Including all of us: Learning about visual impairment

Understanding how all parts of the body function and feeling comfortable with one's own body are essential to a growing child's self-image. Learning about disability expands upon the traditional body parts early childhood curriculum so that in addition to learning how parts of the body function, children also learn that not all people use their bodies in the same way. This leads to good problem-solving skills and helps children learn how to use their bodies more fully.Merle Froschl, Linda Colon, Ellen Rubin, and Barbara Sprung worked cooperatively to co-authorIncluding All of Us: An Early Childhood Curriculum About Disability. This article excerpts a section from their book available from Educational Equity Concepts, Inc., 114 East 32nd St., New York, NY 10016.     

Mothers’ Goals Influence Their Responses to Children’s Performance: An Experimental Study in the United States and Hong Kong

This research examined the role of mothers’ self-worth and self-improvement goals in their responses to children’s performance in the United States (80% European American) and Hong Kong (100% Chinese). Mothers (N = 330) were induced to prioritize self-worth or self-improvement among children (M_age = 10.24 years; 48% girls) . Mothers induced to prioritize self-worth (vs. self-improvement) used more success-oriented responses in both regions (ds = 0.53 and 0.35). Mothers induced to prioritize self-improvement (vs. self-worth) used more failure-oriented responses only in the United States (d = 0.29). Mothers’ success-oriented responses predicted more positive beliefs and affect in a cognitive task among children (βs = .10–.18). Taken together, the findings support the importance of parents’ goals in the socialization process.     

The impact of verbal capacity on theory of mind in deaf and hard of hearing children

Even when they have good language skills, many children with hearing loss lag several years behind hearing children in the ability to grasp beliefs of others. The researchers sought to determine whether this lag results from difficulty with the verbal demands of tasks or from conceptual delays. The researchers related children's performance on a nonverbal theory of mind task to their scores on verbal aptitude tests. Twelve French children (average age about 10 years) with severe to profound hearing loss and 12 French hearing children (average about 7 years) were evaluated. The children with hearing loss showed persistent difficulty with theory of mind tasks, even a nonverbal task, presenting results similar to those of hearing 6-year-olds. Also, the children with hearing loss showed a correlation between language level (lexical and morphosyntactic) and understanding of false beliefs. No such correlation was found in the hearing children.     

Inequality in language achievement growth? An investigation into the impact of pupil socio‐ethnic background and school socio‐ethnic composition

This paper investigates how pupils' growth trajectories in three language domains (reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) are related to their own socioeconomic and ethnic background and to the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of their primary school. Using multilevel piecewise growth curve analysis, the growth trajectories of approximately 5000 pupils from 170 primary schools were estimated. The results indicate that a pupil's socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds have the largest impact on achievement and growth in reading comprehension and the smallest impact on reading fluency. Furthermore, school ethnic composition—but not socioeconomic composition—was related to pupils' achievement in all three language domains at the first measurement occasion, though none of the types of school composition was related to growth. The research findings therefore imply that to combat the deficits in language proficiency often found in ethnic minority pupils, priority should be given to investments in individual intervention programmes over policy plans to desegregate schools. Moreover, our study identifies the specific points in time during primary school at which intervention programmes are needed the most.     

Personal Epistemology Research: Implications for Learning and Teaching

The ideas that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing have been the target of research programs with disparate names, such as epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, ways of knowing, and epistemological reflection, all of which appear to be a part of a larger body of work on “personal epistemology.” Epistemological perspectives are salient in numerous academic experiences, have been shown to be related to learning in various ways, influence reasoning and judgment throughout our lives, and have implications for teaching. Yet this work has remained outside the mainstream of educational psychology and cognitive development. This paper addresses three main questions: (1) What is personal epistemology research and how is it conceptualized? (2) How are individuals' conceptions of epistemology related to learning and instruction? (3) Given what we know about personal epistemology, what might educators do? Suggestions are also provided for future research and theoretical development.