Parenting during the Second Year: Effects of Children's Age, Sex, and Attachment Classification

70 2-parent families with 12-month-old infants and 67 2-parent families with 18-month-old toddlers participated in the study. Mothers and fathers participated in separate interviews and filled out questionnaires on family and child behaviors. Mothers and their children participated in the Ainsworth Strange Situation, and the families were observed for a total of 4 hours in their homes. Families were compared on composite measures of family environment variables, parents' perception of their children, and on process variables from home observations. Family differences in environmental stress and marital adjustment showed no effects for attachment classifications, although parents of 12-month-olds reported greater marital adjustment and more pleasure in parenting than parents of 18-months-olds. Both mothers and fathers reported that children classified as resistant were more difficult on several temperament measures. During home observations, 12-month-old children received more positive responses from mothers, and 18-month-old children received more instructions and directions from both parents. Insecure boys (both avoidant and resistant) received the least instructions and directions from both parents, but insecure-avoidant girls received the most instruction from fathers.     

Signaling functions of the second-order CS: Partial reinforcement during second-order conditioning of the pigeon’s keypeck

The signaling function of the second-order CS (S2) was manipulated in second-order autoshaping by arranging a partial reinforcement schedule. S2 was paired with a well-conditioned first-order CS (SI) on a continuous reinforcement or a 25% reinforcement schedule in different groups. Schedule of reinforcement did not influence the number of S2-S1 pairings required to establish keypecking to S2. However, in the postacquisition sessions, responding to S2 was initially weaker but persisted for many more sessions on the 25% schedule than on the 100% schedule. The data indicate that S2-S1 pairings are responsible both for the acquisition of second-order keypecking to S2 and for the subsequent conversion of S2 into an inhibitory stimulus.     

Adolescent smoking from a functional perspective: The Berlin-Bremen Study

Longitudinal data from the «Berlin-Bremen Study on Health Behavior» are used to investigate smoking transitions between different stages of smoking. 1357 seventh and eighth graders were asked about their smoking behavior, their expectations with regard to smoking, smoking in their environment, and their self-image in Fall, 1983. 86% and 81% participated again one and two years later, respectively. Analyses of carbon monoxide and serum thiocyanate levels revealed adequate validity for self-reported smoking behavior. Rates of smoking were dramatically different for different educational strata. Direct and indirect functions of smoking are distinguished. The «indirect» function refers to smoking as a means of obtaining access to peer groups, thus increasing one’s psychological well-being. Direct functions refer to social and affective effects of smoking such as looking older or calming down. In line with expectations, indirect functions were found to be more important for younger adolescents and for smoking onset. In contrast, direct functions were better predictors of the smoking behavior of older adolescents and of the transition to regular smoking.     

Instructional and curricular requisites of mainstreamed students with learning disabilities

The successful integration of students with learning disabilities into mainstream reading classes may require teachers to adapt instruction and curricula in major ways. In this article, we discuss the relation between the instruction prescribed by standardized commercial curricula and the reading achievement of mainstreamed students with learning disabilities and other low-performing nonhandicapped students. An instructional template designed to complement commercially published reading lessons is described and its effects on the reading achievement of mainstreamed students with learning disabilities examined. Next, the limitations of generic instructional procedures to rectify the deficiencies of mainstream curricular programs for students with greater-than-average instructional needs are reviewed. We conclude with a discussion of the complexity of educating instructively needy learners in mainstream settings and the significance of well-designed instruction.     

Txt msg n school literacy: does texting and knowledge of text abbreviations adversely affect children's literacy attainment?

