Testing Literacy Educational Software to Develop Design Guidelines for Children with Autism

Multimedia computer programmes have been found to facilitate learning in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the effectiveness of these resources is limited due to poor design or a lack of consideration of the ASD cognitive profile, particularly at the lower functioning end of the spectrum. This article attempts to tackle the problem of the lack of design guidelines, with the aim of facilitating the development of effective educational programmes for children with severe ASD. The case study reported here evaluated two literacy educational computer programmes, by observing five low-functioning children with ASD, compared to five neurotypical children (control cases). The two types of reading-support software contrasted in the study presented different characteristics. The children’s data analysed here concern observations of child–software interactive sessions based on video recordings and coded for attention deployment to each programme, including motivation and engagement indicators.     

The ‘good’ parent in relation to early childhood literacy: symbolic terrain and lived practice

In this paper we consider the place of early childhood literacy in the discursive construction of the identity(ies) of ‘proper’ parents. Our analysis crosses between representations of parenting in texts produced by commercial and government/public institutional interests and the self‐representations of individual parents in interviews with the researchers. The argument is made that there are commonalities and disjunctures in represented and lived parenting identities as they relate to early literacy. In commercial texts that advertise educational and other products, parents are largely absent from representations and the parent's position is one of consumer on behalf of the child. In government‐sanctioned texts, parents are very much present and are positioned as both learners about and important facilitators of early learning when they ‘interact’ with their children around language and books. The problem for which both, in their different ways, offer a solution is the “not‐yet‐ready” child precipitated into the evaluative environment of school without the initial competence seen as necessary to avoid falling behind right from the start. Both kinds of producers promise a smooth induction of children into mainstream literacy and learning practices if the ‘good parent’ plays her/his part. Finally, we use two parent cases to illustrate how parents' lived practice involves multiple discursive practices and identities as they manage young children's literacy and learning in family contexts in which they also need to negotiate relations with their partners and with paid and domestic work.     

Effects of Methylphenidate on Academic Achievement from First to Second Grade

The objectives of the current study were to identify the long‐term effects of Methylphenidate (Ritalin) on cognitive ability and academic achievement. A retrospective/longitudinal design was utilised in the study with dependent measures being scores from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). The study included 17 experimental subjects who were identified with ADHD and placed on Methylphenidate between first and second grade. For each experimental child, a control child without ADHD was matched based on gender, Verbal IQ score, and family structure. Results of the study revealed that the Methylphenidate group's achievement was lower both before and after medication even after being matched on verbal abilities. The results also indicated that after receiving medication the Methylphenidate group's rate of learning was similar to the Control groups on Reading, Word Analysis, Listening, Vocabulary, and overall achievement. Finally, a positive relationship between dosage level and Listening subtest scores was observed while a negative relationship was obtained between dosage level and Vocabulary subtest scores.     

Communicating Prevention: The Effects of the keepin' it REAL Classroom Videotapes and Televised PSAs on Middle-School Students' Substance Use

This study sought to determine if exposure to two communication-oriented activities, videotapes and public service announcements, accounts for changes in substance use among adolescents participating in the Drug Resistance Strategies Project's keepin' it REAL adolescent substance use prevention curriculum. Middle-school students (4,734, 72% Latino) responded to questionnaires related to these analyses. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model was fit separately to six substance use outcomes. The results suggested that intervention students who saw four or five videos engaged in less substance use in the past month than did students who saw fewer videos. Having seen the PSAs one or more times did not predict the reported change in substance use.     

Looking for love in all the wrong places: Accessing sexual and reproductive health information via the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature has been described as a cultural barometer. It supports scholars of history and culture by providing access to ideas circulated via the mass media in earlier times, but its own coverage and indexing practices also reveal attitudes and values toward issues of the time. The Progressive Era (1900–1924) coincides with the founding and growth of the Readers' Guide. Examining how the Readers' Guide directed readers' attention to matters of sexual and reproductive health in its first quarter century demonstrates changes in social attitudes and has implications for scholarly work. The array of index terms required to locate information on this topic indicates both barriers to information access for contemporary readers as well as challenges for present-day scholars concerned with recovering information of the era.     

