The effects of speech production and vocabulary training on different components of spoken language performance

A group of 21 hard-of-hearing and deaf children attending primary school were trained by their teachers on the production of selected consonants and on the meanings of selected words. Speech production, vocabulary knowledge, reading aloud, and speech perception measures were obtained before and after each type of training. The speech production training produced a small but significant improvement in the percentage of consonants correctly produced in words. The vocabulary training improved knowledge of word meanings substantially. Performance on speech perception and reading aloud were significantly improved by both types of training. These results were in accord with the predictions of a mathematical model put forward to describe the relationships between speech perception, speech production, and language measures in children (Paatsch, Blamey, Sarant, Martin, & Bow, 2004). These training data demonstrate that the relationships between the measures are causal. In other words, improvements in speech production and vocabulary performance produced by training will carry over into predictable improvements in speech perception and reading scores. Furthermore, the model will help educators identify the most effective methods of improving receptive and expressive spoken language for individual children who are deaf or hard of hearing.     

Challenges and possibilities of Holocaust education and critical citizenship: An ethnographic study of a fifth-grade bilingual class revisited

This classroom ethnography examines the engagement of fifth-grade children in a year-long study of rights, respect, and responsibility, which culminated in a focused study of tolerance and intolerance organized around literature regarding the Holocaust. A close examination of one teacher’s approach to teaching about the Holocaust, the study highlights the importance of long-term engagements, a layered curriculum that supports children in building understandings over time, and varied opportunities for making meaning together. This approach included empathy-building, a focus on rescue and resistance and the bystander response, building a knowledge base about the Holocaust, stories of individual experiences, and opportunities to make personal connections. Drawing on samples of student talk, writing, and art, the article illustrates how children built upon academic and social practices established from the first days of school to expand their repertoire of meanings, language, and actions of (in)tolerance, gaining more complex understandings of the social, political, and moral implications of the Holocaust. Students in this bilingual class also developed individual and social actions in speaking out against social injustice in their own communities. The author argues that this classroom experience supported students as critical citizens who conscientiously and compassionately participate in the day-to-day building of more equitable communities.     

‘We raised it with the Head’: the educational practices of minority ethnic,middle‐class families

This paper discusses findings from a small‐scale empirical exploration of the views, experiences and educational practices of middle‐class minority ethnic families in the United Kingdom. It draws on semi‐structured interviews conducted with 36 parents, pupils and ‘young professionals’. Analyses consider to what extent generic class resources, as identified by the US work of Lareau, are evident within the educational practices of British middle‐class, minority ethnic families. It is argued that generic class resources and practices were evident to the extent that parents expressed a desire for personalised education, felt comfortable voicing their opinions and concerns to schools, and were willing to climb the ladder of authority to get their voices heard. However, it is also argued that ‘race’ plays a significant and complicating role that calls for a qualification (but not a negation) of Lareau’s theorisation.     

Social justice storytelling and young children's active citizenship

This paper examines empirical data with regard to recent theorizing and conceptualizing of children's citizenship. It draws on a doctoral study where the author told social justice stories to one class of children aged five to six years to investigate the active citizenship that the stories set in motion. By imagining this action research study rhizomatically, organic and tangent pathways were mapped of what the stories set in motion. Analysis was informed by poststructuralist discourse theory and critical theory on political action, which enabled identification of enablers and constrainers of young children's actual practice of citizenship. A case is argued for acknowledgement of young children's political identities and capacity to act as communitarian citizens.     

The impact of chronic carbohydrate manipulation on mucosal immunity in elite endurance athletes

Carbohydrate (CHO) availability could alter mucosal immune responses to exercise. This study compared the effect of three dietary approaches to CHO availability on resting and post-exercise s-IgA levels. Elite race walkers (n = 26) adhered to a high CHO diet (HCHO), periodised CHO availability (PCHO) or a low CHO/high fat diet (LCHF) for 3 weeks while completing an intensified training program. HCHO and PCHO groups consumed 8.0–8.5 g.kg^?1 CHO daily, with timing of ingestion manipulated to alter CHO availability around key training sessions. The LCHF diet comprised 80% fat and restricted CHO to < 50 g.day^?1. A race walk test protocol (19 km females, 25 km males) was completed at baseline, after adaptation, and following CHO restoration. On each occasion, saliva samples were obtained pre- and post-exercise to quantify s-IgA levels. Resting s-IgA secretion rate substantially increased ~ two-fold post-intervention in all groups (HCHO: 2.2 ± 2.2, PCHO: 2.8 ± 3.2, LCHF: 1.6 ± 1.6; fold-change± 95% confidence limits), however, no substantial differences between dietary treatments were evident. Post-exercise, substantial 20–130% increases in s-IgA concentration and 43–64% reductions in flow rate occurred in all dietary treatments, with trivial differences evident between groups. It appears that high volume training overrides any effect of manipulating CHO availability on mucosal immunity in elite athletes.     

Associations between prolonged sedentary time and breaks in sedentary time with cardiometabolic risk in 10–14-year-old children: The HAPPY study

This study examines the association between prolonged sedentary time and breaks in sedentary time with cardiometabolic risk in 10–14-year-old children. This cross-sectional design study analysed accelerometry-determined sedentary behaviour and physical activity collected over 7 days from 111 (66 girls) UK schoolchildren. Objective outcome measures included waist circumference, fasting lipids, fasting glucose, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness. Logistic regression was used for the main data analysis. After adjustment for confounders, the odds of having hypertriglyceridaemia (P = 0.03) and an increased clustered cardiometabolic risk score (P = 0.05) were significantly higher in children who engaged in more prolonged sedentary bouts per day. The number of breaks in sedentary time per day was not associated with any cardiometabolic risk factor, but longer mean duration of daily breaks in sedentary time were associated with a lower odds of having abdominal adiposity (P = 0.04) and elevated diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.01). These associations may be mediated by engagement in light activity. This study provides evidence that avoiding periods of prolonged uninterrupted sedentary time may be important for reducing cardiometabolic disease risk in children.     

Critical Theory and Visual Practice in the Art School

This paper reflects upon the recent debates concerning the relationship between theory and practice in British art schools. Much has been done during the last two decades by artists, academics, writers and exhibition curators to bridge the traditional polarization between thinking and making. Underlying this venture is the keenly felt conviction that our task as teachers is to work with our students to develop creative practices which make a difference – particularly in relation to how we might use the arts to reformulate the ways in which we articulate our sense of self in a wider social and political context. In the last thirty years we have witnessed a sea change in art schools. The formerly inward looking reclusive art school culture is now inhabited by groups and individuals who are engaged in the everyday concerns of consumer culture and are committed to, first of all, harness creative production as an agent of change and, second, reject the notion that art practice is divorced from theoretical concerns.