Patterns of Close Relationships and Socioemotional and Academic Adjustment Among School‐Age Children with Learning Disabilities

This study examined patterns of close relationships among school‐age children with learning disabilities (LD) as manifested in their attachment style, their self‐perceived loneliness, their sense of coherence, and teacher ratings of their academic functioning. In line with resilience theory, this study also aimed to further explore predictors of positive adjustment for children with LD. The sample comprised 98 children with LD from regular classes in four Israeli public elementary schools, and 98 non‐LD children from the same classes. Significant group differences emerged in attachment styles and adjustment. Attachment style significantly correlated with socioemotional adjustment but not with academic functioning. In addition, a subgroup of resilient children emerged among the LD children. Discussion focused on the value of attachment patterns for understanding social and emotional adjustment among school‐age children with LD.     

Lexical inference in L2: predictive roles of vocabulary knowledge and reading skill beyond reading comprehension

The current study examined the predictive roles of L2 vocabulary knowledge and L2 word reading skills in explaining individual differences in lexical inferencing in the L2. Participants were 53 Israeli high school students who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, and spoke Russian as an L1 and Hebrew as an L2. L2 vocabulary knowledge and decoding accuracy predicted L2 reading comprehension, which in turn was strongly related to lexical inferencing abilities in the L2. In addition, decoding accuracy predicted additional variance in lexical inferencing, beyond the role of reading comprehension. These findings support the idea that beginning L2 readers with more precise and efficient lexical representations demonstrate better lexical inferencing abilities, most likely due to the increased automatization of word reading, which frees up resources for higher level processing. These results suggest that lexical inferencing from text in the L2 might be limited not only by vocabulary knowledge and higher order comprehension processes, but also by basic decoding skills.     

Hellos and How Are Yous: Predictors and Correlates of Communication Between Staff and Families During Morning Drop-Off in Child Care Centers

Research Findings: The amount and quality of communication between staff and guardians in child care centers was examined using extensive naturalistic observations. Interactions between staff and more than 1,000 guardians who dropped their child off at their child care center were captured through a series of 20-s time-sampled observations. Structural quality indicators (ratios, staff education, etc.) were used to predict communication. Associations between staff–guardian communication and other aspects of quality were also examined. Results: Guardians spent an average of 63 s in their child's classroom during morning drop-off. Communication between staff and parents was limited, with staff providing child-related information to or soliciting it from approximately 15% of guardians. Out of several structural quality indicators, only greater professional development hours among staff in a classroom increased the likelihood of staff providing guardians with information about the program. Drop-off communication between staff and guardians and between staff and children was somewhat related to other measures of process quality. Practice or Policy: Results are discussed in terms of the importance of connecting families and centers, implications for rating center quality, and the accuracy of the drop-off period as parents’ lens into the quality of their child's classroom.     

Visual and Auditory Morphological Priming in Adults With Developmental Dyslexia

The quality of implicit morphological knowledge in adult Hebrew readers with developmental dyslexia was investigated. The priming paradigm was used to examine whether these adults extract and represent morphemic units similarly to normal readers during online word recognition. The group with dyslexia as a whole did not exhibit priming with visual presentation as opposed to both age- and reading-level controls. Priming was absent when the prime and target words shared a morpheme and even when the prime and the target were identical. Only the students with phonological dyslexia, who exhibited relatively good performance in the orthographic judgment task, exhibited repetition priming but not morphological priming. Strong repetition and morphological priming effects were found for participants with dyslexia when the stimuli were auditory. The implications of the dissociation between visual and auditory priming for the locus of the deficit in morphological processing during word recognition are discussed.     

Book review

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education -     

Female teachers’ coping styles with negative emotions in student aggression

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Current research has focused largely on teachers’ practices in order to promote safe and peaceful classrooms; however, research on how teachers...     

Analysis of efflorescence on surface of beeswax seals

Thirteen samples of an efflorescence collected from the surface of beeswax seals or from beeswax used for their restoration were analysed in detail. The samples were of different origin, age and storage history. The composition and the incidence of the efflorescence was correlated with a chemical composition of historical and recent beeswax samples. The composition of the crystalline layer was found to be very similar in all the samples. Linear monounsaturated alkenes containing 31 and 33 carbon atoms, more precisely (Z)-hentriacont-10-ene and (Z)-tritriacont-10-ene, were identified as main components. The analyses of beeswax have revealed that all compounds identified in “wax bloom” naturally occur in recent beeswax. However, the historical beeswaxes contained only traces of unsaturated hydrocarbons, if anything. The efflorescence was observed primarily on the surfaces of those samples which contained larger proportion of alkenes. The presented results could be of particular importance not only for better understanding of the described phenomenon, but also for the development of new beeswax-based materials, which would be “bloom resistant” and useful for conservation purposes.     

Fathers' coping resources and children's socioemotional adjustment among children with learning disabilities

This study examined a cumulative model of vulnerability and protective factors at the individual level (children's attachment relationships with father and children's sense of coherence) and at the family level as manifested by fathers' coping resources (fathers' sense of coherence, fathers' active and avoidant coping strategies) in helping to explain differences in socioemotional and behavioral adjustment among children at the age 8 to 12 years with learning disabilities (LD) and or with typical development. The sample included 205 father-child dyads: 107 fathers and their children having LD and 98 fathers and their children with typical development, from the same public elementary schools. Preliminary analyses indicated significant group differences on all the children's measures as well as on fathers' avoidant coping strategies. Path analysis examined the multidimensional risk model for the LD and non-LD groups. The study found a high fit between the theoretical model and the empirical findings as well as a different pattern of relationship between the model's components for the two populations studied. Discussion focuses on understanding the unique value of vulnerability and protective factors at the individual and family levels on children's well-adjusted functioning.     

Learning by doing—The influence of students’ experience in community television production on personality variables

The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of students’ experience in community television production, i.e. “learning by doing”, on their self-image. The research population included 157 subjects who underwent a set of tests for evaluating their self-image (personal, moral and social) and motivation. All the subjects took part in the production of a film and experienced the production roles according to their personal choice (director, editor, photographer, actor). At the end of the learning process and the production of the film the subjects took the same set of tests again in order to determine the change that took place following the process. Sixty-one subjects also participated in an interview that examined their attitudes and feelings towards the process they had undergone. The results indicate that students who experienced learning via community television production roles improved their personal, moral, social and self-image. An open experience system can thus create a common framework in which each person contributes towards a completed product, and can help develop the student’s self-image and motivation.     

Prospective and In-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Attention to a Rich Mathematics Task While Planning its Implementation in the Classroom

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education - This study explores secondary mathematics teachers’ attention to the three components of Jaworski’s (1992) “teaching...