Memory Profile of Children with Nonverbal Learning Disability

The aim of this study was to compare visual and verbal memory in children with nonverbal learning disability (NLD) using the Children's Memory Scale and to identify the profile of strengths and weaknesses in visual memory abilities. Performance was significantly lower on measures of visual than verbal memory, indicating that children with NLD have deficits in visual memory despite adequate verbal memory. A unique pattern of performance emerged for the visual but not the verbal subtests. Performance on the Faces Immediate subtest was well below average, although other measures of visual memory were within the average range. Hence, it appears that children with NLD have a specific deficit on immediate memory for faces. This facial memory deficit may be linked to a deficit in right hemisphere functioning, which has already been implicated in facial processing and may also be linked with other disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder) in which similar facial processing deficits have been documented. More research is needed to further understand the visual memory profile of children with NLD and to inform instruction and remediation.     

An easy-to-hard effect after nonreinforced preexposure in a sweetness discrimination

Experiments 1A and 1B used a taste-aversion procedure with rats to demonstrate that exposure to easily discriminated flavors along a dimension (1 % and 10 % sucrose) can facilitate learning a subsequent hard discrimination (4 % and 7 % sucrose) when one of those flavors is paired with illness. Experiment 1A compared the effects of preexposure to the easily discriminated flavors against exposure to the same stimuli used in the discrimination training or no exposure at all. Experiment 1B replicated the conditions in Experiment 1A, with 2 additional days of training and unrestricted access to the flavors on CS+/CS– trials in discrimination training. Contrary to findings with multidimensional stimuli (Scahill & Mackintosh, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 96–103, 2004; Suret & McLaren, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56B, 30–42, 2003), we found that preexposure to the easily discriminable stimuli varying along a single dimension of sweetness facilitated subsequent discrimination training over the other conditions in each experiment. We discuss the results in terms of the ideas presented by Gibson (1969) and Mackintosh (Psychological Review, 82, 276–298, 1975) and in terms of hedonic variables not considered by theories of perceptual learning.     

Examining Transcultural Spiritual Literacies Among Latino Children Through Artifactual Mediations

Although the notion of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) has been well studied and affirmed as important in recognizing the strengths of children and developing inclusive pedagogical models (Albright & Luke, 2008), this article presents a study of transcultural spiritual literacy—an element of cultural capital that is often overlooked, seldom studied in an organized fashion (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p. 23), and rarely validated in pedagogical inquiry as a vital indicator of children’s meaning-making. However, this important form of cultural capital threads through the lives of children who participated in this study, which provided a “multi-modal ethnographic gaze” (Rowsell, 2011, p. 335) of spiritual literacies of 14 children from first-generation immigrant Latino families at a U.S. church-affiliated community center. This article, which discusses part of that study, will focus on the artifactual mediations of one of those children: Paulina. Spirituality, although not synonymous with religion in our study, overlaps with religion in both space and ideology, and surround issues including identity, transcultural navigations, and sociocritical perspectives and understandings.     

Video clips for YouTube: Collaborative video creation as an educational concept for knowledge acquisition and attitude change related to obesity stigmatization

Mobile phones and advanced web-based video tools have pushed forward new paradigms for using video in education: Today, students can readily create and broadcast their own digital videos for others and create entirely new patterns of video-based information structures for modern online-communities and multimedia environments. This paradigm shift in video usage can be used for advanced learning about complex topics in higher education, for example, learning about socio-scientific or medical topics. Yet–technology aside–applicable educational concepts using collaborative video creation as a method need to be developed. In the present study, we investigate a specific concept designed to fight obesity stigmatization by developing knowledge using a learning-through-design-approach. We expected that creating videos can actually contribute to a deeper understanding of obesity and to a reduction in stigmatizing attitudes–when compared to a control condition. Dependent measures were based on the students’ video products, obesity-related knowledge and attitudes. The course group assessed their own knowledge on causes of obesity and stigmatization because of obesity higher in the post-test than a control group who read a newspaper article on the topic. A corresponding significant reduction in stigmatizing attitudes was found. In sum, results indicate significant differences between students who produced YouTube videos and a control group of students. The results are interpreted as a confirmation of our initial assumptions and evidence indicating that the program is successfully applicable in higher education.     

