Literacy skills in children and adolescents with Down syndrome

Research has found that many children andadolescents with Down syndrome acquire somelevel of reading ability. Studies to date havedocumented that cognition, language, andphonological awareness contribute tovariability observed in performance onconventional literacy measures for thispopulation, although the extent of relativecontributions varies among studies. Less isknown about the relationship of early literacyskills to conventional reading, or howrelationships among variables that supportliteracy acquisition are similar or differentfrom those observed in typically developingchildren. In this project, cognition,language, early literacy, phonologicalawareness and reading skills were examined in agroup of children and adolescents with Downsyndrome (aged 5;06 to 17;03) and a group oftypically developing children (aged 3;06 to5;03) matched for nonverbal cognition. Resultsrevealed broad variability in performance onearly literacy and reading measures in personswith Down syndrome. Comparisons with mental age-matchedchildren indicated differences in the relativecontribution of language and cognition toreading ability, with language being a strongerpredictor in the group with Down syndrome.     

Moving Minds

This paper explores and examines a case study based at Ivy Bank Business and Enterprise College, The Imperial War Museum North, and Liverpool John Moores University. This collaboration took place from November 2004 until February 2005 culminating in an exhibition of children's artwork as part of the ‘Moving Minds’ project at the IWM North. This project was built upon a firm foundation of common goals; an investment in educational and curriculum development; learning through an engagement with contemporary art practice; learning within the context of the museum and a belief that working collaboratively can act as an effective antidote to a perceived orthodoxy in art and design education (Steers 2004). Through practitioner enquiry this paper presents three distinct perspectives. The voice of the trainee teacher, the classroom teacher and the university lecturer demonstrate both elements of commonality and difference within the shared experience of this enterprise.     

Spanish-Speaking Children's Social and Language Development in Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms

The current study examined the social and language development of 345 Spanish-speaking pre-kindergartners who attended pre-kindergarten programs that varied widely in how much Spanish was spoken in the classroom by the teacher. Previous studies on English language learners have focused on how the language of instruction impacts children's language proficiency, ignoring the context in which children are learning. The current study found better social skills and closer teacher—child relationships in classrooms where teachers spoke some Spanish. Teacher ratings of children's peer social skills and assertiveness were positively associated with increased amounts of Spanish being spoken. More Spanish language use in the classroom was also related to a decrease in children's likelihood of being victims of aggression as rated by independent observers. The findings have implications for better understanding how policy decisions regarding language of instruction impact children in the social domain. As early education programs are faced with the challenging task of developing best practices for English language learners, it is essential that programs are attentive to the social implications of language.     

Infants' Responses to Facial and Vocal Emotional Signals in a Social Referencing Paradigm

The independent effects of facial and vocal emotional signals and of positive and negative signals on infant behavior were investigated in a novel toy social referencing paradigm. 90 12-month-old infants and their mothers were assigned to an expression condition (neutral, happy, or fear) nested within a modality condition (face-only or voice-only). Each infant participated in 3 trials: a baseline trial, an expression trial, and a final positive trial. We found that fearful vocal emotional signals, when presented without facial signals, were sufficient to elicit appropriate behavior regulation. Infants in the fear-voice condition looked at their mothers longer, showed less toy proximity, and tended to show more negative affect than infants in the neutral-voice condition. Happy vocal signals did not elicit differential responding. The infants' sex was a factor in the few effects that were found for infants' responses to facial emotional signals.     

Solidarity through collaborative research

While numerous publications signal the merits of collaborative research, few studies provide interpretive analyses of collaborative‐research practices or collaborative relationships. Through this multiple case study design of collaborative‐research teams, the authors attempt to provide such an analysis by focusing on the collaborative‐research experiences of seven qualitative researchers from two contrasting research teams in Australia and North America. They highlight how solidarity emerged from successful interactions between interdependent members, and how these were both professionally and personally rewarding for individuals and the teams. As well, they identify the opportunities for solidarity afforded to researchers from vertical collaborations (i.e. collaborations involving differential status between team members) that featured evolving and transforming mentoring relationships through the history of the research projects. They propose that solidarity can be stratified within large research teams through sub‐units like dyads. Finally, they suggest that collaborating researchers might benefit from reviewing case studies of collaborative relationships, and engaging in mutual interrogation and subsequent individual reflections of their articulated collaborative practices and relationships.     

