ADHD: a psychological response to an evolving concept. (Report of a Working Party of the British Psychological Society)

The British Psychological Society is the only national organization of psychologists within the United Kingdom representing all aspects of psychology and all subspecialisms within psychology. It is both a learned scientific society and a professional association. To address the concept of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the Professional Affairs Board of the Society convened a Working Party, consisting of individuals nominated by subsystems of the Society because of their recognized professional and academic expertise. They covered a range of specialisms, including educational, clinical, criminological, neurological, and cognitive psychology. A report by the Working Party was published in September 1996. It had two main aims: first, to outline the research that was relevant to current understanding of the notion of ADHD from an historical, psychological, and biological perspective, and, second, to consider implications for practice in the light of the information obtained. The focus was predominantly on children, although it was recognized that problems could persist into adulthood. The intention was to write a report for professionals that also would be accessible to a wider audience. This article is a highly abridged version of the report. It omits the references to research reviews and research studies contained in the full account. Selected extracts are included in order to justify the conclusions and the recommendations that are made and to inform a North American audience of developments in the United Kingdom.     

The Effect of Relationship on Children's Distributive Justice Reasoning

Kindergarten, third-grade, and sixth-grade children were told 2 stories about a group of children who made artwork that was subsequently sold at a craft fair. The characters in one story were described as friends, while the characters in the other story were described as strangers (relationship condition). 1 character in each story was presented as the oldest in the group, 1 as the most productive, and 1 as the poorest. Children were asked to allocate 9 dollars to the 3 characters under each relationship condition, provide rationales for those allocations, and rate the fairness of 4 different patterns of allocation. Older children allocated more money to needy friends than to needy strangers and more to productive strangers than to productive friends. Kindergartners' allocations and fairness ratings did not vary with relationship. Rationales for allocation judgements suggested that equality was the most salient principle for decisions at all ages, but the older children provided rationales based on benevolence more often than younger children when characters were presented as friends.     

Devine comment j'apprends a lire?

The Swiss researchers Cardinet and Weiss (1975) have stressed, following recent psycholinguistic trends, the complexity of the intellectual activity involved in reading. A Belgian study (Burion, 1979) examined what constituted reading for a beginner, what were the general principles of teaching initial reading, and what the implications of these were for teaching early readers. Reading was taken to involve hypothesis forming and guessing, within constraints which vary according to the reader's skill. Beginning reading requires, among other things, motivation to learn and some relevant personal experience, both of which are aspects which parents and others have been encouraged to develop. Following Cardinet and Weiss (1974) and Inizan (1978) children's oral language is used as a basis for reading texts. The purpose and use of reading are stressed as well as the development of skills which are needed for continuing to learn how to read (see figure). In general, it is argued that the teaching of initial reading should focus upon the beginning reader rather than on teaching procedures and that account must be taken of factors in the individual child such as motivation, experience, oral language, cognitive development and pace of learning.     

Self Reflections of Undergraduate Students on Using Web-Supported Counterintuitive Science Demonstrations

Analysis of self-reflections of undergraduate education students in a project involving web-supported counterintuitive science demonstrations is reported in this paper. Participating students (N?=?19) taught science with counterintuitive demonstrations in local elementary school classrooms and used web-based resources accessed via wireless USB adapters. Student reflections to seven questions were analyzed qualitatively using four components of reflection (meeting objectives/perception of learning, dynamics of pedagogy, special needs accommodations, improving teaching) deriving 27 initial data categories and 12 emergent themes. Overall the undergraduates reported meeting objectives, engaging students in pedagogically relevant learning tasks including, providing accommodations to students with special needs, and gaining practice and insight to improve their own teaching. Additional research is needed to arrive at generalizable findings concerning teaching with web-supported counterintuitive science demonstrations in elementary classrooms.     

Relating deaf students' reading and language scores at college entry to their degree completion rates

Graduation patterns were examined for 905 deaf students (1990-1998) at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Students with higher reading and language skills had the best overall graduation percentage. Comparison of recipients of different degrees--bachelor of science (BS) versus fine arts (BFA); associate of applied science (AAS) versus occupational studies (AOS)--showed 92% of BS and 82% of AAS graduates reading at the 9th-grade level or above, versus 65% of BFA and 47% of AOS graduates. Interestingly, 80% of non-degree-earning students read at the 9th-12th grade levels; in absolute terms, they outnumbered graduates with similar reading skills in the AAS and BFA programs combined, and in the BS program. This indicates a need for improved counseling, placement, and retention strategies. Students performed similarly across degree categories, regardless of curriculum requirements and difficulty. Only non-degree-earning students had significantly lower grade averages.     

Simple model for gas holdup and liquid velocity of annular photocatalytic external-loop airlift reactor under both bubble and developing slug flow

Based on the momentum conservation approach, a theoretical model was developed to predict the superficial liquid velocity, and a correlation equation was established to calculate the gas holdup of an annular external- loop airlift reactor(AELAR)in the bubble flow and developing slug flow pattern. Experiments were performed by using tap-water and silicone oil with the viscosity of 2.0 mm²/s(2cs-SiO)and 5.0 mm²/s(5cs-SiO)as liquid phases. The effects of liquid viscosity and flow pattern on the AELAR performance were investigated. The predictions of the proposed model were in good agreement with the experimental results of the AELAR. In addition, the comparison of the experimental results shows that the proposed model has good accuracy and could be used to predict the gas holdup and liquid velocity of an AELAR operating in bubble and developing flow pattern.     

Instructional design for advanced learners: Establishing connections between the theoretical frameworks of cognitive load and deliberate practice

Cognitive load theory (CLT) has been successful in identifying instructional formats that are more effective and efficient than conventional problem solving in the initial, novice phase of skill acquisition. However, recent findings regarding the “expertise reversal effect” have begun to stimulate cognitive load theorists to broaden their horizon to the question of how instructional design should be altered as a learner's knowledge increases. To answer this question, it is important to understand how expertise is acquired and what fosters its development. Expert performance research, and, in particular, the theoretical framework of deliberate practice have given us a better understanding of the principles and activities that are essential in order to excel in a domain. This article explores how these activities and principles can be used to design instructional formats based on CLT for higher levels of skills mastery. The value of these formats for e-learning environments in which learning tasks can be adaptively selected on the basis of online assessments of the learner's level of expertise is discussed. In their preparation of this article, the first and last authors were supported by an Internationalization grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, The Hague, project number 411-01-010).