Appetitive-aversion interactions: Facilitation of aversive conditioning by prior appetitive training in the rat

In Experiment 1, four groups of rats received conditioned suppression training in which a tone was reinforced with shock. If the tone had been previously paired with response-independent food, aversive conditioning was slightly facilitated by comparison to control groups preexposed either to the tone randomly associated with food or to the tone and food unpaired. However, by comparison to a control which was not preexposed to the tone, animals receiving prior pairings of the tone and food showed retarded aversive conditioning. Experiment 2 replicated the facilitation in aversive conditioning after the tone had been paired with food relative to the random control condition and demonstrated that this difference occurred even if the tone and background stimuli continued to be associated with response-independent food during aversive conditioning. This result suggests that pairing a stimulus with an appetitive reinforcer reduces the retardation of aversive conditioning produced by stimulus preexposure.     

Complex learning difficulties and EBD

Abstract

This is an account of how one residential school for KEYW ORDS children with emotional and behavioural difficulties has attempted to autistic set up a class for those children presenting complex needs within the spectrum school. The special class has been observed over a number of weeks disorders; and the boys in that unit are benefiting tremendously in their complex needs; social/emotional development and learning. The security of this small emotional and class has given them the courage to go out of school in a group, behavioural together with the teacher, on visits where they showed a high degree difficulties; of maturity in their behaviour and their anxiety was lessened to such residential an extent that they came back full of excitement to tell us what they schools had learnt.     

How Framing Climate Change Influences Citizen Scientists’ Intentions to Do Something About It

How we communicate the dangers of climate change may influence attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Here we test two pairs of positive and negative framing statements with North American citizen scientists interested in gardening and birdwatching. Mentioning dangers for humans did not increase participants’ interest in taking personal action on climate change, but mentioning dangers for birds was highly effective. Highlighting the positive collective impacts of small behavioral changes also increased participants’ interest in taking personal action. These results suggest that while some dire messages are ineffective, those evoking concern for target species of significance to the learners may be as successful as positive messages.     

Teacher Accommodation of Academic Language During Head Start Pre-Kindergarten Read-Alouds

Abstract

Little analytical scrutiny has been devoted to teacher accommodation of academic language at the early childhood level, despite being a critical school-level factor to consider when addressing at-risk learners’ academic needs. The present study investigates how fifteen Head Start teachers support three components of academic language during whole-class read-alouds of narrative storybooks: academic vocabulary, conceptual knowledge, and complex syntax. Pairing a corpus-based analysis of linguistic features and content analyses of teachers’ extratextual utterances, we describe teachers’ strategies for accommodating at-risk children’s early experiences with linguistically and syntactically complex texts. Our findings indicate that teachers simplified the language of the texts to accommodate student need, while also providing examples of academic talk through defining terms and providing conceptually-rich talk. Although teachers provided rich support for academic vocabulary, less accommodation was made for complex syntax. Practical and theoretical implications are addressed.