Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6–19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria. A meta-analysis (N_cases = 1994) showed elevated NRH % in individuals with language/reading impairment compared with controls (OR = 1.21, CI = 1.06–1.39, p = .01). The association between reading/language impairments and NRH could result from shared pathways underlying brain lateralization, handedness, and cognitive functions.     

Developmental trajectories of behavioral inhibition from infancy to age seven: The role of genetic and environmental risk for psychopathology

The present study leveraged data from a longitudinal adoption study of 361 families recruited between 2003 and 2010 in the United States. We investigated how psychopathology symptoms in birth parents (BP; M_age = 24.1 years; 50.5–62.9% completed high school) and adoptive parents (AP; M_age = 37.8 years; 80.9% completed college; 94% mother–father couples) influenced children's behavioral inhibition (BI) trajectories. We used latent growth models of observed BI at 18 and 27 months, and 4.5 and 7 years in a sample of adopted children (Female = 42%, White = 57%, Black = 11%, Multi-racial = 21%, Latinx = 9%). BI generally decreased over time, yet there was substantial variability in these trajectories. Neither BP nor AP psychopathology symptoms independently predicted systematic differences in BI trajectories. Instead, we found that AP internalizing symptoms moderated the effects of BP psychopathology on trajectories of BI, indicating a gene by environment interaction.     

School counselor educators: A grounded theory of career interest and satisfaction

Annually, there are school counseling specific counselor educator positions that remain unfilled. There is a need for more counselor educators with school counseling backgrounds. This grounded theory provides a model of the process by which school counselor educators decide to enter academia and what keeps them in their positions, based on focus groups with 32 participants. Results showed the reasons for leaving school counseling, what factors promote entry into school counselor education, and what keeps school counselor educators in that role. Implications for counselor education are provided.     

Supporting practitioners in school-based evaluations of autism spectrum disorders

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have vastly different educational needs. Although some students with ASD may perform well across subjects within the general education classroom, other students with ASD may need more individualized support outside of the classroom. Historically, ASD assessments in schools have primarily focused on the measurement of cornerstone behaviors of ASD such as deficits in social communication and restricted or repetitive behaviors while underestimating the focus of academic skills even though both factors are required in the evaluation process and for an eligibility classification. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of academic assessment practices in the schools by highlighting best practices in ASD evaluation, outlining ASD academic profiles and how to identify academic skill deficits, and reviewing the available literature that comes from different formal- and function-based assessment practices that are commonly used in schools today. The authors also discuss how formal- and function-based assessments both serve a purpose and are recommended to be used in conjunction with one another to best demonstrate a student's academic profile. Practitioners are ultimately encouraged to use a multi-informant, multi-modal approach when it comes to psychoeducational evaluations for individuals with ASD as it is evident that an individualized approach is essential due to the discrepancy of academic profiles related to this disability category as well as understanding that no measure is a perfect representation of any one skill.     

Relationship of executive functioning and memory to autism symptomology and adaptive functioning: Implications for reducing future underemployment

Understanding the relationship between executive functioning and its connection to working memory and adaptive functioning can inform planning and employment efforts. This study explored the relationship between memory and adaptive functioning with a sample of Autistic youths/young adults. Participant mean age was 21.3 (SD = 3.0). Of the 22 participants, 17 were male, and 19 white, non-Hispanic/Latina/o/x. All but one lived with their parent(s). Participants were administered a full battery assessing cognitive ability (WAIS-IV), memory and executive functioning (WMS-IV and DKEFS), autism symptomatology (ADOS-II), and adaptive functioning (SIB-R). A multivariate lasso regression model was used. Memory, especially as measured on the WMS-IV, was found to be significantly related to adaptive functioning and autism symptomatology. There appears to be continuing evidence that memory is highly related to adaptive functioning and autism symptomatology. Interventions involving auditory and immediate memory could be helpful in promoting more mutually effective social interactions necessary for positive employment outcomes.     

The Nature of Scientific Explanation: Examining the perceptions of the nature,quality, and “goodness” of explanation among college students,science teachers,and scientists

Issues regarding scientific explanation have been of interest to philosophers from Pre-Socratic times. The notion of scientific explanation is of interest not only to philosophers, but also to science educators as is clearly evident in the emphasis given to K-12 students' construction of explanations in current national science education reform efforts. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research on conceptualizing explanation in science education. Using a philosophically guided framework—the Nature of Scientific Explanation (NOSE) framework—the study aims to elucidate and compare college freshmen science students', secondary science teachers', and practicing scientists' scientific explanations and their views of scientific explanations. In particular, this study aims to: (1) analyze students', teachers', and scientists' scientific explanations; (2) explore the nuances about how freshman students, science teachers, and practicing scientists construct explanations; and (3) elucidate the criteria that participants use in analyzing scientific explanations. In two separate interviews, participants first constructed explanations of everyday scientific phenomena and then provided feedback on the explanations constructed by other participants. Major findings showed that, when analyzed using NOSE framework, participant scientists did significantly “better” than teachers and students. Our analysis revealed that scientists, teachers, and students share a lot of similarities in how they construct their explanations in science. However, they differ in some key dimensions. The present study highlighted the need articulated by many researchers in science education to understand additional aspects specific to scientific explanation. The present findings provide an initial analytical framework for examining students' and science teachers' scientific explanations.     

