the parent to play his or her game and the parent will naturally devote some attention to the hand-made product.Gail L. Summer is the author of the book,Child-Made Home Learning Games for V.I.P's, from which this article is excerpted. It is available from Summertime Productions, 3005-E. Overton Drive, Greensboro, NC 27408 for $7.00 plus $1.00 shipping.     

The complexity of morality: Being a ‘good child’ in Vietnam?

In this article I examine what it means to be a good child in Vietnam. Throughout the country ancestral worship is widely practiced. This traditionally places emphasis on the need for a boy child to continue the practice of worship into the next generation. Because of this, while the high value placed on the boy child has been tempered by the influence of communist rule and modernity, the eldest boy still often holds preferential status. Under such circumstances the good child is one who accepts his or her position within the hierarchical structure of the family and is also willing to subjugate his or her individual needs to the greater collective good. This might manifest itself in a child’s ‘choice’ to work on the streets so that their earnings can be sent home to support other siblings through their schooling. Or it might show itself in the practice of children accepting and apparently supporting that fact that they have been sent to an orphanage or ‘hidden’ so that a parent can try for more male children. It would be naive though to conclude from this that boys and girls are automatically raised within separate moral frameworks. Instead this article proposes that at the local level what it means to be a good child is even more complex because the notion of the good, moral and filial child is shaped as much by family circumstances and expectation as it is by the mores and values of the wider society.     

Affective Bias in Children''s Perceptions of Dominance Relationships

This study investigated children's perceptions of the relative strength of themselves and their peers, in 2 classes of 8-year-olds and 2 classes of 11-year-olds. Each child ranked his or her entire class in terms of strength and liking. Previous investigators have assumed that such strength perceptions reflect the dominance structure of the group. The present results, replicating previous findings, indicate that children consistently overestimate their place in this hierarchy in relation to their peers' perceptions. In addition, it was found that bias in perceptions of strength extended in a systematic way to the peer group, with liked peers being overranked and disliked peers being underranked. For most children, this result could be explained in terms of an enhanced evaluation of liked, but not disliked, peers, or in terms of liked, but not disliked, peers being perceived as similar to themselves. The theoretical and methodological implications of these results for the concept of dominance in children's groups are discussed.     

Being Alone, Playing Alone, and Acting Alone: Distinguishing among Reticence and Passive and Active Solitude in Young Children

3 forms of solitude were studied in young children—reticence (onlooker and unoccupied behavior), solitary-passive behavior (solitary-constructive and -exploratory play), and solitary-active behavior (solitary-functional and -dramatic play). 48 4-year-old children grouped in quartets of same-sex unfamiliar peers were observed in several situations. Mothers completed the Colorado Temperament Inventory. Results indicated that (1) solitary-passive, solitary-active, and reticent behaviors were nonsignificantly intercorrelated; (2) reticence was stable and associated with the demonstration of anxiety and hovering near others, whereas solitary-passive and solitary-active play were stable yet unrelated to anxiety and hovering; (3) reticence during free play was generally associated with poor performance and displays of wariness in several other social situations, while solitary-passive and -active play were not; (4) reticence was associated with maternal ratings of child shyness, while solitary-active behavior was associated with maternal ratings of impulsivity. Results are discussed in terms of the underlying mechanisms associated with reticence and passive and active withdrawal.     

Frontal Activation Asymmetry and Social Competence at Four Years of Age

The pattern of frontal activation as measured by the ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) may be a marker for individual differences in infant and adult disposition to respond with either positive or negative affect. We studied 48 4-year-old children who were first observed in same-sex quartets during free-play sessions, while making speeches, and during a ticket-sorting task. Social and interactive behaviors were coded from these sessions. Each child was subsequently seen 2 weeks later when EEG was recorded while the child attended to a visual stimulus. The pattern of EEG activation computed from the session was significantly related to the child's behavior in the quartet session. Children who displayed social competence (high degree of social initiations and positive affect) exhibited greater relative left frontal activation, while children who displayed social withdrawal (isolated, onlooking, and unoccupied behavior) during the play session exhibited greater relative right frontal activation. Differences among children in frontal asymmetry were a function of power in the left frontal region. These EEG/behavior findings suggest that resting frontal asymmetry may be a marker for certain temperamental dispositions.     

