Recognising Difference: the Romani ‘Gypsy’ child socialisation and education process

There is considerable conflict between Romani Gypsy child socialisation and education processes and mainstream education practices. In Romani communities children are encouraged to show initiative and independence at an early age. They learn by participating in the communities’ economic activities and observing adult verbal and non‐verbal communication skills. In mainstream education, by comparison, they learn in an enclosed classroom where they are rarely able to initiate or create their own learning experiences. Due to the increasing demands of industrialised societies, literacy is vital for Romani people. However, education systems are at present failing to meet the needs of these children. Structural inequalities such as poverty and racism, coupled with differing viewpoints on the benefits of education, continue to contribute to the low participation rates of Romani children in mainstream schools.     

Bridging identity ‘chasms’: occupational therapy academics’ reflections on the journey towards scholarship

The performative context of higher education demands that practice-oriented academics shift their priorities from preparing practitioners for the profession, towards ‘productive’ scholarship. We present narratives from occupational therapy academics at the end of a year-long journey through an action research project focussed on academic identity and scholarly growth. Our analysis captures subtle and striking shifts in being and becoming, doing and belonging. The findings, re-presented as an adapted Hero’s Journey, also reveal the powerful impacts on identity and practice that are enabled when academics have the opportunity to create spaces for scholarship that are experienced as caring, collaborative and collegial.     

Educating the child care administrator

ABSTRACT

There is a strong national movement to improve the quality in child care programs nationwide and an important part of this movement includes professional preparation standards. Stakeholders in New York State (NYS) have developed the NYS Children’s Program Administrator Credential (CPAC), designed to meet the need for increased knowledge in child care administration. In response, Empire State College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY), developed four models to help practitioners meet the new requirement: study group, independent study, residency, and online. The purpose of this article is to examine the development of the credential, discuss the collaborative process involved in the development of the different modes of study, followed by a discussion of the strengths and challenges of each model.     

Biological Sensitivity to the Effects of Maternal Postpartum Depressive Symptoms on Children's Behavior Problems

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) may confer infant susceptibility to the postpartum environment. Among infants with higher RSA, there may be a positive relation between depressive symptoms across the first 6 months postpartum (PPD) and later behavior problems, and toddlers’ dysregulation during mother–child interactions may partially explain the effects. Among a sample of low-income Mexican-American families, infant RSA (N = 322; 46% male) was assessed at 6 weeks of age; mothers (M_age = 27.8, SD = 6.5) reported PPD symptoms every 3 weeks from 6 to 24 weeks and infant behavior problems at 36 months. Dysregulation was observed at 24 months. PPD was positively associated with behavior problems only among infants with lower RSA; however, this relation was not mediated by dysregulation.     

Using MeSH to search for alternatives to the use of animals in research

Searching for alternatives to using animals in research is not a standard service currently offered by most medical research libraries. The goal of this article is to demystify this type of expert search for medical librarians and to do so using a language they know well, that of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus. An attempt is made in this paper to discuss possible search strategies and to include examples of recommended approaches to searching-all in the context of the 3Rs of alternatives: Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction.     

Library support for problem-based learning: an algorithmic approach

Academic health sciences libraries can take various approaches to support the problem-based learning component of the curriculum. This article presents one such approach taken to integrate information navigation skills into the small group discussion part of the Pathophysiology course in the second year of the Dental school curriculum. Along with presenting general resources for the course, the Library Toolkit introduced an algorithmic approach to finding answers to sample clinical case questions. While elements of Evidence-Based Practice were introduced, the emphasis was on teaching students to navigate relevant resources and apply various database search techniques to find answers to the clinical problems presented.     

Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: methodological challenges and directions for child development research

Emotion regulation has emerged as a popular topic, but there is doubt about its viability as a scientific construct. This article identifies conceptual and methodological challenges in this area of study and describes exemplar studies that provide a substantive basis for inferring emotion regulation. On the basis of those studies, 4 methods are described that provide compelling evidence for emotion regulation: independent measurement of activated emotion and purported regulatory processes; analysis of temporal relations; measurement across contrasting conditions; and multiple, convergent measures. By offering this perspective, this article aims to engage thoughtful debate and critical analysis, with the goal of increasing methodological rigor and advancing an understanding of emotion regulation as a scientific construct.     

The psychological significance of play with imaginary companions in early childhood

Although social play is common to many species, humans are unique in their ability to extract some of the benefits of social play through imagination. For example, in play with imaginary companions (ICs), children often practice skills that might be useful for later adaptive social, relational, and emotional functioning. While play with ICs does not provide the same immediate feedback that play with real others affords, this imagined, quasisocial context allows children to experiment with or rehearse events that might occur in real relationships. This symbolic enactment of social relationships might afford opportunities to experience not just social situations but all manner of positive and negative emotions in a risk-free way. In addition, children’s interactions with real others around their ICs allow for negotiation of social roles in real relationships. ICs also provide a forum for psychological distance that might help young children manage their real relationships and engage in processes such as negotiation and cooperation, which are needed for successful social adaptation. Although play with ICs is clearly not of adaptive value in an evolutionary sense, for the children who create them, ICs might hold psychological significance for adaptive social development.     

Attentional and executive function behaviours in children with poor working memory

The purpose of this study was to explore the profiles of classroom behaviour relating to attention and executive functions in children with very poor working memory, and to test the hypothesis that inattentive behaviour and working memory problems co-occur. Teachers rated problem behaviours of 52 children with low working memory scores aged 5/6 and 9/10 years on teacher rating measures of attention and executive function behaviours. The majority of children with low working memory scores obtained atypically high ratings of cognitive problems/ inattentive symptoms, and were judged to have short attention spans, high levels of distractibility, problems in monitoring the quality of their work, and difficulties in generating new solutions to problems. These results extend previous findings that working memory problems and inattentive behaviour co-occur to a non-clinical sample. It is suggested that reduced working memory capacity may play a causal role in the problem behaviours of these children.