Genetic influences on specific versus nonspecific language impairment in 4-year-old twins

The present study addresses the distinction between specific (SLI) and nonspecific (NLI) language impairment at an etiological level by estimating the relative genetic and environmental contributions to language impairment in children with SLI and NLI. Drawing on a large longitudinal twin study, we tested a sample of 356 four-and-a-half-year-old children with low language ability and their twin partners at home on a range of language and nonverbal measures. For children whose language and nonverbal abilities were both low (NLI), genetic influence on language impairment was moderate and shared environmental influence was substantial. A similar pattern emerged for children whose language difficulties occurred in apparent isolation (SLI), although there was a trend for the genetic effects to be smaller for SLI than for NLI: Group heritability was .18 for SLI and .52 for NLI. Probandwise cross-concordances were suggestive of some genetic overlap between these two groups, but not with a subgroup of children with more severe cognitive delay.     

Forgiving and Requesting Forgiveness

In this article I attempt to address three positions on forgiveness that could be encouraged in schools. They are the strict view defended by Philip Barnes, the relaxed view promoted by Patricia White and the idea of forgiving the unforgivable discussed by Jacques Derrida. I shall examine the tradition from which they emerge and explore some of their problems. This will lead me to a rehabilitation of what is other to that tradition (within and without)—an other that can serve as a corrective to the problems of those positions. I shall conclude the article with an exposition of the radicalisation of the teaching of forgiveness if we focus on the perspective of the one who seeks forgiveness.     

Electricity (de)regulation and innovation

In this paper we study the effect of deregulation on innovation in the electricity sector using a sample of 31 OECD countries. Exploiting sharp reductions in the level of product market regulation, explicitly linked to changes in the legal framework, we perform a difference-in-difference analysis by matching data retrieved from the OECD International Regulation, OECD Patent Grants, and UN World Development Indicators databases. Our main findings suggest that a decrease in regulation intensity, following a significant reform, has a negative impact on patents (granted by the European Patent Office). This impact appears to be mainly due to the degree of market contestability. Finally, we find evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between regulation and innovation. This may imply that the effect of deregulation on innovation depends on the strength of the deregulatory process.     

Learning to use learning resources during medical school and residency.

OBJECTIVES: This study (1) examined the natural history of learning to use learning resources by medical students and residents and (2) considered whether that history is consistent with the ways in which physicians approach their learning tasks. METHODS: The authors conducted and analyzed thirty-two open-ended interviews of first-year and third-year medical students and first-year and senior residents in internal medicine, family medicine, or pediatrics. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Learning to use learning resources occurs at the same time as learning done to address instructional and clinical problems that physicians-in-training face, with all kinds of learning following well-documented stages. Skills for using resources are developed gradually and by overcoming barriers such as time constraints and existing habits. CONCLUSIONS: Implications of the natural history of learning to use learning resources can be employed by librarians and medical teachers to facilitate self-directed learning for physicians-in-training. Specific recommendations are provided.     

Teachers’ implicit theories and use of ICTs in the language classroom

This qualitative and exploratory case study sought to examine if and how implicit theories influence the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the language classroom in Chile. To achieve this goal, data was gathered from nine experienced university instructors in English as a Second Language. Based on semi-structured interviews, a self-assessment skill survey, a record of the equipment available and document analyses, the authors’ findings are presented in three sections: perceived affordances of ICTs, use of ICTs in practice and challenges for implementation of ICTs. They set out and discuss each theme, and conclude with suggestions for further research and pedagogical implications.     

The Role of the Authority of the Text on Critical Thinking

The paper puts forward the argument that critical thinking (and its teaching) should be approached by taking into critical account operations of authority that blunt the reflective disposition toward written texts. The empirical grounds of this argument have been examined by means of a specific study. The study explored in a higher-education setting the extent to which students’ critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality. Eighty-two undergraduates were randomly divided into Group A and Group B. Two passages, extracted from internationally well-known cultural-textual sources, were compiled into two sets of materials. Set A consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of fascist ideology, and Set B consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of democratic theory. During the research session, students in Group A received first Set A and then Set B, and Group B received first Set B followed by Set A. Both sets of materials instructed students to read each passage, comment upon it, and explain in writing their thinking. The results indicated that students’ critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality per se, that is, by the fact that the distributed excerpts enjoyed the aura of the printed, public, and published text. Also the very fact that the excerpts were anonymized made the students’ relation to textual authority more direct and unmediated, as it excluded the impact of the authority of the author on their critical approach. The findings support the basic argument of the paper as described above and also demonstrate the need to cultivate in schools what the authors describe as the “aporetic” dimension of critical thinking.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of a phonologically based reading intervention for struggling readers with varying language profiles

This study evaluates Reading Intervention—a 10-week supplementary reading programme emphasising the link between phonological awareness and reading—when delivered in a realistic educational setting. Twenty-nine 6-year-olds with reading difficulties participated in Reading Intervention and their progress and attainments were compared with those of a representative control group from the same classes, matched on age and gender. Language profiles were also explored. Children with reading difficulties showed weaknesses in phonological awareness and literacy as well as nonphonological oral language skills and nonverbal reasoning. During the intervention, the intervention group made significantly greater progress than the control group in early word reading, phoneme awareness and phonetic spelling. Over a 6-month follow-up period, the intervention group maintained its gains but during this time made significantly less progress on single word reading, phoneme awareness and phonetic spelling than the control group. These findings provide evidence that reading interventions can be delivered effectively in standard educational settings. We argue that a better understanding of how to manage withdrawal of intervention and how to address poor readers’ additional oral language weaknesses is needed.     

Deconstruction, Anti–Realism and Philosophy of Science—an interview with Christopher Norris

In this interview, Christopher Norris discusses a wide range of issues having to do with postmodernism, deconstruction and other controversial topics of debate within present–day philosophy and critical theory. More specifically he challenges the view of deconstruction as just another offshoot of the broader postmodernist trend in cultural studies and the social sciences. Norris puts the case for deconstruction as continuing the ‘unfinished project of modernity’ and—in particular—for Derrida’s work as sustaining the values of enlightened critical reason in various spheres of thought from epistemology to ethics, sociology and politics. Along the way he addresses a number of questions that have lately been raised with particular urgency for teachers and educationalists, among them the revival of creationist doctrine and the idea of scientific knowledge as a social, cultural, or discursive construct. In this context he addresses the ‘science wars’ or the debate between those who uphold the values of scientific reason, progress and truth, and those (like the ‘strong’ sociologists of knowledge) who would reject such values as merely the expression of a dominant ideological consensus. Norris also discusses the emergence of anti–realism as a strongly marked trend within recent analytic philosophy, one that denies the existence of objective (‘recognition–transcendent’) truths in mathematics, the physical sciences, history and other disciplines. Thus statements are thought of as possessing a truth–value just insofar as we possess some adequate proof–procedure or some means of finding them out through empirical or other methods of enquiry. Norris offers a range of arguments against this anti–realist position and brings out its convergence with various postmodernist lines of thought. Through a running commentary on Derrida’s work in relation to these developments he shows how deconstruction has been misconstrued by sociologists, cultural critics and educational theorists whose understanding has often been based on a limited acquaintance with the primary texts. Above all Norris calls for a renewed engagement with the philosophic discourse of modernity and a willingness to challenge postmodern scepticism and value–relativism in a spirit of open–minded critical debate.