Sibling-directed Internal State Language, Perspective Taking, and Affective Behavior

This study examined relations among preschoolers' sibling-directed internal state language, perspective-taking abilities, and sibling-directed affective behaviors in 32 sibling dyads (aged 14 months and 3-4 years) during naturalistic home observations. Preschooler references about internal states (emotions, wants, abilities) were significantly more likely to be (a) about the toddler than the self, and (b) made in the mother's absence and during sibling conflict and play. Relative to poor perspective takers, skillful perspective takers (a) engaged in more instances of internal state discourse and (b) talked more frequently about both the toddler and themselves. Preschoolers engaging in high levels of positive affective behavior also spoke more frequently about internal states than children engaging in low levels of positive affective behavior. Discussion of results highlights the notion that internal state language may be one way of regulating sibling interaction and also a potential means for siblings to construct shared meanings about their world.     

Framing Cross-Cultural Ethical Practice in Adapt[ive] Physical Activity

ABSTRACT

Academics and practitioners are often at a loss when it comes to understanding the ethical socio-political and cultural contexts that invade the world of adapted physical activity. Ethical practice is situated in the local and the specific. In this article we highlight the reality that both academics and practitioners need to be ever mindful that the cultures surrounding the education, sport and rehabilitation components of adapted physical activity are distinctive environments that vary across the globe. Because of the cultural diversity surrounding adapted physical activity, we set out an embryonic framework for ethically thinking about practice in our field. Ultimately, we hope that this framework will go some way to illuminate questions of situated ethical importance that are becoming increasing conundrums within adapted physical activity.     

Building a Creative Ecosystem – The Young Designers on Location Project

This article reports on findings from a research project designed to explore ways in which creativity can be fostered through interactions between selected children, particular environments, materials, techniques and key adults. The Young Designers on Location (YDoL) project was funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), and brought together selected groups of 11 year‐olds with ‘design‐related professionals’ (DRPs) to work together intensively for a week in two locations (Bath Spa University College and Ironbridge Gorge Museum, Shropshire) then subsequently in participants' schools. The findings from case studies of selected individuals within the Bath location include key messages about the quality of environment and relationships in unlocking children's creativity. The study has exemplified aspects of Harrington's model of a ‘creative ecosystem’ [1].     

The development of forgetting and reminiscence

Many theoretical positions on memory development anticipate that forgetting rates should vary substantially with age. The nature of these age variations is also relevant to many applied questions about child development that have major social policy implications, such as the veracity of children's eyewitness testimony and the long-term effectiveness of classroom instruction. Surprisingly, developmental studies of long-term retention have repeatedly produced the puzzling finding that forgetting rates are age invariant. It now seems, however, that these null age trends may have been artifacts of variables such as measurement insensitivity, floor effects, and stages-of-learning confounds. Assuming, as some later studies suggest, that forgetting rates vary with age when these factors are controlled, there are three overriding questions that must be dealt with in the developmental analysis of forgetting: the relative importance of storage failure versus retrieval failure, the relative importance of true forgetting processes versus test-induced processes, and the relative importance of storage-based reminiscence versus retrieval-based reminiscence. We describe a framework (disintegration/redintegation theory) that provides a conceptual environment within which research on these questions can progress. This framework, which evolved from fuzzy-trace theory, reinterprets processes such as storage failure, retrieval failure, restorage, and retrieval relearning in terms of levels of featural integration in traces (i.e., the extent to which contextual information is integrated with core semantic gist to produce a coherent representation). The theory is implemented in a mathematical model (the trace-integrity model) whose parameters deliver measurements of relevant memory processes on a common ratio scale. In a series of experiments, the model was used to study the theory's predictions about the contributions of these memory processes to long-term retention in subjects between the ages of 7 and 70. All the experiments were standard long-term retention designs (an initial acquisition session, followed by a 1-2-week forgetting interval, followed by a series of retention tests).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

"This is a bad dog, you know...": constructing shared meanings during sibling pretend play

The construction of shared meanings in play, pretense enactment, internal state language, and sibling relationship quality were investigated in 40 kindergarteners with an older (M age = 7.10 years) or younger (M age = 3.6 years) sibling. Dyadic strategies to construct shared meanings (e.g., extensions, building on) were positively associated with frequency of pretense and internal state language. Developmental differences indicated that older dyads used more shared meaning strategies, whereas younger dyads engaged in non-maintenance behaviors (i.e., disruptions to flow of play). Furthermore, firstborn kindergarteners used more non-maintenance behaviors, whereas second-born kindergarteners extended partner's ideas. Findings highlight the sibling relationship as a context for illuminating social understanding and relationship dynamics during pretend play.     

RATIONAL NUMBER AND PROPORTIONAL REASONING: USING INTENSIVE QUANTITIES TO PROMOTE ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE

Student mastery of rational number and proportional reasoning is a recognized challenge, yet supporting mastery is central within mathematics and science. This paper focuses on a 4-lesson teaching programme which was designed to foster mastery in the context of intensive quantities. Intensive quantities such as density, speed and temperature depend upon proportional relations, require rational number for their representation and are relevant to science. Two versions of the teaching programme were developed, one using ratio representation and the other using fractions. Implementation with 535 children aged 9–11 years revealed that both versions promoted mastery of fractions, whilst the ratio version also supported proportional reasoning. It is suggested that the ratio version provides useful foundations for teaching, even with children who, as with the present sample, have no previous experience of ratios themselves.     

How can the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu assist sport management research?

Currently there are some key issues that highlight the negative underbelly of sport and of those who manage it. Entrenched gender and racial inequality, corruption, and the marginalization of individuals and groups from organized sport suggest that the study of sport management requires a wider social and ethical dimension to its analyses. In attempting to develop critical research into sport management we ask how can the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu assist sport management research? This paper explicates the benefits of Bourdieu to sport management by suggesting a dynamic, relational approach to the implementation of his practice theory. We introduce the foundations of his opus and review their previous application in the study of organized sport. Drawing on these concepts we recommend adopting a longitudinal, critical, and ethnographic approach for a more nuanced understanding of how complex phenomena impact on the management of sport. This paper presents conceptual and methodological implications in conjunction with a call for further research to increase our critical understanding of sport management.     

An exploratory study of Special Educational Needs Co‐ordinators' knowledge and experience of working with children who have sustained a brain injury

This research aimed to measure Special Educational Needs Co‐ordinators' knowledge of the educational implications of acquired brain injury in children and young people and whether experience of working with pupils with a brain injury or additional training impacts upon this knowledge. Data was collected within one local authority in England using an online survey. The results indicated that the respondents had high levels of uncertainty regarding the impact of a brain injury although they were more confident in those areas which related most closely to their practice. The responses suggested that experience of working with a pupil with a brain injury promoted greater knowledge than receiving training; the results, however, showed that only a minority of SENCos had received any training and those who had tended to have undertaken this independently. This suggests that there is a need for SENCos to be provided with specialist training in order to increase their understanding of the impact of acquired brain injury in children and young people.