Instructional practices in secondary science: How teachers achieve local and standards-based success

This article reports on analyses of the instructional practices of six middle- and high-school science teachers in the United States who participated in a research-practice partnership that aims to support reform science education goals at scale. All six teachers were well qualified, experienced, and locally successful—respected by students, parents, colleagues, and administrators—but they differed in their success in supporting students' three-dimensional learning. Our goal is to understand how the teachers' instructional practices contributed to their similarities in achieving local success and to differences in enabling students' learning, and to consider the implications of these findings for research-practice partnerships. Data sources included classroom videos supplemented by interviews with teachers and focus students and examples of student work. We also compared students' learning gains by teacher using pre–post assessments that elicited three-dimensional performances. Analyses of classroom videos showed how all six teachers achieved local success—they led effectively managed classrooms, covered the curriculum by teaching almost all unit activities, and assessed students' work in fair and efficient ways. There were important differences, however, in how teachers engaged students in science practices. Teachers in classrooms where students achieved lower learning gains followed a pattern of practice we describe as activity-based teaching, in which students completed investigations and hands-on activities with few opportunities for sensemaking discussions or three-dimensional science performances. Teachers whose students achieved higher learning gains combined the social stability characteristic of local classroom success with more demanding instructional practices associated with scientific sensemaking and cognitive apprenticeship. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research-practice partnerships, highlighting how partnerships need to support all teachers in achieving both local and standards-based success.     

Disambiguation and co-authorship networks of the U.S. patent inventor database (1975–2010)

Research into invention, innovation policy, and technology strategy can greatly benefit from an accurate understanding of inventor careers. The United States Patent and Trademark Office does not provide unique inventor identifiers, however, making large-scale studies challenging. Many scholars of innovation have implemented ad-hoc disambiguation methods based on string similarity thresholds and string comparison matching; such methods have been shown to be vulnerable to a number of problems that can adversely affect research results. The authors address this issue contributing (1) an application of the Author-ity disambiguation approach (0170 and 0175) to the US utility patent database, (2) a new iterative blocking scheme that expands the match space of this algorithm while maintaining scalability, (3) a public posting of the algorithm and code, and (4) a public posting of the results of the algorithm in the form of a database of inventors and their associated patents. The paper provides an overview of the disambiguation method, assesses its accuracy, and calculates network measures based on co-authorship and collaboration variables. It illustrates the potential for large-scale innovation studies across time and space with visualizations of inventor mobility across the United States. The complete input and results data from the original disambiguation are available at (http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/patent); revised data described here are at (http://funglab.berkeley.edu/pub/disamb_no_postpolishing.csv); original and revised code is available at (https://github.com/funginstitute/disambiguator); visualizations of inventor mobility are at (http://funglab.berkeley.edu/mobility/).     

Small Circles: Mobile Telephony and the Cultivation of the Private Sphere

This article examines how we use mobile telephony to maintain our physically and socially closest social circle. The analysis is based on traffic data gathered from Norway using approximately 24 million calls and texts made by private individuals. Previous research has shown that our temporal and spatial movement is highly predictable and that the majority of calls and text messages are sent to only four to six different persons. This article extends this research by examining both tie strength and the distance between the interlocutors in urban and rural settings. The findings show that even as information and communication technologies (ICTs) potentially put the world at our fingertips, the mobile phone is an instrument of a more limited geographical and social sphere. Approximately two-thirds of our calls/texts go to strong ties that are within a 25-km radius.     

A Strategy for Operationalizing Privacy by Design

Recent controversies surrounding privacy have sparked a move by regulators toward the idea of privacy by design (PbD), a concept pioneered by Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian. Industry has also started to recognize the importance of taking privacy seriously, with various PbD corporate initiatives currently underway. However, some commentators have criticized PbD for being too vague. Using three case studies and a range of best practice examples of PbD, privacy impact assessments (PIAs), and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), this article addresses the gap between the abstract principles of PbD and their operationalization into more concrete implementation guidelines for software engineers.