Incidence and impact of sexual abuse in a child outpatient sample: The role of direct inquiry

From the child psychiatry outpatient department of a university medical center, 64 charts were reviewed in two phases: 29 were randomly selected from outpatient files, and 35 were examined after clinicians were asked to directly query sexual abuse. Although the reported sexual abuse rate for randomly selected charts was quite low (6.9%), reference to sexual abuse history in charts of children who were asked about molestation was 4.5 times more frequent (31.4%; 11.5% of all boys, 50% of all girls). Children with an identified sexual abuse history reported more psychological symptoms, had made more suicide attempts in the past, and were more likely than nonabused children to receive a diagnosis of major depression.     

Tactile training facilitates infants' ability to reach to targets on the body

This longitudinal study investigated the effect of experience with tactile stimulation on infants' ability to reach to targets on the body, an important adaptive skill. Infants were provided weekly tactile stimulation on eight body locations from 4 to 8 months of age (N = 11), comparing their ability to reach to the body to infants in a control group who did not receive stimulation (N = 10). Infants who received stimulation were more likely to successfully reach targets on the body than controls by 7 months of age. These findings indicate that tactile stimulation facilitates the development of reaching to the body by allowing infants to explore the sensorimotor correlations emerging from the stimulation.     

Depression,Control, and Climate: An Examination of Factors Impacting Teaching Quality in Preschool Classrooms

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship of preschool teachers’ self-reported depressive symptomatology, perception of classroom control, and perception of school climate to classroom quality as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K. The sample consisted of 59 urban preschool classrooms serving low-income and linguistically diverse students in the northeastern and southeastern United States. Results of hierarchical linear modeling revealed that teachers’ individual reports of depressive symptomatology were significantly and negatively predictive of the observed quality of their instructional support and classroom organization. Practice or Policy: The findings of this study have implications for increasing access to mental health supports for teachers in an effort to minimize depressive symptoms and potentially improve classroom quality.     

Online Lexical Competition During Spoken Word Recognition and Word Learning in Children and Adults

Lexical competition that occurs as speech unfolds is a hallmark of adult oral language comprehension crucial to rapid incremental speech processing. This study used pause detection to examine whether lexical competition operates similarly at 7–8 years and tested variables that influence “online” lexical activity in adults. Children (n = 20) and adults (n = 17) were slower to detect pauses in familiar words with later uniqueness points. Faster latencies were obtained for words with late uniqueness points in constraining compared with neutral sentences; no such effect was observed for early unique words. Following exposure to novel competitors (“biscal”), children (n = 18) and adults (n = 18) showed competition for existing words with early uniqueness points (“biscuit”) after 24 hr. Thus, online lexical competition effects are remarkably similar across development.     

Visual Short‐Term Memory for Complex Objects in 6‐ and 8‐Month‐Old Infants

Infants' visual short‐term memory (VSTM) for simple objects undergoes dramatic development: Six‐month‐old infants can store in VSTM information about only a simple object presented in isolation, whereas 8‐month‐old infants can store information about simple objects presented in multiple‐item arrays. This study extended this work to examine the development of infants' VSTM for complex objects during this same period (N = 105). Using the simultaneous streams change detection paradigm, Experiment 1 confirmed the previous developmental trajectory between 6 and 8 months. Experiment 2 showed that doubling the exposure time did not enhance 6‐month‐old infants' change detection, demonstrating that the developmental change is not due to encoding speed. Thus, VSTM for simple and complex objects appears to follow the same developmental trajectory.     

Analysis of Parent,Teacher, and Consultant Speech Exchanges and Educational Outcomes of Students With Autism During COMPASS Consultation

The significant increase in the numbers of students with autism combined with the need for better trained teachers (National Research Council, 2001) call for research on the effectiveness of alternative methods, such as consultation, that have the potential to improve service delivery. Data from 2 randomized controlled single-blind trials indicate that an autism-specific consultation planning framework known as the collaborative model for promoting competence and success (COMPASS) is effective in increasing child Individual Education Programs (IEP) outcomes (Ruble, Dalrymple, & McGrew, 2010 Ruble, L. A., Dalrymple, N. J. and McGrew, J. H. 2010. The effects of consultation on Individualized Education Program outcomes for young children with autism: The collaborative model for promoting competence and success. Journal of Early Intervention, 32: 286–301. doi:10.1177/1053815110382973[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Ruble, McGrew, & Toland, 2011 Ruble, L., McGrew, J. and Toland, M. Randomized controlled study of teacher training in autism. Poster session presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC. August.  [Google Scholar]). In this study, we describe the verbal interactions, defined as speech acts and speech act exchanges that take place during COMPASS consultation, and examine the associations between speech exchanges and child outcomes. We applied the Psychosocial Processes Coding Scheme (Leaper, 1991 Leaper, C. 1991. Influence and involvement in children's discourse: Age, gender, and partner effects. Child Development, 62: 797–811. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01570.x[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to code speech acts. Speech act exchanges were overwhelmingly affiliative, failed to show statistically significant relationships with child IEP outcomes and teacher adherence, but did correlate positively with IEP quality.     

Hands-on Computer Use in Science Classrooms: The Skeptics Are Still Waiting

Journal of Science Education and Technology -     

The real ‘cost’ of study in Australia and the ramifications for China,Australia, and the Chinese nursing students: what do these three players want? A narrative review

Australia attracts international nursing students from China to maintain its economic advantage and to alleviate the projected nursing shortage; conversely, China needs its best and brightest citizens who have trained abroad in nursing to return to cope with current challenges within its healthcare system and nursing education. This paper explores whether China can lure its foreign-trained nurses home to achieve its goals; whether China or Australia will win the nursing talent war; and do Chinese nursing students want to remain abroad or return home. The insight gained can support the development of successful human capital investment for all parties involved.