Temperament, Emotion, and Cognition at Fourteen Months: The MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study

200 pairs of twins were assessed at 14 months of age in the laboratory and home. Measures were obtained of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language. Comparisons between identical and fraternal twin correlations suggest that individual differences are due in part to heritable influences. For temperament, genetic influence was significant for behavioral observations of inhibition to the unfamiliar, tester ratings of activity, and parental ratings of temperament. For emotion, significant genetic influence was found for empathy and parental ratings of negative emotion. The estimate of heritability for parental report of expression of negative emotions was relatively high, whereas that for expression of positive emotions was low, a finding consistent with previous research. For cognition and language, genetic influence was significant for behavioral indices of spatial memory, categorization, and word comprehension. Shared rearing environment appears influential for parental reports of language and for positive emotions, but not for other measures of emotion or for temperament.     

Improving Academic Performance of Sport and Exercise Science Undergraduate Students in Gross Anatomy Using a Near-Peer Teaching Program

Peer and near-peer teaching programs are common in medical undergraduate courses. However, there are no studies that have investigated the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of undergraduate students pursuing sport and exercise science coursework. This study was conducted to analyze the effectiveness of such a program for students who participated in a course on the functional anatomy of the locomotor apparatus. A total of 39 student participants were divided into two groups: students in one group voluntarily attended at least one session of a near-peer teaching program, and students in the other group attended no sessions. The final grade (range 0–100%) was recorded and used as an indicator of academic performance. The final grade of students who attended the near-peer teaching program (69.5 ± 16.0%) was 38.7% higher (P = 0.002, d = 1.06) than those who did not (50.1 ± 20.4%). When the academic performance of the same students was evaluated in another course (exercise physiology) that did not offer a near-peer teaching program, there were no significant differences between the groups (students who attended or did not attend the near-peer teaching program). A significant positive association was found between near-peer teaching program frequency and the number of students approved and not approved in the course (P = 0.041). A significant difference (P = 0.001) was found in the attendance at regular classes between the group who participated in the near-peer teaching program (median: 62 hours; IQR [interquartile ranges]: 4.0 hours) and those who did not (median: 58 hours; IQR: 4.0 hours). Gender was not a moderating factor on academic performance or near-peer teaching program attendance. These results highlight the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of students from a sport and exercise science degree program while enrolled in an anatomy course. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Effect of 6-weeks WBVT on the behaviour of the lower limb muscle fibres during vertical jumping

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of 6 weeks of whole body vibration training (WBVT) on body composition, muscle activity of the gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis, gastrocnemius muscle architecture (static and dynamic) and ground reaction forces (performance jump) during the take-off phase of a countermovement jump in young healthy adult males. A total of 33 men (23.31 ± 5.62 years) were randomly assigned to a whole body vibration group (experimental group, EG_WBVT: n = 17; 22.11 ± 4.97 years) or a control group (CG: n = 16; 24.5 ± 6.27 years). The total duration of the intervention phase (WBVT) was 6 weeks with a frequency of 3 sessions per week. Statistically significant differences were observed (P ≤ 0.05) between pre- and post-test in the power peak (Δ 1.91 W · kg^?1; P = 0.001), take-off velocity (0.1 cm · s^?1; P = 0.002) and jump height (Δ 0.4 cm; P = 0.002) for EG_WBVT. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the body composition and muscle architecture variables. Moreover, no significant differences were found between EG_WBVT and CG nor changes in muscle activity during take-off phase of the gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis pre- versus post-training. This study suggests that a 6-week WBVT programme with increasing intensity improves jump performance but does not alter muscle activity nor muscle architecture in healthy young men.     

Effects of an unsupervised pedometer-based physical activity program on daily steps of adults with moderate to severe asthma: a randomized controlled trial

Supervised exercise has shown benefits for subjects with asthma, but little is known about the effectiveness of unsupervised physical activity on this population. We investigated the effects of a 12-week unsupervised pedometer-based physical activity program on daily steps and on clinical and psychological parameters of adults with asthma. Clinically stable adults with moderate to severe asthma were encouraged to take daily 30-minute walks and were randomized to pedometer and control groups. The pedometer group received pedometers and individualized daily step targets. Changes in daily steps (average of steps taken during six consecutive days), six-minute walk test (6MWT), health-related quality of life, asthma control and anxiety and depression levels were assessed 12 weeks after intervention and 24–28 weeks after randomization. Thirty-seven participants were recruited and 30 completed the intervention. At 12 weeks, the groups differed significantly in daily steps (adjusted average difference, 2488 steps; 95% confidence interval [CI], 803 to 4172; p = 0.005) and in the 6MWT (adjusted average difference, 21.9 m; 95% CI, 6.6 to 37.3; p = 0.006). These differences were not significant 24–28 weeks after randomization. The program was effective in increasing daily steps of adults with moderate to severe asthma 12 weeks after intervention.     

