Discourse comprehension intervention for high‐functioning students with autism spectrum disorders: preliminary findings from a school‐based study

Many students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate comprehension difficulties. In the present study, 12 high‐functioning Swedish students with ASD (aged 10–15 years) took part in a naturalistic classroom‐based intervention to support comprehension of connected narrative discourse. An effective approach for supporting discourse comprehension in children with ASD was assumed to include: (i) providing teachers and students with a shared and explicit set of concepts for talking and thinking about the activity of comprehension, that (ii) can structure the child's discourse comprehension under scaffolding and modelling from the teacher. In the pre‐testing session, the students with ASD presented with poor discourse comprehension but receptive vocabulary and reading decoding skills close to normative performance. Post‐intervention test results, following 4 weeks of training, indicated specific and significant improvements in discourse comprehension. Support for the potential of this type of teaching was also obtained from teachers and students. The teachers reported that they would continue to use the same or similar comprehension instruction for 11 out of 12 students, and for multiple reasons, and students were also mostly positive to the training. Implications for practice and further research are discussed, as are limitations of the study.     

Enhancing self-regulation and approaches to learning in first-year college students: a narrative-based programme assessed in the Iberian Peninsula

A programme to enhance first-year college students’ self-regulated learning strategies is proposed and assessed in two samples, one from the University of Oviedo (Spain) and the other from the University of Minho (Portugal). Each sample was divided into two groups (experimental and control). The Spanish sample comprised 44 students in the experimental group and 40 in the control group, whereas in the Portuguese sample, the number of students was 48 and 44, respectively. The narrative-based intervention programme is organised around a set of fictional letters from a first-year college student in which he reports his own academic experiences. Each letter focuses on a learning strategy as an opportunity to teach and enhance the students’ deep approaches to learning and their self-regulated learning processes. In both samples, findings confirm the programme efficacy to teach efficient learning strategies and to promote self-regulation. Implications for college students and for teaching are discussed.     

Classroom interaction: Potential or problem? The case of Karagwe

This paper discusses interactional patterns in classrooms in primary school in rural Tanzania, based on an ethnographic study on literacy practices. The paper argues that the official policy of Swahili-only in primary school, together with the huge gap between high expectations on educational outcome and lack of resources, have resulted in the creation of safety strategies among pupils and teachers. These safety strategies include interactional patterns that also constitute a hindrance for students’ learning. However, I claim that these interactional patterns could constitute a potential for educational development, if research findings from bilingual education were taken into account.     

Public and Popular: British and Swedish Audience Trends in Factual and Reality Television

The research in this article examines audience responses to a range of factual and reality genres. It takes as a starting point that television audiences do not experience news or documentary or reality TV in isolation but as part of a range of factual and reality programmes. Factual and reality programming includes a broad understanding of non-fictional programming on broadcast television, satellite, cable and digital television. The breakdown of factual and reality programming into specific genres includes news, current affairs, documentary, and reality programmes, with further sub genres applied within each of these categories. This article critically examines genre evaluation. The quantitative research in this article is based on two national representative surveys conducted in Britain and Sweden. In both Britain and Sweden, programme makers have moved towards a reliance on popular factual genres. In Britain this is across all channels, and in Sweden this is mainly concentrated on commercial channels. Whilst there is still a commitment to news, there is an increasing use of hybrid genres in an attempt to popularise factual output. The impact of this changing generic environment on audiences is that in both countries viewers have reacted by drawing a line between traditional and contemporary factual genres. It is precisely because of the redrawing of the factual map that viewers rely on traditional ways of evaluating genres as public and informative, or popular and entertaining. The data provides evidence that contributes to existing debate on television genre, public service broadcasting, and media literacy skills. The central argument in this article is that genre evaluation is connected with wider socio-cultural discourses on public service broadcasting and popular culture, and that these are common social and cultural values that are shared by national audiences in two Northern European countries.     

Comparison of dynamic visual acuity between water polo players and sedentary students

In this study, we examined differences in dynamic visual acuity between elite and subelite water polo players and sedentary students. To measure dynamic visual acuity binocularly, we asked participants to indicate the orientation of a broken ring, similar to the Landolt C, which increased in size as it moved across a computer screen. Two different speeds, three possible trajectories, and two different levels of contrast were evaluated. There were statistically significant differences between elite players and sedentary students for each combination of speed, contrast, and trajectory. Elite players achieved better dynamic visual acuity scores, and results also improved for some combinations of speed, contrast, and trajectory. Comparison between elite and subelite groups failed to reveal any     

Infants Segment Continuous Events Using Transitional Probabilities

Throughout their 1st year, infants adeptly detect statistical structure in their environment. However, little is known about whether statistical learning is a primary mechanism for event segmentation. This study directly tests whether statistical learning alone is sufficient to segment continuous events. Twenty‐eight 7‐ to 9‐month‐old infants viewed a sequence of continuous actions performed by a novel agent in which there were no transitional movements that could have constrained the possible upcoming actions. At test, infants distinguished statistically intact units from less predictable ones. The ability to segment events using statistical structure may help infants discover other cues to event boundaries, such as intentions, and carve up the world of continuous motion in meaningful ways.     

Deconstructing Building Blocks: Preschoolers' Spatial Assembly Performance Relates to Early Mathematical Skills

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3‐year‐olds' spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathematical skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concurrent mathematical performance. Finally, the relation between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent‐reported spatial language was examined. While children's performance did not differ by gender, lower SES children were already lagging behind higher SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children.     

Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language

Language learning takes place in the context of social interactions, yet the mechanisms that render social interactions useful for learning language remain unclear. This study focuses on whether social contingency might support word learning. Toddlers aged 24–30 months (N = 36) were exposed to novel verbs in one of three conditions: live interaction training, socially contingent video training over video chat, and noncontingent video training (yoked video). Results suggest that children only learned novel verbs in socially contingent interactions (live interactions and video chat). This study highlights the importance of social contingency in interactions for language learning and informs the literature on learning through screen media as the first study to examine word learning through video chat technology.     

Planning in Middle Childhood: Early Predictors and Later Outcomes

Data from 1,364 children and families who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were analyzed to track the early correlates and later academic outcomes of planning during middle childhood. Maternal education, through its effect on parenting quality when children were 54 months old, predicts their concurrent performance on sustained attention, inhibition, and short‐term verbal memory tests. This performance predicts planning in first grade, which predicts third‐grade reading and mathematics attainment, but not the rate of growth in academic skills from first to fifth grades. This path was also found when the same parenting, cognitive, and academic constructs were measured at later time points.     

Youth victimization in Sweden: Prevalence,characteristics and relation to mental health and behavioral problems in young adulthood

The present study examines multiple types of victimization simultaneously, their prevalence and characteristics in childhood and adolescence, and it examines the associations between victimization and poly-victimization on the one hand and single and multiple mental health and behavioral problems on the other. The sample consisted of 2,500 Swedish young adults (20–24 years) who provided detailed report of multiple types of lifetime victimization and current health and behaviors via an interview and a questionnaire. Results showed that it was more common to be victimized in adolescence than in childhood and more common to be victimized repeatedly rather than a single time, among both males and females. Males and females were victimized in noticeably different ways and partially at different places and by different perpetrators. With regard to mental health and behavioral problems, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, self-harm, and criminality were clearly overrepresented among both males and females who had experienced any type of victimization. Poly-victimization was related to single and multiple mental health and behavioral problems among both males and females. We conclude that professionals need to conduct thorough evaluations of victimization when completing mental health assessments among troubled youths, and that youth might benefit from the development of interventions for poly-victimized youth.