Studies of visual information processing in schizophrenic children

11 children meeting DSM III criteria for schizophrenia (mean age approximately 12 years), a group of normal children matched in mean mental age to the schizophrenic children, and a group of younger normal children (mean age 6.6 years) were administered a series of visual information-processing tasks in order to isolate core information-processing impairments in childhood onset schizophrenia. In Experiment 1, the schizophrenic children showed impairment relative to the MA-matched normals and performed at the level of the younger normal children on a forced-choice partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. Previous research has shown that this task is sensitive to dysfunction in both actively and partially recovered schizophrenic adults as well as a subset of foster children at risk for schizophrenia. Experiment 2 delimited the source of the information-processing impairment in schizophrenic children by ruling out a number of possible causes of impairment and suggesting that schizophrenic children use the same information-acquisition strategies as MA-matched children but less efficiently. Experiment 3 revealed that, consistent with the previous research, the schizophrenic children were comparable with the MA-matched controls on a full-report span-of-apprehension task that placed heavy demands on iconic and short-term memory. Both the schizophrenic and MA-matched normals performed significantly better than the younger normal children. Taken collectively, the results of the three experiments suggest that all groups of children engaged in a serial information-processing strategy while performing on the partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. The differential impairment of the schizophrenic children on the partial-report versions but not the full-report version of the span-of-apprehension task seems to reflect inefficiencies in controlled attentional processes that normally develop during middle childhood.     

Mystery of the Toxic Flea Dip: An Interactive Approach to Teaching Aerobic Cellular Respiration

We designed an interrupted case study to teach aerobic cellular respiration to major and nonmajor biology students. The case is based loosely on a real-life incident of rotenone poisoning. It places students in the role of a coroner who must determine the cause of death of the victim. The case is presented to the students in four parts. Each part is followed by discussion questions that the students answer in small groups prior to a classwide discussion. Successive parts of the case provide additional clues to the mystery and help the students focus on the physiological processes involved in aerobic respiration. Students learn the information required to solve the mystery by reading the course textbook prior to class, listening to short lectures interspersed throughout the case, and discussing the case in small groups. The case ends with small group discussions in which the students are given the names and specific molecular targets of other poisons of aerobic respiration and asked to determine which process (i.e., glycolysis, citric acid cycle, or the electron transport chain) the toxin disrupts.     

Data‐Driven Improvement in Prekindergarten Classrooms: Report From a Partnership in an Urban District

In 2014–2015 and 2015–2016, a metropolitan school system in the southern United States embarked on a unique mission to improve the quality of its public prekindergarten programs through a partnership with a group of developmental researchers in an iterative, data‐based venture. Data on 407 children in Year 1 and 433 in Year 2 (who were enrolled in 26 classrooms and extensively observed) are presented from the first 2 years of the ongoing partnership. All children were 4 years of age. Variability in classroom practices, measured empirically, and variability in child outcomes provided the means to examine the relations between children's gains in academic and social‐emotional areas and major areas of classroom practices. Lessons learned, the eight identified significant practices, implications, and next steps in the partnership are addressed.     

论洪武时期滇黔卫所中的北方民族武职群体

从滇黔卫所选簿提供的实际案例来看,不可将洪武年间调入滇黔卫所的职役一概视为"汉族移民",也不能认为他们在主体上是来自北方的少数民族.北方民族为数不少,但不至于形成卫所的主体.其在卫所中的分布,与各卫所设置时的现实态势有密不可分的联系,不可空泛而言.     

Effect of perceptual processing strategies on problem solving of reflective and impulsive children

Several studies employing the "20 questions" test reported that reflective children asked proportionally more constraint-seeking (CS) questions than did impulsive children. The finding was interpreted as supporting the generally accepted view that reflective children are more mature and more efficient problem solvers than impulsive children. Inexplicably, the reflectives' higher proportion of CS questions was not associated with fewer questions to solution, that is, with greater efficiency. The present study examined an alternative hypothesis that differences in performance of impulsive and reflective children on the "20 questions" test are due to individual differences in preferred perceptual processing strategy rather than in cognitive maturity of problem-solving strategy. Efficiency of performance of reflective and impulsive children was shown to be related to type of stimuli and experimental conditions employed, supporting a perceptual rather than cognitive-maturational interpretation.