Stylistic Variation at the "Single-Word" Stage: Relations between Maternal Speech Characteristics and Children's Vocabulary Composition and Usage

In this study we test a number of different claims about the nature of stylistic variation at the "single-word" stage by examining the relation between variation in early vocabulary composition, variation in early language use, and variation in the structural and functional propreties of mothers' child-directed speech. Maternal-report and observational data were collected for 26 children at 10, 50, and 100 words, These were then correlated with a variety of different measures of maternal speech at 10 words, The results show substantial variation in the percentage of common nouns and unanalyzed phrases in children's vocabularies, and singficant relations between this variation and the way in which language is used by the child. They also reveal singficant relations between the way in whch mothers use language at 10 words and the way in chich their children use language at 50 words and between certain formal properties of mothers speech at 10 words and the percentage of common nouns and unanalyzed phrases in children's early vocabularies, However, most of these relations desappear when an attempt is made to control for ossible effects of the child on the mother at Time 1. The exception is a singficant negative correlation between mothers tendency to produce speech that illustrates word boundaries and the percentage of unanalyzed phrases at 50 and 100 words. This suggests that mothers whose sprech provides the child with information about where new words begin and end tend to have children with few unanalyzed. phrases in their early vocabularies.     

A qualitative study of specialist schools’ processes of eliciting the views of young people with autism spectrum disorders in planning their transition to adulthood

Government legislation and research literature highlight the importance of the participation of pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in planning for their transition to adulthood. However, effective processes which enable their participation are under‐researched. In this study, nine teaching staff from two specialist schools in the north‐west of England were interviewed and a transition meeting was observed in one school to explore these processes. Analyses indicate that in both schools, enabling the participation of young people with ASD in the planning for their transition to adulthood involves three phases and is underpinned by a person‐centred ethos. Although the processes were perceived to be effective, the participation of pupils varied between schools. Final decisions still tend to be made by schools and the local authority due to limited external resources. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Analogical reasoning in adolescents with intellectual disability: effects of external memories and time processing

Analogical reasoning involves the comparison of pictures as well as the memorisation of relations. Young children (4–7 years old) and students with moderate intellectual disability have a short memory span, which hampers them in succeeding traditional analogical tests. In the present study, we investigated if, by providing external memory hints, the visual aid could enable these participants to succeed in analogies comprising more relations than their memory span was able to manage. Our analogical test, composed of 2 × 2 matrices, was administered in two versions: the standard version, similar to traditional tests, required the participant to memorise all the relations involved in order to discover the solution, whereas the construction version required him/her to construct the answer part by part by using external memories, which potentially increased success by offloading the memory. Our results show that students with moderate intellectual disability reached results similar to typically developing control children when provided with external memory hints (referred to as external memories). Moreover, in the most complex levels of the test, they did not spend more time than control children in solving the analogies.     

For-profit post-secondary education and civic engagement

Theorists such as Gumport (2000) suggest thatdifferent conceptions of higher education mayhave important consequences for students andsociety. We explore this possibility byconsidering a specific research question: Dostudents who attend for-profit post-secondaryschools show lower levels of civic engagementthan students who attend non-profit communitycolleges, either at the beginning of theirstudy or two years later? Using longitudinal data from the U.S. NationalCenter for Education Statistics (NCES)National Post-secondary Student Aid Survey(NPSAS90) and Beginning Post-secondary Survey(BPS), we test the hypothesis that students whoattend for-profit, post-secondary vocationalschools will show lower levels of civicengagement on several measures than similarstudents in community colleges. Studentsattending the two types of schools are alike intheir levels of civic engagement at thebeginning of their post-secondary education,but different four years later. We considerwhether observed differences in civic behaviorare due to variations in who attends thedifferent types of schools or to identifiableexperiences students may have in theirprograms, such as interactions with faculty orother students. The effect of proprietary school attendance onseven out of the ten different types of civicengagement measured here appears to be direct,rather than being mediated by measurableeducational experiences. We reflect further onprocesses that might explain the differencesand consider the policy implications of thesefindings for educational decision-makers.     

