Who is Publishing Diverse Books Best?

Small independent publishers are frequently lauded as the bastions of diversity while the Big Five are vilified as the primary contributors to the overwhelming whiteness of book publishing—yet no statistical data has been offered to support either claim. Moreover, the overall percentages of authors of color have remained the same year after year (Low in Where is the diversity in publishing? The 2015 diversity baseline survey results. Lee and Low (blog), 2016). The following study is a comparison of the Big Five publishers and small independent publishers with respect to author diversity. As social media outlets are now claiming to change the landscape of publishing by making diverse books more accessible to readers, data was sourced from an independent, reader-driven list to determine which publishers—if any—are promoting authors of color and whether their books are making it into the hands of readers.     

Advocating for the Rights of the Child Through Family–School Collaboration

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2014 as the premier international human rights treaty focused on childhood rights and protections. In this article, we briefly review the 41 substantive principles embodied in the 54 Articles of the Convention and stress the need for educators, and specifically school psychologists, to work in concert with families to promote these premises through effective collaborative partnerships. Finally, we review examples of how the themes and positive ideology of the Convention can be enhanced through family–school collaboration infused into schooling practices within a multitiered service delivery framework to meet the learning and development best interests of the child.     

Aided search strategy enabled by decision support

Current Web-based search engines presume a category search for a specific group of users. This approach is appropriate for generalized information searches since it is based on statistically generated user profiles. However, in some applications, such as medicine and law, an individualized search for a specific user at a given point in time is desired. In addition, the use of specialized terminology in some fields necessitates guidance for the non-expert to be successful in locating the desired information. This paper presents a new decision support system enabled by the analytic hierarchy process and intelligent software agents that can be used by researchers and practitioners in technical fields to aid information retrieval and improve search results from a controlled vocabulary. An application from telemedicine is given to illustrate the potential improvements.     

Un estudio sobre la comprensión de términos espacio-temporales en niños de 4 a 6 años

Resumen

Este estudio trató de comprobar si la comprensión de los pares de palabras «antesldespués», «delanteldetrás» y «primerolúltimo» presenta relación con el significado dominante en la comunidad lingüistica, la complejidad de la tarea, la asimetría de los términos y la edad. Se utilizaron 90 adultos y 180 niños entre 4 y 6 años. Los adultos definieron las palabras a analizar; loi niños ejecutaron las consignas en tres contextos: espacial, espacio-temporal y temporal. Los resultados indican que el par «antesldespués» es comprendido más pronto en el sentido temporal, el par «delanteldetrás» en sentido espacial. Estos datos coinciden con los obtenidos en las definiciones adultas. «Primeroúltimo» es mejor comprendido en tareas temporales, aunque los adultos dieron definiciones ambiguas. Por otra parte, la compejidad de la tarea parece influir en la comprensión: l'a ausencia de rasgos de los objetos y. el. orden gramatical inverso dificultan la tarea. Estos resultados sugieren que la hipótesis de los rasgos sonánticos es insuficiente para explicar la adquisición del signifcado.     

Comparing vocabulary development in Spanish- and Chinese-speaking ELLs: the effects of metalinguistic and sociocultural factors

This study evaluated the impact of two metalinguistic factors, English derivational awareness and English?CSpanish cognate awareness, and the impact of two sociocultural factors, maternal education and children??s length of residence in Canada, on English Language Learners (ELLs)?? vocabulary knowledge. The participants of the study were 89 Spanish-speaking ELLs, 77 Chinese-speaking ELLs, and a comparison group of 78 monolingual English-speaking children in Grades 4 and 7. The sample included both first-generation (born outside of Canada) and second generation (born in Canada) immigrant children. The study?yielded several important findings. First, it confirmed the strong link between derivational awareness and vocabulary knowledge observed in the previous research, and extended this relationship to two groups of ELLs from different first language backgrounds. Second, this study unveiled differences in vocabulary learning between Spanish-speaking and Chinese-speaking ELLs. While Spanish-speaking children were able to utilize the cognate strategy to learn English words, this strategy was not available for Chinese-speaking ELLs. With respect to the sociocultural factors, length of residence in Canada was significantly related to ELLs?? vocabulary development. Interestingly, length of residence in Canada only influenced the development of noncognate vocabulary, but not cognate vocabulary, in Spanish-speaking ELLs, which provides additional evidence for these children??s use of the cognate strategy. Finally, maternal education was not related to English vocabulary development. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings were discussed.     

Patients' perspectives on the role of prepared childbirth education in decision making regarding elective labor induction

The purpose of our study was to explore reasons why nulliparous women chose to have an elective labor induction and to identify the influence of prepared childbirth classes on their decision. The study included 1,349 nulliparous women at term who participated in a survey regarding their choices for childbirth, their attendance at prepared childbirth classes, and their experience with labor and birth. Sixty-three percent of women who attended childbirth classes and did not have elective induction reported that classes provided helpful information to assist in their decision-making process. Study results suggest attendance at prepared childbirth classes can be an effective source of information regarding elective labor induction and influential in women's decisions regarding whether or not to have elective labor induction. Women perceive prepared childbirth classes positively and find the information provided valuable.