The use of career information delivery systems in the states

Conclusion The ever increasing demands on guidance and counseling programs has added new responsibilities to the tasks of the counselor specifically in the area of career development. Along with this increase in responsibility, the issue of accountability has been added. Career information delivery systems assist the counselor in meeting the need for accurate, relevant occupational and educational information that can be disseminated in a timely efficient manner. Therefore, CIDS should be a vital part of all comprehensive career guidance and counseling programs.Mary Elizabeth McCormac is an Occupational Information System Specialist, National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee, Washington, D.C.     

Conditioning with taste as the CS in conditioned flavor preference learning

There appear to be unconditioned affective reactions to the four basic tastes: liking for sweet and salt and disliking for sour and bitter. We attempted to modify these reactions by pairing the tastes with calories and with sweeter tastes. Differing sucrose concentrations were ineffective in reversing the preference for salt over citric acid or for saccharin over quinine. We could, however, reverse the preference for salt over citric acid, producing an actual preference for sour over salt, by using sucrose and saccharin as the reinforcers. The initial reactions to tastes could also be modified by reducing the initial difference in affect produced by the tastes through mixing both tastes with sucrose.     

Health literacy and consumer health information

The rigours of the past few years have demonstrated the importance of good health literacy levels with the imperative of being able to obtain and interpret information to maintain and improve one's health never more apparent. With this in mind, this issue is focused on consumer health information, the gender and population group differences that exist in information seeking behaviour, the challenges of understanding medical explanations and terminology, and existing criteria to assess and ultimately produce better consumer health information.     

Phonological Awareness Skills in Young Boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Substantial research has detailed the reading deficits experienced by children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Although phonological awareness (PA) is vital in reading development, little is known about PA in the DMD population. This pilot study describes the PA abilities of a group of five young children with DMD, comparing the results with those of a group of children with spinal muscular atrophy and with those of a group of typically developing children. The Preschool and Primary Inventory of Phonological Awareness was used to assess the PA skills of the participants. Results indicated that the children with DMD performed significantly poorer than the typically developing group on tests of Syllable Segmentation, Rhyme Awareness, Alliteration Awareness and Phoneme Isolation and significantly poorer than the spinal muscular atrophy group on Rhyme Awareness. The findings of this pilot study indicate that children with DMD may have an increased risk of having PA difficulties, thus requiring early PA training.     

Inter-Parietal White Matter Development Predicts Numerical Performance in Young Children

In an effort to understand the role of interhemispheric transfer in numerical development, we investigated the relationship between children's developing knowledge of numbers and the integrity of their white matter connections between the cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum). We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography analyses to test the link between the development of the corpus callosum and performance on symbolic and non-symbolic numerical judgment tasks. We were especially interested in the interhemispheric connections of parietal cortex in 6-year-old children, because regions of parietal cortex have been implicated in the development of numerical skills by several prior studies. Our results revealed significant structural differences between children and adults in the fibers of the corpus callosum connecting the left and right parietal lobes. Importantly, these structural differences were predictive of individual differences among children in performance on numerical judgment tasks: children with poor numerical performance relative to their peers exhibited reduced white matter coherence in the fibers passing through the isthmus of the corpus callosum, which connects the parietal hemispheres.     

Disentangling the relationship between working memory and language: The roles of short-term storage and cognitive control

This study investigates the relationship between working memory and language in young children growing up in a multilingual environment. The aim is to explore whether mechanisms of short-term storage and cognitive control hold similar relations to emerging language skills and to investigate if potential links are mediated by related cognitive abilities. A sample of 119 Luxembourgish 6-year-olds completed several assessments of working memory (complex and simple span), native and foreign vocabulary, syntax, reading, rhyme awareness, and fluid intelligence. Results showed that short-term storage and cognitive control manifested differential links with developing language abilities: Whereas verbal short-term storage was specifically linked to vocabulary; cognitive control manifested unique and robust links with syntax and early reading development. The study suggests that in young children the working memory system is composed of separate but interacting components corresponding to short-term storage and cognitive control that can be distinguished by the roles they play in supporting language acquisition.     

The impact of action learning on analysis of occupation

Technology and millennials have created a shift in the world and how it operates. This impact has been experienced in the field of occupational therapy education. As a result of this paradigm shift, an analysis of effective teaching methodologies was carried out to assess the most effective way to engage the millennials in an analysis of occupation process, which is a critical foundation for effective critical thinking and clinical practice for occupational therapists. An action learning assignment was utilized to bridge this gap. The action learning assignment immersed the students in a safe learning environment that recreated many types of domains that needed to be analyzed. As a result, the students experienced first-hand the outcomes of effective and ineffective analysis and problem-solving during their action learning project. Therefore, the students were able to reflect and critically think through alternatives and hear about other students' projects. Overall, the action learning project yielded positive learning and engaging outcomes.     

Science diaries: a brief writing intervention to improve motivation to learn science

This study investigated the hypothesis that prompting students to self-assess their interest and understanding of science concepts and activities would increase their motivation in science classes. Students were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that wrote self-assessments of their competence and interest in science lessons or a control condition that wrote summaries of those same lessons. Writing activities were 10?min long and were given approximately once a week for eighteen weeks. Student motivation was assessed via self-report surveys for achievement goals and interest in science before and after the intervention. Students in the experimental condition showed higher endorsement of mastery goals and reported greater situational interest in science topics after the intervention compared to students who summarised the lessons. Increases in situational interest predicted higher individual interest in the domain. Results indicate an instructional practice requiring just 3?hours out of a semester of instruction was sufficient to achieve these effects on motivation in science classes.     

Learning from the Professions: Examining How,Why, and When Engineers Read and Write

With the advent of the Next Generation Science Standards in engineering (NGSS, 2013), teachers of multiple subject areas are being asked to do more than ever before—not only to teach engineering content in the K-12 classroom but also to engage students in authentic disciplinary reading and writing as part of content learning. These standards sound good, but they beg several questions; namely, what do we know about how, why, and when do engineers read and write as they do their work every day? What do teachers charged with engineering education know about the daily practices of engineers, let alone the literacy practices? In short, little is known about the literacy practices of engineers in the course of their daily work. This article draws on participant observation, interviews, and document analysis of one research engineering laboratory to illustrate the literacy practices of one group of engineers and begins to draw implications from this work for teacher practice in achieving the NGSS engineering education standards.