An International Call for Democratizing the Academic Journal Culture From a Community of Editors

In our reflective essay from our multiple perspectives as journal editors, peer reviewers, and published authors, we present ideas about editorial support, democracy, and innovation in the publishing process. As four tenured professors who work in universities in the states of Illinois, Virginia, Texas, and Kentucky, we are a community of editors who are committed to a transparent, service-oriented support process. Our collective experience has allowed us to shape numerous academic bodies of work, culminating in an experiential point of view that reflects a political take on the support role of editors. We include lengthy, databased statements from journal editors in the form of vignettes that underscore the importance of community-based, democratic editorial practices that are themselves simultaneously personal testimonials and political statements. Our call is intended to foster large-scale social change within the academic editorial culture through global understanding about the sensibilities of editors and reviewers as well as authors and publishers engaged in the complex work of publication review. Our academic goal is to enhance fair practices and inclusive opportunities, worldwide, through more relational, equitable, and supportive editorial practices.     

Preschool children's reasoning about ability

Young children's reasoning about ability was investigated among 155 preschoolers (M = 4 years, 10 months) across 3 studies. Results suggest that preschoolers are sensitive to mental state information when making judgments about another child's ability: They judged a child who finds a task easy to be smarter than one who finds the same task hard. Systematic patterns of errors on recall tasks suggest that preschoolers perceive positive correlations between (a) exerting effort and experiencing academic success, and (b) being nice and having high academic ability. Results from a comparison group of forty 9- to 10-year-olds (M = 9 years, 10 months) suggest that the preschool findings generally reflect emerging patterns of reasoning about ability that persist into later childhood, but that the perceived correlations between high effort and academic outcomes and between social and academic traits diminish with age.     

Adaptive emotion regulation,academic performance and internalising problems in Flemish children with special educational needs: a pilot study

School readiness of children with special educational needs (SEN) is still understudied. The present study examined how the presumed bidirectional relationship between impaired academic performance (AP) and internalising problems (IP) could be favourably influenced. In this regard, it was assumed that children’s adaptive emotion regulation plays a crucial role, as it was shown to be independently related to improved AP and fewer IP. However, to gain stronger evidence for this assumption, it should be further clarified whether adaptive emotion regulation, AP and IP are also jointly associated and, if so, how this is reflected in children with SEN. To explore these issues, two different models were tested in a cross-sectional pilot including 61 Flemish elementary school children with SEN (39 boys and 22 girls, mean age = 10.0 years old). Teachers reported on adaptive emotion regulation, AP and IP. The results indicated that AP partially mediated the relationship between adaptive emotion regulation and IP (Model 1), while IP fully mediated the relationship between adaptive emotion regulation and AP (Model 2). Practical implications, strengths and limitations were discussed.     

Providing Effective Mentoring for Alternate Rout Beginning Teachers

Abstract

This two‐semester study compared two designs of coursework and field experience in a teacher preparation program. Participants were 62 preservice teachers. Data were collected from their observations of mentor teachers’ instruction and their analyses of these observations. Data were analyzed by constant comparative analysis and analytic statistics. The study found that the design, organized to bring the field experience into the methods course, enhanced preservice teacher abilities to understand and explain instructional observations. The results have implications for the integration of methods coursework and field experience, likely across content areas.     

A Methylome‐Wide Association Study of Trajectories of Oppositional Defiant Behaviors and Biological Overlap With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

In 671 mother–child (49% male) pairs from an epidemiological birth cohort, we investigated (a) prospective associations between DNA methylation (at birth) and trajectories (ages 7–13) of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and the ODD subdimensions of irritable and headstrong; (b) common biological pathways, indexed by DNA methylation, between ODD trajectories and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); (c) genetic influence on DNA methylation; and (d) prenatal risk exposure associations. Methylome‐wide significant associations were identified for the ODD and headstrong, but not for irritable. Overlap analysis indicated biological correlates between ODD, headstrong, and ADHD. DNA methylation in ODD and headstrong was (to a degree) genetically influenced. DNA methylation associated with prenatal risk exposures of maternal anxiety (headstrong) and cigarette smoking (ODD and headstrong).