Developing a comprehensive model of risk and protective factors that can predict spelling at age seven: findings from a community sample of Victorian children

The paper reports on a study designed to develop a risk model that can best predict single-word spelling in seven-year-old children when they were aged 4 and 5. Test measures, personal characteristics and environmental influences were all considered as variables from a community sample of 971 children. Strong concurrent correlations were found between single-word spelling and single-word reading while expressive language and, to a lesser extent, receptive language were less strongly correlated. Predictors of single-word spelling at ages 4 and 5 were dominated by child-related factors such as letter knowledge, a history of speech impairment and expressive language along with maternal word reading ability. Based on the strength of the predictive factors identified at both age 4 and 5, our results provide initial support for using a targeted model for screening pre-schoolers at risk of not mastering spelling in a timely manner.     

Hybrid Journals: Ensuring Systematic and Standard Discoverability of the Latest Open Access Articles

An important current challenge for research information providers is ensuring the automated discovery of Open Access (OA) content in hybrid journals. We found no evidence of discovery services that are able to systematically identify the crucially important free full-text availability of OA articles regardless of where and how such articles have been published (i.e., in fully OA journals or in hybrid journals). A solution is important because hybrid journals are proliferating and consequently the chances of missing OA articles is real and is happening. Nearly all of the major publishers now provide such journals in order to take advantage of recent changes in research funder requirements, and to be competitive in the new OA business model. By working with a group of scholarly publisher partners and by using standard metadata elements that publishers are already familiar with, we show a systematic and standardized manner to identify OA at the article level. Our proposal is to embed OA-related elements in the metadata freely exposed by publishers for aggregators and discovery services. For example, in the Table of Content (TOC) Really Simple Syndication feeds the publishers use to announce new journal issues and content. Based on the initial results obtained, we discuss the capabilities of our solution, and evaluate the impact produced by our application in the systematic discoverability of OA content from the participating hybrid journals, using an implementation done with the freely available journal current awareness service—JournalTOCs.     

Challenging Gender Stereotypes: Resistance and Exclusion

The likelihood of resisting gender‐stereotypic peer group norms, along with expectations about personal resistance, was investigated in 9‐ to 10‐year‐olds and 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds (N = 292). Participants were told about a stereotype conforming group (boys playing football; girls doing ballet) and a stereotype nonconforming group (boys doing ballet; girls playing football). Contrary to expectations from gender‐stereotyping research, participants stated that they would personally resist gender‐stereotypic norms, and more so than they would expect their peers to resist. However, expecting peers to resist declined with age. Participants expected that exclusion from the group was a consequence for challenging the peer group, and understood the asymmetrical status of gender stereotypes with an expectation that it would be more difficult for boys to challenge stereotypes than for girls.     

Infant vocalizing and phenotypic outcomes in autism: Evidence from the first 2 years

Infant vocalizations are early-emerging communicative markers shown to be atypical in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but few longitudinal, prospective studies exist. In this study, 23,850 infant vocalizations from infants at low (LR)- and high (HR)-risk for ASD (HR-ASD = 23, female = 3; HR-Neg = 35, female = 13; LR = 32, female = 10; 80% White; collected from 2007 to 2017 near Philadelphia) were analyzed at 6, 12, and 24 months. At 12 months, HR-ASD infants produced fewer vocalizations than HR-Neg infants. From 6 to 24 months, HR-Neg infants demonstrated steeper vocalization growth compared to HR-ASD and LR infants. Finally, among HR infants, vocalizing at 12 months was associated with language, social phenotype, and diagnosis at age 2. Infant vocalizing is an objective behavioral marker that could facilitate earlier detection of ASD.