Effect of Twinning on Chinese and English Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary knowledge was tested in a native (Cantonese-Chinese) and foreign (English) language in 150 twins and 150 singletons aged 6–11 years, matched on age, gender, grade level, nonverbal intelligence, parents’ education, family income, and number of siblings and household members. The singletons clearly outperformed the twins on the native vocabulary, but this “twinning effect” was much less noticeable for the foreign vocabulary. The effect on English vocabulary was further reduced after exposure to English at home was controlled. Given that these participants learned most of their English in school rather than home, the present findings support the notion that the twinning effect is associated with increased competition for family interaction in twins compared with singletons.     

Teachers as child advocates: A continuum of involvement

Conclusion First steps into advocacy must encourage involvement, not intimidate. Instead of struggling with the complexities of advocacy, a simple continuum of advocacy involvement helps ground teachers into roles which are more comfortable and encourages active participation, even by novices. Reinforcing advocacy activity, even at the simplest levels, aids teachers in gaining skill and experience as they move toward advocating for solutions to the more complex problems facing children and families.     

Criminal Justice Students and Sexual Prejudice

This paper examines sexual prejudice against gays and lesbians by college students. The sample consisted of 325 undergraduate students at a mid-sized Midwestern university. Respondents completed Herek’s Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale (short form) to determine levels of sexual prejudice. Comparisons were then made by respondent major to determine whether criminal justice students displayed higher levels of sexual prejudice than other students. Unlike prior research on criminal justice students and sexual prejudice, the criminal justice respondents in this study were not significantly more prejudiced against gays and lesbians. Male and female students scored similarly on their attitudes toward lesbian women, but male students were more likely to have higher levels of prejudice against gay men. Students who had gay friends and/or family members held significantly lower levels of prejudice against both gay men and lesbians than those who had no gay friends or family members.     

El ordenador como instrumento de la mente

El discurso argumentativo escrito tiene intrínsecamente un carácter dialàgico. Esta característica se pone de manifiesto en la contraargumentación, uno de los aspectos que mayor dificultad presenta para los aprendices, tanto en la comprensión como en la producción de textos escritos. Esta dificultad se hace patente en las actividades desarrolladas en el curso de una secuencia de enseñanza y aprendizaje sobre este tipo de discurso con alumnos de los primeros niveles de enseñanza secundaria. De ello se desprende la necesidad de su enseñanza específica.     

Genetic and environmental influences on reading and listening comprehension

We report preliminary behaviour genetic analyses of reading and listening comprehension from The Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center. Although the twin sample with these new measures is still of limited size, we find substantial, and significant, genetic influences on individual differences in both reading and listening comprehension. In addition, word recognition and listening comprehension each accounted for significant independent genetic influences on reading comprehension. Together, they accounted for all the genetic influence on reading comprehension, indicating a largely genetic basis for the ‘simple model’ of individual differences in reading comprehension proposed by Hoover and Gough (1990) .