Effects of social insertion mode on performance and interaction in asymmetric dyads

So as to study the effect of socio-cognitive mediation in 96 children aged 5 to 6 we introduced and manipulated 2 factors:

1. —One was an ego-boosting representation of the subject’s ability to perform the task. Forty-eight children carried out a classification task individually. Then, twenty-four of them were told how excellent their performance has been. The other twenty-four children were not told anything. They formed the “expert” group.
2. —The other was the representation the children had of others. Each “expert” child was paired with a partner chosen from the children who had not performed the first task (“novice” subjects). Half of them were told how good has been the partner they were going to work with. Twelve of these children were given that information in the presence of their partner and twelve in his or her absence. The twenty-four remaining novices were not told anything.

The results show that:

1. performance was superior when children worked in dyads, and that dyad composition had an effect on the results.
2. Different interaction modes were observed, depending on dyad composition.

It seems that the way a child is seen by his her partner rather than the way he or she sees himself, so far as a task is concerned, determines both interaction mode and level of achievement.     

Identifying the characteristics of child sexual abuse cases associated with the child or child's parents withdrawing the complaint

Most child sexual abuse cases do not result in a full trial or guilty plea; rather, case attrition occurs at earlier stages of the criminal justice system. One reason for the attrition of these cases is the withdrawal of complaints, by children or their caregivers. The aim of the current study was to determine the case characteristics associated with complaint withdrawal in child sexual abuse cases by the child or his or her parents once a report has been made to authorities. All child sexual abuse incidents reported to authorities in one jurisdiction of Australia in 2011 were analyzed (N = 659). A multinomial logistic regression was used to predict the following case outcomes: (1) withdrawn by the child or his or her parents, (2) exited for other reasons (e.g., the alleged offender was not identified, the child refused to be interviewed), and (3) resulted in a charge. Five predictors significantly added to the prediction of case outcome: child age, suspect gender, suspect age, child–suspect relationship, and abuse frequency. These results should contribute to the design of interventions in order to reduce complaint withdrawals if these withdrawals are not in the child's best interests.     

New Lunchbox,Old Feelings: What Kids Bring to School

Research on the transition to school has shown successful adjustment to be characterized by a high degree of effort, initiative, and positive interaction with peers and adults. These behaviors often have their root in the earliest transactions between infant and caregiver, particularly the infant's experience of having his/her cues and signals responded to in a consistent, sensitive way and the secure attachment which develops from such care. Through experiences with caregivers in the first year of life children begin to develop "working models" of others and self, models which influence how that child behaves at later ages, and which in turn influence how others respond to that child. Children who are deprived of the opportunity to develop a secure attachment often fail to develop the initiative and social skills which would facilitate their transition to school. Teachers' low expectations and negative responses to the child in the first years of school may perpetuate the child's negative working models and decrease the child's chances for subsequent school success. The challenge to us is to contradict the negative working models many children bring to school. This implies l) considering the meaning of the child's behavior within the context of his/her relationship history and current life experiences, 2) consistently and persistently caring for a child even in the face of apparent rejection of our efforts, 3) looking for opportunities to reframe how we and others perceive the child, and 4) being alert to subtle ways in which we and others may be perpetuating negative working models held by both the child and his/her parents.     

Promotion of Pretend Play for Children with High-Functioning Autism Through the Use of Circumscribed Interests

The purpose of this paper is to describe effective methods of developing pretend play that is intrinsically motivating for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the topic of circumscribed interests. Children with ASD often develop very specialized interests, known as Circumscribed Interests (CI). However, their limited and intense interests are often perceived by others, especially by parents, as interfering with their learning and social interactions with others. This paper reports how one parent fostered pretend play in her preschool child with autism based on his CI in “trains.” Four steps for promoting pretend play for preschool children with autism using their topic of interest are presented. These include (1) Creating a web, (2) Modeling pretend play through use of divergent materials, (3) Modeling verbal interaction in pretend play, and (4) Providing theme boxes and field trips/excursions. The author concludes that the four steps are useful for not only fostering their active involvement in pretend play, but also in helping their topic of special interest expand into a wide range of pretend play. In addition, creating webs based on CI may enable caregivers or teachers to intentionally provide meaningful experience with specific outcomes in mind for children with autism.     

