Infants of Depressed Mothers Exhibit Atypical Frontal Electrical Brain Activity during Interactions with Mother and with a Familiar, Nondepressed Adult

Previous studies have shown that infants of depressed mothers exhibit atypical frontal brain electrical activity when they are interacting with their mothers. Whereas typically developing infants exhibit greater left versus right frontal brain activity, infants of depressed mothers have been found to exhibit reduced relative left frontal activity. The left frontal brain region has been associated with the expression of positive emotions. In the present study, the question of whether the atypical pattern of brain activity found in infants of depressed mothers generalizes to situations not involving mother was addressed. Brain electrical activity was recorded from 13- to 15-month-old infants of depressed (N = 59) versus nondepressed (N = 40) mothers during a baseline condition, and during several social conditions that included a playful social interaction with a familiar experiments. Infants of depressed mothers exhibited reduced left relative to right frontal activity during the baseline condition, and during interactions with their mothers and with the familiar experimenter. The present results suggest that the atypical pattern of electrical brain activity found in infants of depressed mothers generalizes to a variety of situations, including positive interactions with nondepressed adults.     

GENDER, NEWS MEDIA EXPOSURE AND POLITICAL CYNICISM: PUBLIC OPINION OF HONG KONG'S FUTURE TRANSITION

Marginalized from the center of power, women in Hong Kong maybe particularly vulnerable to the future political transition,as the territory prepares for an exchange from British to Chineserule. How do women feel about the impending changes in HongKong? According to results from a recent (April 1993) representativetelephone survey in Hong Kong (n = 502), women are less likelyto have faith in the political future of Hong Kong than men.Moreover, this relationship between gender and political cynicismbecomes more pronounced when controlling for socio-economicstatus and is more intensive among persons in their middle years.Contrary to expectations, exposure to newspapers does not encouragedistrust, but instead appears to be associated with less cynicismof the future transition, at least among men. Women, on theother hand, are less likely to be susceptible to press coverage.In a context in which political transition is pending, suchas in Hong Kong, it is imperative to attempt to understand theevolution and disintegration of political cynicism, particularlyamong those who may be vulnerable to political change.     

Temporal processing,attention, and learning disorders

In a large sample (N = 439) of literacy impaired and unimpaired elementary school children the predictions of the temporal processing theory of dyslexia were tested while controlling for (sub)clininal attentional deficits. Visual and Auditory Temporal Order Judgement were administered as well as three subtests of a standardized attention test. The correlation between visual and auditory TOJ was only moderate, challenging the assumption of a general, cross-modal temporal processing deficit. Regression analyses revealed attention as a significant predictor of children's TOJ performance. Once attentional differences were accounted for, temporal processing made a significant but small contribution (3% of variance explained) to reading (but not spelling), but also to arithmetic achievement, indicating that the prediction is not specific to literacy skills. Phonology and Rapid Automatized Naming explained considerable variance even when introduced after TOJ, contradicting the assumption that the verbal deficits in dyslexia result from temporal processing problems. Multiple case studies of 40 children with serious deficits in temporal processing revealed no consistent group pattern. Problems in temporal processing do not necessarily lead to literacy impairment but might be a marker of minor deviances in brain development.     

Logics of practice in movement culture: Lars-Magnus Engström’s contribution to understanding participation in movement cultures

In this article, we present a framework for exploring participation in and social stratification of movement culture based on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept logic of practice. The background to our approach is Lars-Magnus Engström’s struggle to understand the impact of social stratification on participation in movement culture in a now nearly fifty-year follow-up study. The aim of the article is to elaborate further a framework, which Engström drafted in one of his last publications. Here, we assume that participation in movement cultures is guided by a number of logics of practice that are historically, culturally and socially constituted, and which relate to people’s tastes in particular ways that lead to social stratification. These logics are grouped into three overarching kinds of practices: performing, improving and experiencing, which engender both practice and social stratification. Further, the different logics of practice are linked to a principle of uncertainty, which means that quantitative empirical data must be interpreted rather than measured in a strict sense. The here outlined framework suggests that future research about participation in movement culture needs to take into account information about the structure, rhythm and tempo of the practice, as well as of the directionality of the actions. Information about these issues can hopefully contribute to a more elaborated understanding of the impact of social stratification on participation in movement culture, and in what forms movements are pursued.     

Development of morphological priming effects in reading aloud in the biscriptal Bosnian orthography

Reading and Writing - A substantial body of research has noted morphological priming effects in visual word recognition in deep orthographies, but it is still unclear whether similar effects exist...     