This paper reports on two studies which investigated the relationship between children's texting behaviour, their knowledge of text abbreviations and their school attainment in written language skills. In Study One, 11–12‐year‐old children provided information on their texting behaviour. They were also asked to translate a standard English sentence into a text message and vice versa. The children's standardised verbal and non‐verbal reasoning scores were also obtained. Children who used their mobiles to send three or more text messages a day had significantly lower scores than children who sent none. However, the children who, when asked to write a text message, showed greater use of text abbreviations (‘textisms’) tended to have better performance on a measure of verbal reasoning ability, which is highly associated with Key Stage 2 (KS2) and 3 English scores. In Study Two, children's performance on writing measures was examined more specifically. Ten to eleven‐year‐old children were asked to complete another English to text message translation exercise. Spelling proficiency was also assessed, and KS2 Writing scores were obtained. Positive correlations between spelling ability and performance on the translation exercise were found, and group‐based comparisons based on the children's writing scores also showed that good writing attainment was associated with greater use of textisms, although the direction of this association is nor clear. Overall, these findings suggest that children's knowledge of textisms is not associated with poor written language outcomes for children in this age range.     

Accelerating chronically unresponsive children to tier 3 instruction: what level of data is necessary to ensure selection accuracy?

Response-to-intervention (RTI) approaches to disability identification are meant to put an end to the so-called wait-to-fail requirement associated with IQ discrepancy. However, in an unfortunate irony, there is a group of children who wait to fail in RTI frameworks. That is, they must fail both general classroom instruction (Tier 1) and small-group intervention (Tier 2) before becoming eligible for the most intensive intervention (Tier 3). The purpose of this article was to determine how to predict accurately which at-risk children will be unresponsive to Tiers 1 and 2, thereby allowing unresponsive children to move directly from Tier 1 to Tier 3. As part of an efficacy study of a multitier RTI approach to prevention and identification of reading disabilities (RD), 129 first-grade children who were unresponsive to classroom reading instruction were randomly assigned to 14 weeks of small-group, Tier 2 intervention. Nonresponders to this instruction (n = 33) were identified using local norms on first-grade word identification fluency growth linked to a distal outcome of RD at the end of second grade. Logistic regression models were used to predict membership in responder and nonresponder groups. Predictors were entered as blocks of data from least to most difficult to obtain: universal screening data, Tier 1 response data, norm referenced tests, and Tier 2 response data. Tier 2 response data were not necessary to classify students as responders and nonresponders to Tier 2 instruction, suggesting that some children can be accurately identified as eligible for Tier 3 intervention using only Tier 1 data, thereby avoiding prolonged periods of failure to instruction.     

Responsiveness-to-intervention: a decade later

In this introduction to this special issue, "A Decade Later," we provide an overview of the accomplishments as well as the persistent questions surrounding RTI. We organize this discussion within 3 categories: assessment, instruction, and policy. Within each of these sections, we also highlight how the articles in the present special issue expand upon the key issues. Developed initially for the early grades (kindergarten through third grade) and primarily in the area of reading, many-although not all-of these issues speak to the expansion of RTI to address a broader set of academic content areas and the full range of grade levels.     

First-grade cognitive abilities as long-term predictors of reading comprehension and disability status

In a sample of 195 first graders selected for poor reading performance, the authors explored four cognitive predictors of later reading comprehension and reading disability (RD) status. In fall of first grade, the authors measured the children's phonological processing, rapid automatized naming (RAN), oral language comprehension, and nonverbal reasoning. Throughout first grade, they also modeled the students' reading progress by means of weekly Word Identification Fluency (WIF) tests to derive December and May intercepts. The authors assessed their reading comprehension in the spring of Grades 1-5. With the four cognitive variables and the WIF December intercept as predictors, 50.3% of the variance in fifth-grade reading comprehension was explained: 52.1% of this 50.3% was unique to the cognitive variables, 13.1% to the WIF December intercept, and 34.8% was shared. All five predictors were statistically significant. The same four cognitive variables with the May (rather than December) WIF intercept produced a model that explained 62.1% of the variance. Of this amount, the cognitive variables and May WIF intercept accounted for 34.5% and 27.7%, respectively; they shared 37.8%. All predictors in this model were statistically significant except RAN. Logistic regression analyses indicated that the accuracy with which the cognitive variables predicted end-of-fifth-grade RD status was 73.9%. The May WIF intercept contributed reliably to this prediction; the December WIF intercept did not. Results are discussed in terms of a role for cognitive abilities in identifying, classifying, and instructing students with severe reading problems.