An Observational Study of Social Communication Skills in Eight Preschoolers with and Without Hearing Loss During Cooperative Play

Early peer relationships and interactions influence social acceptance and a child’s ability to form social relationships later in life (Ladd 2005). Although it has been reported that some children with profound hearing loss who have experienced the oral approach since diagnosis display language skills similar to children with typical hearing (DeLuzio and Girolametto 2011), many may still be excluded socially and have subtle communication differences that impact friendships. More information is needed about how differences and similarities are manifested in young children with hearing loss. This investigation observed the frequency of three social communicative behaviors displayed by eight preschoolers with and without hearing loss as they played in dyads during unstructured table activities. The results revealed that the children with hearing loss produced about a quarter as many initiated verbal comments; however, they engaged in more verbal and play turns than their playmates with typical hearing. Implications for teaching young children with hearing loss in inclusive preschool settings are discussed.     

Androgen and the Development of Human Sex-typical Behavior: Rough-and-Tumble Play and Sex of Preferred Playmates in Children with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH)

We hypothesized that girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), who experience higher than normal levels of androgens prenatally, would show masculinization of behaviors that show sex differences. Therefore, we examined rough-and-tumble play and sex of preferred playmates in 3–8-year-old children with CAH and in unaffected 3–8-year-old male and female relatives. The hypothesized sex differences in rough-and-tumble play were seen, with unaffected boys showing more rough-and-tumble play than unaffected girls. However, CAH girls were similar to unaffected girls. Additionally, CAH boys showed reduced rough-and-tumble play. In contrast, sex of preferred playmates showed the hypothesized pattern of results. There were sex differences, with unaffected boys preferring boys and unaffected girls preferring girls. In addition, the preferences of girls with CAH were masculinized compared to those of unaffected girls. Results are discussed in terms of possible influences of social, hormonal, and illness factors.     

Two-Year-Old Children's Sensitivity to a Parent's Knowledge State When Making Requests

These studies examined whether toddlers take their communicative partners' knowledge states into account when communicating with them. In Study 1 , 16 2-year-old children (mean age 2-7) had to ask a parent for help in retrieving a toy. On each trial, a child was first introduced to a new toy that was then placed in 1 of 2 containers on a high shelf. The parent either witnessed these events along with the child or did not because she or he had left the room or had covered her or his eyes and ears. As predicted, when asking for help in retrieving the toy, children significantly more often named the toy, named its location, and gestured to its location when a parent had not witnessed these events than when she or he had. In Study 2, 16 2-year-old children (mean age 2-3) had to ask a parent for help in retrieving a sticker dropped into 1 of 2 identical containers placed out of reach in the far corners of a table. The parent either witnessed, along with the child, which container the sticker was dropped into or did not because her or his eyes were closed. In their requests for help, young 2-year-old children gestured to the sticker's location significantly more often when the parent did not know its location than when she or he did. The implications of these findings for current characterizations of 2-year-old children's ability to assess the knowledge of others is discussed.     

"微格教研"探索与实践

“微格教研”是“微格教学”的变式。它是用摄像机记录教师的教学行为,以放像再现及时反馈,供教师个人和教研组活动进行分析、评价的一种研究课堂教学,提高教师教学能力的方法。“微格教研”不仅注重讲什么,还注重怎样讲,并将教研活动的重点转移到研究怎样教。我们将“微格教研”结果应用于课堂教学,使教学的各个环节优化,有效地提高了课堂教学质量。     

Child abuse in residential institutions and community programs for intervention and prevention

Needless to say, residential institutions for children vary in size, cost, quality, reason for placement, and many other factors. Even with this diversity, it is possible to find abuse in any institutional setting.Any decision to remove a child from his or her family must be made only after careful deliberation. Each case will have its own special challenge(s) and uniqueness, and improper decisions may be fatal at worst, or emotionally scarring at best. Strong efforts must be made to insure that the child is seen as a human being with special needs and problems, and not merely one more case to be managed within the system.