Naming speed in dyslexia and dyscalculia

In four carefully selected samples of 8- to 10-year old children with dyslexia (but age adequate arithmetic skills), dyscalculia (but age adequate reading skills), dyslexia/dyscalculia and controls a domain-general deficit in rapid automatized naming (RAN) was found for both dyslexia groups. Dyscalculic children exhibited a domain-specific deficit in rapid naming of quantities. This finding is in line with recent assumptions that dyscalculia is associated with a neurobiological deficit in the processing of numerosities. In the dyslexia/dyscalculia group, RAN deficits were additive, that is, the dyslexia/dyscalculia group exhibited the sum of the deficits found in the dyslexia only and dyscalculia only groups. This finding suggests that the cognitive bases of dyslexia and dyscalculia are independent from each other. Within the naming speed paradigm no differential impact of special demands on the executive functions inhibition and shifting was found for any of the four groups.     

Communicating aims and learning goals in physical education: part of a subject for learning?

Based on a socio-cultural perspective on learning, the aim of this article is to examine how aims and learning goals are communicated in physical education (PE) practice. A special focus is on scrutinising how teaching practices are framed in terms of whether and how the aims and learning goals are made explicit or not to students. The aim is also to relate these kinds of communications to different movement cultures. The result shows that many of the students taking part in the study do not understand what they are supposed to learn in PE. However, if the goals are well articulated by teachers, the students are more likely to both understand and be aware of the learning outcomes and what to learn in PE. The opposite is also true. If the goals and objectives are not clarified, students find it difficult to state the learning objectives and know what they are supposed to learn.     

Assessing Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care

Evaluating quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) service internationally is increasingly important. Research to date indicates that it is ‘high-quality’ programmes that boost and sustain children's achievement outcomes over time. There is also growing interest in the accountability of public funds used for ECEC programmes and the types of measures that assess ECEC quality. This article reviews eleven existing instruments that were designed to assess global ECEC programmes and examines them in terms of their strengths and weaknesses as quality measurement tools and the adequacy of the measures to sufficiently reflect the context and purposes of the assessment. Through this process the authors identify directions for the development of new measures that are both theoretically and psychometrically sound.     

Reading Philosophically in a Community of Enquiry: Challenging Developmentality with Oram and Kitamura’s Angry Arthur

Meanings in a picturebook are constructed in the space between words, images and reader. Contemporary picturebooks are ideal vehicles for a deep reading of, and philosophical engagement with, texts that move beyond literary and literacy knowledge. Philosophy with picturebooks also offers an alternative to personal responses to these texts that are individual, subjective and anecdotal. The use of these works of art for teaching demands an epistemological reorientation with ethical and political implications. First, it is argued how picturebooks’ ambiguity and complexity demand the ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy that positions its participants (including young children) as able meaning-makers and problem-posers. Secondly, it is shown how philosophical knowledge changes the questions lecturers, teachers and primary children ask and how these can disrupt naturalised psychological discourses about child and childhood. The argument is supported by showing how the picturebook Angry Arthur by Oram and Kitamura can be used in teacher education to teach key theoretical distinctions in the philosophy of emotions and how these ideas challenge the still current discourse of developmentality through deep readings that are also literal and not symbolic or figurative as often assumed. Angry Arthur is therefore suggested as a useful text in teacher education especially in combination with the community of enquiry pedagogy.     

Romantic relationships: an important context for HIV/STI and pregnancy prevention programmes with young people

Romantic relationships are central in the lives of young people. This paper uses data on romantic relationships from urban youth in the USA to illustrate how using a relationships perspective in HIV/STI and pregnancy prevention programmes broadens the skills and content covered, and contextualises the learning to enhance relevance and use. Self-report survey data were collected using electronic handheld devices for a school-based randomised trial. The survey sample includes 911 young people (mean age = 12.4 years) representative of their schools. Logistic regressions explored associations between selected sexual behaviours and relationship characteristics. For all participants, having more boy/girlfriends, dating alone, ever touching and ever having had oral sex were associated with an increased likelihood of having vaginal sex. Among young people with current partners, having a partner three or more years older, length of relationship and ever having oral sex were associated with an increased likelihood of having vaginal sex. The study data confirm the importance of accounting for relationships in sexual risk reduction programmes, and provide avenues for enhancing the relevancy of typical school-based prevention programmes.