Emerging issues concerning the future directions of Australian senior science education: The Queensland experience

Australia's changing political, social and economic agendas have triggered a critical analysis of school curriculum. Part of this consideration has been concern over the future of science education within the context of senior schooling. Following the completion of the Senior Science Future Directions Project commissioned by the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies, fifteen issues were identified. These issues, grouped by the needs of the science disciplines, society and the individual student, are discussed with the view of understanding the future design of senior science syllabuses. Specializations: biology teacher education, science curriculum development. Specializations: professional development, curriculum design and evaluation. Specializations: professional development, science teaching.     

Feeding ecology and laboratory predatory behavior toward live and artificial moving prey in seven rodent species

The present research related the feeding ecology of seven rodent species to the reactions of laboratory-reared and prey-inexperienced members of each species both to live prey and to an artificial moving stimulus predicting food pellets. Feeding ecology was determined by the degree of carnivory, based on reported stomach contents and observations of feeding. Experiment 1 assessed predatory reactions to a live cricket placed in each animal’s home cage. Killing and latency of eating the cricket were directly related to the degree of reported carnivory on moderately fast-moving arthropods. Experiment 2 examined behavior toward a rolling ball bearing that predicted delivery of food. Average percentages of trials with approach or contact of the bearing, and the conditional probability of a mouth contact were all positively related to the degree of reported carnivory and to cricket predation in Experiment 1. In addition, the topography of ball bearing contact for a species often resembled its topography of cricket contact. We conclude that (1) rodent predatory behavior can be studied in the laboratory using appropriate artificial stimuli and prey-inexperienced subjects, and (2) the predatory behavior of a species is based on underlying appetitive organization related to carnivory, including differential sensitivity to stimulus movement, motor preorganization, and susceptibility to conditioning. This appetitive organization appears to influence responding to both live and artificial prey.     

Developing a Cancer-Focused Library Survey — Assessing the Current Environment and Planning for the Future

The primary goal of this project is to understand how each National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center library, and all libraries that support cancer research, function within their institutions. Through an in-depth survey focused on three major areas (staff, content and tools procurement, and user services), the research team hopes to determine how a cancer-centric library can be successful in supporting quality patient care, research excellence, and education. Additionally, the survey will examine the necessary minimum staffing levels for librarians and information professionals based on organizational size and degree of research focus. The survey will seek out the new skills librarians will need to deliver optimal services. The survey will also explore how content libraries purchase reflects and maps to constituents’ current medical and research activities. Libraries within a research intense environment have a responsibility to align with researchers and health care professionals to provide resources and services that support their workflows. Cancer libraries need to be attuned to their institutions’ missions, whether that includes excellent patient care, research endeavors, or cutting-edge educational programs. The information gathered from the survey will provide data for this research team to define the vision and standards of excellence for a cancer specialized research library.     

Scaling Up the TREC Collection

Due to the popularity of Web search engines, a large proportion of real text retrieval queries are now processed over collections measured in tens or hundreds of gigabytes. A new Very Large test Collection (VLC) has been created to support qualification, measurement and comparison of systems operating at this level and to permit the study of the properties of very large collections. The VLC is an extension of the well-known TREC collection and has been distributed under the same conditions. A simple set of efficiency and effectiveness measures have been defined to encourage comparability of reporting. The 20 gigabyte first-edition of the VLC and a representative 10% sample have been used in a special interest track of the 1997 Text Retrieval Conference (TREC-6). The unaffordable cost of obtaining complete relevance assessments over collections of this scale is avoided by concentrating on early precision and relying on the core TREC collection to support detailed effectiveness studies. Results obtained by TREC-6 VLC track participants are presented here. All groups observed a significant increase in early precision as collection size increased. Explanatory hypotheses are advanced for future empirical testing. A 100 gigabyte second edition VLC (VLC2) has recently been compiled and distributed for use in TREC-7 in 1998.