Do Children's Advocacy Centers improve families' experiences of child sexual abuse investigations?

OBJECTIVE: The Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) model of child abuse investigation is designed to be more child and family-friendly than traditional methods, but there have been no rigorous studies of their effect on children's and caregivers' experience. Data collected as part of the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children's Advocacy Centers were used to examine whether CACs improve caregivers' and children's satisfaction with investigations. METHODS: Nonoffending caregiver and child satisfaction were assessed during research interviews, including the administration of a 14-item Investigation Satisfaction Scale (ISS) for caregivers. Two hundred and twenty-nine sexual abuse cases investigated through a CAC were compared to 55 cases investigated in communities with no CAC. RESULTS: Hierarchical linear regression results indicated that caregivers in CAC cases were more satisfied with the investigation than those from comparison sites, even after controlling for a number of relevant variables. There were few differences between CAC and comparison samples on children's satisfaction. Children described moderate to high satisfaction with the investigation, while a minority expressed concerns about their experience. CONCLUSIONS: The CAC model shows promise for improving families' experiences, but to build upon this promise, agencies will need to systematize procedures for refining and adapting the model as new research becomes available.     

Child forensic interviewing in Children's Advocacy Centers: empirical data on a practice model

OBJECTIVE: Children's Advocacy Centers (CACs) aim to improve child forensic interviewing following allegations of child abuse by coordinating multiple investigations, providing child-friendly interviewing locations, and limiting redundant interviewing. This analysis presents one of the first rigorous evaluations of CACs' implementation of these methods. METHODS: This analysis is part of a quasi-experimental study, the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children's Advocacy Centers, which evaluated four CACs relative to within-state non-CAC comparison communities. Case abstractors collected data on investigation methods in 1,069 child sexual abuse cases with forensic interviews by reviewing case records from multiple agencies. RESULTS: CAC cases were more likely than comparison cases to feature police involvement in CPS cases (41% vs. 15%), multidisciplinary team (MDT) interviews (28% vs. 6%), case reviews (56% vs. 7%), joint police/child protective services (CPS) investigations (81% vs. 52%) and video/audiotaping of interviews (52% vs. 17%, all these comparisons p<.001). CACs varied in which coordination methods they used, and some comparison communities also used certain coordination methods more than the CAC with which they were paired. Eighty-five percent of CAC interviews took place in child-friendly CAC facilities, while notable proportions of comparison interviews took place at CPS offices (22%), police facilities (18%), home (16%), or school (19%). Ninety-five percent of children had no more than two forensic interviews, and CAC and comparison differences on number of interviews were mostly non-significant. CONCLUSIONS: Relative to the comparison communities, these CACs appear to have increased coordination on investigations and child forensic interviewing. The CAC setting was the location for the vast majority of CAC child interviews, while comparison communities often used settings that many consider undesirable. CACs showed no advantage on reducing the number of forensic interviews, which was consistently small across the sample.     

Familiar Object Salience Affects Novel Word Learning

Children use the presence of familiar objects with known names to identify the correct referents of novel words. In natural environments, objects vary widely in salience. The presence of familiar objects may sometimes hinder rather than help word learning. To test this hypothesis, 3-year-olds (N = 36) were shown novel objects paired with familiar objects that varied in their visual salience. When the novel objects were labeled, children were slower and less accurate at fixating them in the presence of highly salient familiar objects than in the presence of less salient familiar objects. They were also less successful in retaining these word-referent pairings. While familiar objects may facilitate novel word learning in ambiguous situations, the properties of familiar objects matter.     

Statistical investigation measuring intelligence and creativity

The use of statistical investigations as a teaching strategy have been shown to both motivate and engage students. The implementation of a statistical investigation to measure intelligence is described, covering core statistical principles and key elements of research design.     

How gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school

This case study attempts to capture the way gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school. It presents findings from a staff survey, structured and unstructured observations of one male’s and one female’s professional practice and one-to-one interviews with children aged three to four years. Despite practitioners’ reported intentions to challenge traditional notions of gender, construction of traditional gender distinctions was not problematised by staff and was upheld by comments of children. Children appeared to construct themselves in terms of gender stereotypes and were offered only limited alternative gender positions by the male and female practitioners.     

Bridging Research and Practice: How Sales Training Can Contribute to New Product Launch Success

This study demonstrates how academicians and practitioners can work together on an important topic that matters to organizational performance: the pivotal role played by salespeople during new product launches. In particular, the authors present three potential interventions that training and sales managers may use to sell a new product to salespeople. The results legitimatize the critical contribution of sales training to new product sales performance and highlight the value of the partnership between training professionals and sales managers.     

Gender differences in motivation and strategy use in science: Are girls rote learners?

This study explored Ridley and Novak's (1983) hypothesis that gender differences in science achievement are due to differences in rote and meaningful learning modes. To test this hypothesis, we examined gender differences in fifth- and sixth-grade students' (N = 213) self-reports of confidence, motivation goals (task mastery, ego, and work avoidance), and learning strategies (active and superficial) in whole-class and small-group science lessons. Overall, the results revealed few gender differences. Compared with girls, boys reported greater confidence in their science abilities. Average-achieving girls reported greater use of meaningful learning strategies than did their male counterparts, whereas low-ability boys reported a stronger mastery orientation than did low-ability girls. The results further showed that students report greater confidence and mastery motivation in small-group than whole-class lessons. In contrast, students reported greater work avoidance in whole-class than small-group lessons. In general, the findings provide little support for Ridley and Novak's hypothesis that girls tend to engage in rote-level learning in science classes. Differences in self-reports of motivation and strategy-use patterns were more strongly related to the student's ability level and to the structure of learning activities (small group vs. whole class) than to gender. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Evening electronic device use and sleep patterns in athletes

The present study aimed to investigate pre-sleep behaviours (including evening electronic device use) and sleep quantity in well-trained athletes. Seventy well-trained athletes (44 females, 26 males) aged 21 ± 4 y from a range of team and individual sports were asked to complete an online sleep diary for 7 days. The sleep diary included questions about pre-sleep behaviours (e.g. napping, caffeine intake), electronic device use in the 2 h prior to bedtime (e.g. type of device and duration of use) and sleep (e.g. time in bed, sleep onset latency). On average, athletes spent 8:20 ± 1:21 h in bed each night. Associations between age, time in bed and sleepiness suggested that younger athletes spent more time in bed (B = -0.05, p = 0.001) but felt sleepier (r = -0.32, p < 0.01) than older athletes. On average, athletes mostly used electronic devices for 0–30 min prior to sleep. The use of multiple devices in the evening was associated with more perceived difficulty in falling asleep (B = 0.22, p = 0.03), but no associations existed with other sleep variables. In summary, younger athletes may require later start times or improved sleep quality to resolve excessive sleepiness.