Treatment practices for childhood posttraumatic stress disorder

OBJECTIVE: This study surveyed practices in treating childhood PTSD among child psychiatrists and non-M.D. therapists with self-identified interest in treating traumatized children. METHOD: An anonymous survey was mailed to 207 child psychiatrists ("medical") and 460 nonphysician ("non-medical") therapists inquiring about current interventions used to treat children with PTSD. RESULTS: Two hundred and forty-seven responses were received: of 77 medical and 82 nonmedical respondents who currently treat children with PTSD, a wide variety of modalities are used. Most preferred modalities among medical responders were pharmacotherapy, psychodynamic, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Most preferred modalities among nonmedical respondents were cognitive-behavioral, family, and nondirective play therapy. Ninety-five percent of medical respondents used pharmacotherapy for this disorder; most preferred medications to treat childhood PTSD were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and alpha-adrenergic agonists. Several significant differences between medical and nonmedical practices were identified. CONCLUSIONS: There is little clinical consensus regarding the effectiveness of the many modalities used to treat traumatized children who have PTSD symptoms; empirical research is particularly needed to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacotherapy and EMDR.     

Can we further improve tablet-based drawing to enhance learning? An empirical test of two types of support

Instructional Science - Digital drawing can foster learning, but only if the drawing is of sufficient quality. Hence, the focus of the present study was to investigate whether and how two types of...     

Towards emotion awareness tools to support emotion and appraisal regulation in academic contexts

Educational technology research and development - This paper studies learners’ emotion awareness in university level academic contexts as a first step to help learners regulate their...     

Teaching science skills and knowledge to students with developmental disabilities: A systematic review

A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted to identify current practice on teaching science to students with intellectual disability (ID) and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in relation to two review questions—students' science outcomes and students' and teachers' experiences of the interventions. Six databases related to education, psychology, and science were systematically searched. A detailed protocol can be viewed on PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42017057323). Thirty studies were identified that reported on science interventions and 20 on student/teacher experiences of the interventions. The majority of the studies targeted science vocabulary and concepts. Other targets included inquiry skills and comprehension skills. The majority of the interventions used components of systematic instruction (n = 23). Five studies focused on self-directed learning and two on comprehension-based instruction. Students and teachers reported positive experiences of the interventions. The findings suggest that components of systematic instruction in particular might be effective in teaching science content to students with ID and/or ASD. Further research is needed to explore the effectiveness of identified interventions on teaching more complex science skills and with students with severe disabilities. Some limitations related to the search strategy are highlighted.     

An Entity Theory of Intelligence Predicts Higher Cortisol Levels When High School Grades Are Declining

Grades often decline during the high school transition, creating stress. The present research integrates the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat with the implicit theories model to understand who shows maladaptive stress responses. A diary study measured declines in grades in the first few months of high school: salivary cortisol (N = 360 students, N = 3,045 observations) and daily stress appraisals (N = 499 students, N = 3,854 observations). Students who reported an entity theory of intelligence (i.e., the belief that intelligence is fixed) showed higher cortisol when grades were declining. Moreover, daily academic stressors showed a different lingering effect on the next day's cortisol for those with different implicit theories. Findings support a process model through which beliefs affect biological stress responses during difficult adolescent transitions.     

Learning design and learning analytics in mobile and ubiquitous learning: A systematic review

Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning (m/u-learning) are finding an increasing adoption in education. They are often distinguished by hybrid learning environments that encompass elements of formal and informal learning, in activities that happen in distributed settings (indoors and outdoors), across physical and virtual spaces. Despite their purported benefits, these environments imply additional complexity in the design, monitoring and evaluation of learning activities. The research literature on learning design (LD) and learning analytics (LA) has started to deal with these issues. This paper presents a systematic literature review of LD and LA, in m/u-learning. Apart from providing an overview of the current research in the field, this review elicits elements of common ground between both communities, as shown by the similar learning contexts and complementary research contributions, and based on the research gaps, proposes to: address m/u-learning beyond higher education settings, reinforce the connection between physical and virtual learning spaces, and more systematically align LD and LA processes.     

Case‐based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry in the Philippines

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for using case‐based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry into the teaching and learning of elementary science. The context for this study was the elementary science teacher preparation program at West Visayas State University on the the island of Panay in Iloilo City, the Philippines. In this context, triple linguistic conventions involving the interactions of the local Ilonggo dialect, the national language of Philipino (predominantly Tagalog) and English create unique challenges for science teachers. Participants in the study included six elementary student teachers, their respective critic teachers and a research team composed of four Filipino and two U.S. science teacher educators. Two teacher‐generated case narratives serve as the centerpiece for deliberation, around which we highlight key tensions that reflect both the struggles and positive aspects of teacher learning that took place. Theoretical perspectives drawn from assumptions underlying the use of case‐based pedagogy and scholarship surrounding the community metaphor as a referent for science education curriculum inquiry influenced our understanding of tensions at the intersection of re‐presentation of science, authority of knowledge, and professional practice, at the intersection of not shared language, explicit moral codes, and indigenization, and at the intersection of identity and dilemmas in science teaching. Implications of this study are discussed with respect to the building of science teacher learning communities in both local and global contexts of reform. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 502–528, 2001     

Attachment style and mentoring relationships in adolescence

This study examined the relationship between adolescents’ attachment style and their decision to enter mentoring relationships. The participants were 569 Greek Cypriot high school students. It was found that adolescents who have a mentor are more secure in their attachment than those who do not. Girls with low scores in secure attachment do not enter easily into mentoring relationships. Older adolescents are more anxious in their attachments, probably because they can better appreciate the possible difficulties if something goes wrong; thus, they are more reluctant to take the risk of starting a mentoring relationship than younger students. Furthermore, secure attachment was found to be positively correlated to the perceived impact of the whole experience: the more secure the attachment, the stronger the mentoring bond seems to be.