Effects of student-facilitated learning on instructional facilitators

We investigated perceptions about learning strategy use and instructional roles among a sample of high needs adolescents (n = 230) who acted as near-peer instructional facilitators. The sample was drawn from science and mathematics classes in nonselective public secondary schools in New York City. Students participated in an inschool intervention that draws on social constructivism, theory and research on metacognition and learning strategies, role theory, and empirical findings from the peer-to-peer learning literature to promote advanced achievement among students who act as facilitators. Using a pre- and post-test single group design, we surveyed student instructional facilitators before and after program participation and related their perceptions about learning strategy use and perceptions about teaching roles to data about academic achievement. We found no survey gains in student perceptions about learning strategies or instructional roles between pre-survey (fall) and post-survey (spring). We found small but significant effects of individual perceptions about learning strategies and teaching roles on academic gains among instructional facilitators. The study also suggests that an in-school near-peer facilitated learning program can be an effective means to raise achievement in urban high schools. The study provides partial support for theories that hold that metacognition and role perceptions are involved in the academic gains of instructional facilitators, as gains in these dimensions were small compared to achievement gains.     

Assessing the impact of the Graduate Certificate in Anatomical Sciences Instruction: A post‐degree survey

There are few graduate programs available for pursuing a doctorate in anatomy where students gain specific training in gross anatomy dissection and the responsibilities of a medical educator. In light of this fact, the University of Kentucky created a Graduate Certificate in Anatomical Sciences Instruction in 2006. This 12‐credit hour curriculum includes detailed training in gross anatomy and/or neuroscience courses, practicum experiences, a seminar class in pedagogical literature, and a course in educational strategies for the anatomical sciences. The award of certificate completion affirms that the candidate has demonstrated faculty‐supervised proficiency in anatomy dissection, instruction in anatomy topics, and teaching strategies for anatomy. Seventeen graduate students have earned the certificate since its inception; nine students accepted teaching positions in anatomy following their graduate training and currently nine certificate graduates have assistant (six) or associate (three) professor positions in academia. In 2016, an anonymous survey including Likert‐style and open‐ended questions was emailed to all certificate graduates. Graduates favorably responded (each question averaged 4.4 or greater out of 5) that the certificate increased their awareness of teaching‐faculty responsibilities, adequately prepared them for teaching‐related duties, and positively contributed toward their first employment. Graduates indicated that the lecturing and dissection experience, awareness of faculty responsibilities, and job preparation (e.g., teaching philosophy development) were the most helpful aspects of the certificate. These results indicate that the Graduate Certificate in Anatomical Sciences Instruction is viewed by its graduates and their employers as a valuable teaching credential that can be attained alongside a basic science degree. Anat Sci Educ 11: 516–524. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Investigating Cheaters

This article analyzes the American television program Cheaters. Cheaters advances itself as the most “realistic” of reality programs based on an ethnographic approach to the surveillance and exposure of infidelity. The program offers theoretical lessons in the vernacular of reality television, as it proliferates positions for the subjects in its narrative and raises questions about the relationship between seeing and believing. Every effort to show and tell more destabilizes the possibility of discerning the very truths it purports to uncover. In the process the program offers insights into the limits of reality television and into contemporary socio-cultural epistemology.     

Revisioning professionalism from the periphery

Abstract

The issue of who should be included and recognised as professionals in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) service system is both contested and pressing in the current policy climate. At stake is a high-quality early childhood care and education service system that is both responsive and appropriate to the constituency it serves. A review of the history of ECEC professionalism reveals complex entanglements and debates regarding professional belonging. Services that deliver education and care to children and families living in high poverty contexts are often excluded from ECEC professionalism debates. Drawing on notions of rationality, emotionality and criticality presented in recent accounts of ECEC professionalism, we use data collected from interviews with service providers delivering services to children and families living in high poverty contexts in Australia to develop an account of criticality that is pertinent to current funding and policy contexts. We argue that these service providers’ perspectives about their own professionalism have much to offer broader debates.