Stability robustness of perturbed structured systems

In this paper, the robust stability problem of structured linear systems is analyzed. In order to preserve the structure of the initial system, the structure of the admissible perturbations is characterized. Frobenius and infinity matrix norms are used to study the robust stability of the system affected by different admissible perturbations. Upper bounds for the perturbations are obtained, which guarantee that the perturbed system remains stable. Finally, some examples are shown to illustrate the results.     

LEARNING POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT AND ADAPTATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: THE USEFULNESS OF THE ACFS FOR ASSESSING IMMIGRANT PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy‐six preschool‐children were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish‐speaking immigrants/non‐Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K‐BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance.     

Social Support,Quality of Life,and University Programs for Seniors

In addition to educating and extending knowledge, university programs for seniors, at least the university program for seniors at the University of the Balearic Islands during the period analyzed, also fulfil physical and psychological health-related functions specifically related to our analysis of social support. This article reaches several conclusions on social support that reaffirm the idea of the role these university programs play in seniors' lives. Reducing these programs to a purely instructive approach would not only be a conceptual error, but would also overlook the effects and impacts they have on seniors' quality of life, regardless of the knowledge that may be acquired.     

Faculty Employment Trends in Criminology and Criminal Justice

The academic job search process is perhaps one of the most important and stressful events for scholars hoping to gain full‐time employment in academia. The stress that this process induces is due, at least in part, to the fact that candidates are forced to make important, life‐changing decisions with very little information. The goal of the present study is to provide an update on faculty employment trends in criminology and criminal justice by examining faculty position announcements posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) from August 2004 to July 2009. Findings reveal that candidates seeking assistant professor positions will have the most choice, as positions posted at this rank make up the largest category of advertisements. Furthermore, when a specialization was included in the announcement, most departments sought those with a law enforcement focus, followed by generalists.     

The Effect of Addition and Subtraction Practice within a Word-Problem Intervention on Addition and Subtraction Outcomes

This study examined the influence of addition and subtraction practice embedded within a word-problem intervention for Grade 3 students experiencing word-problem difficulty. Students (N = 448) were randomly assigned to one of two variants of a word-problem intervention or a business-as-usual comparison condition. Within the word-problem interventions, students participated in targeted addition and subtraction fact and computation practice for approximately 3 minutes of each 30-minute session across 47 intervention sessions, but also continually practiced addition and subtraction through word-problem solving. At posttest, students who participated in the intervention demonstrated improved single-digit addition and subtraction performance as well as improved double-digit addition and subtraction performance. At follow-up in Grade 4, persistence of effects was only identified for double-digit addition. Considering addition and subtraction are foundational to many other mathematics skills, addition and subtraction practice serves as an important component of mathematics intervention.     

Potencial De La Educación a Distancia Para Reducir Brechas De Aprendizaje En Educación Superior: Una Mirada Al Caso Colombiano

ABSTRACT

One of the main needs of Latin America, besides education coverage, is to reduce learning gaps in higher education. In order to respond to such need, many strategies have been designed, worldwide, to impact the demand and provision of higher education programs. Among these strategies we can find grants and scholarships, financial aids, and others. Many have been the options that have been proposed to raise the provision of higher education programs, such as offering technology-supported education modalities like blended-learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and distance and online education. This paper aims to explore the potential of the provision of distance education programs to close learning gaps in Colombia’s higher education. In order to do so, we present an estimatation of the effects that students and programs characteristics can have on the results of the test “Saber PRO” (a Colombian standardized test that measures the level of competences developed by students in different higher education programs). This estimation was done applying a mixed model (Hierarchical Linear Modeling-HLM) based on the information of 451,358 students who were assessed in their last phase of their university major. Data were collected from 2016 to 2018.

The econometrics estimations show that controlling individuals’ backgrounds and the characteristics of different academic programs, the variables that were highly associated with the reduction of learning gaps among individuals registered in distance programs compared to face-to-face programs are the students’ age and their cognitive backgrounds (grades in standardized tests taken before their undergraduate studies). The results show that we could expect distance education to become an efficient mechanism to contribute to the reduction of learning gaps in higher education. The quantitative findings suggest a series of research questions that invite to reflect about the potential of distance education in medium-income countries.