New directions in the study of early experience

In this commentary, we review Greenough, Black, and Wallace's conceptual framework for understanding the effects of early experience, and illustrate the applicability of their model with recent data on the consequences for animals and human infants of the acquisition of self-produced locomotion.     

Librunam

Abstract

A practicing profession’s bond to the university accentuates the profession’s mode of knowledge creation and dissemination. Social work journals are seen to facilitate the growth and development of scientifically based knowledge in the profession. The literature reports that in the social work profession social work practitioners do not read a great deal of research articles in journals, do not contribute many articles to scholarly journals, do not write many articles based on empirical research, and are not influenced by social work theory. Grey documentation is presented as an additional source of knowledge for the social work practitioner. Its characteristics, subject areas, mode of presentation and sources are seen as making it conducive for use by social work practitioners. A proposal for the dissemination of grey documentation in social work is made.     

La aproximación neuropsicológica a la dislexia evolutiva. I: Maduración cerebral

Resumen

En los últimos años se constata un auge singular de la neuropsicología de las dificultades de aprendizaje, en especial de la neuropsicología de la dislexia evolutiva. En este trabajo se estudia, como posible explicación etiológica de la dislexia evolutiva, el fallo en el desarrollo madurativo cerebral; se revisan y analizan, a efectos de poder ofrecer pronósticos y modos de intervención apropiados, la diferencia entre la hipótesis del retraso y la del déficit en la maduración, así como la alternativa de restitución o sustitución en la recuperación funcional. Se examinan también otros problemas relacionados entre sí con la dislexia y con la neuropsicología del desarrollo, a saber, la base neurofistológica para formación de subgrupos disléxicos, la disfunción de secuenciación oculomotora como etiología de dislexia y, por fin, la luz que la dislexia adquirida aporta a la dislexia evolutiva al relacionar lesiones del lóbulo parietal inferior con el subdesarrollo madurativo de estas mismas zonas cerebrales.     

First Things First: Developing Academic Competence in the First Year of College*

Perhaps two-thirds of the gains students make in knowledge and cognitive skill development occur in the first 2 years of college (Pascarella, E. T., and Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students Vol. 2. A third decade of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). A significant proportion of the students entering America’s colleges and universities, however, never make it to their second year at the institution where they began. This study, part of a national effort to transform how colleges and universities think about, package, and present their first year of college, is based on data from nearly 6,700 students and 5,000 faculty members on 30 campuses nationwide. The study identifies the individual, organizational, environmental, programmatic, and policy factors that individually and collectively shape students’ development of academic competence in their first year of college. *Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Institutional Research, June 6, 2005 San Diego, CA. This study was supported by grants from the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Lumina Foundation for Education to the Policy Center for the First Year of College, Brevard, NC. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of those foundations or the Policy Center, and no official endorsement should be inferred.     

The Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (ICAPS) predicts adjustment above and beyond personality and general intelligence

Recent research has shown that the psychological skills assessed by the Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (ICAPS) can predict adjustment, above and beyond what is already accounted for by personality. The purpose of this study was to examine if the skills tapped by the ICAPS can predict adjustment above and beyond that accounted for by both personality and general intelligence, and whether intelligence can predict adjustment above and beyond skills and personality. International students completed a battery of instruments including the ICAPS, a personality measure, and several adjustment indices. In a separate session they also completed a measure of general intelligence. The results indicated that the ICAPS did predict adjustment independently of both personality and intelligence, but that intelligence did not.     

Developing an audiovisual notebook as a self‐learning tool in histology: Perceptions of teachers and students

Videos can be used as didactic tools for self‐learning under several circumstances, including those cases in which students are responsible for the development of this resource as an audiovisual notebook. We compared students' and teachers' perceptions regarding the main features that an audiovisual notebook should include. Four questionnaires with items about information, images, text and music, and filmmaking were used to investigate students' (n = 115) and teachers' perceptions (n = 28) regarding the development of a video focused on a histological technique. The results show that both students and teachers significantly prioritize informative components, images and filmmaking more than text and music. The scores were significantly higher for teachers than for students for all four components analyzed. The highest scores were given to items related to practical and medically oriented elements, and the lowest values were given to theoretical and complementary elements. For most items, there were no differences between genders. A strong positive correlation was found between the scores given to each item by teachers and students. These results show that both students' and teachers' perceptions tend to coincide for most items, and suggest that audiovisual notebooks developed by students would emphasize the same items as those perceived by teachers to be the most relevant. Further, these findings suggest that the use of video as an audiovisual learning notebook would not only preserve the curricular objectives but would also offer the advantages of self‐learning processes. Anat Sci Educ 7: 209–218. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.