Structures underpinning pretend play and word production in young hearing children and children with hearing loss

Relationships between pretend play and word production were investigated in 10 hearing (H) and 10 toddlers with hearing loss (D) who attended an auditory/oral early intervention program. All children were videotaped interacting in free play with their hearing primary caregiver at 28, 29, and 30 months of age. Group comparisons were made for the scores for highest and mean levels of pretend play and for the underlying structures of decontextualization, decentration, sequencing, and planning. Relationships with word production were then explored for the two groups separately. Results showed significantly higher levels of pretend play for all dimensions for the hearing children and an association between level of pretend play and word production for the children with hearing loss. Associations between word production and sequencing and planning were found for both groups of children. Word production was associated with decontextualization for the hearing children and with decentration for the children with hearing loss. We discuss theoretical implications of the findings together with implications for intervention with toddlers who have hearing loss.     

Source interpretation: teaching students with and without LD to read and write historically

We review domain-specific teaching approaches for students with learning disabilities in social studies, then present De La Paz's 2005 historical reasoning strategy so that readers understand the rationale for and have information on each stage of instruction. Next, we highlight the role of self-regulation for the reasoning process. We then turn to describing the role of each teacher (Morales as the social studies educator and Winston as the special educator), first as they collaborate with De La Paz and each other, then as Morales works alone, 1 year later. Implications are given for changes in teaching. The topic of women's suffrage is used throughout the article to highlight the teaching approach and to present student work.     

Constrained Maximum Likelihood Estimation for Two-level Mean and Covariance Structure Models

Maximum likelihood is commonly used for estimation of model parameters in analysis of two-level structural equation models. Constraints on model parameters could be encountered in some situations such as equal factor loadings for different factors. Linear constraints are the most common ones and they are relatively easy to handle in maximum likelihood analysis. Nonlinear constraints could be encountered in complicated applications. In this paper we develop an EM-type algorithm for estimating model parameters with both linear and nonlinear constraints. The empirical performance of the algorithm is demonstrated by a Monte Carlo study. Application of the algorithm for linear constraints is illustrated by setting up a two-level mean and covariance structure model for a real two-level data set and running an EQS program.     

4～6年级学生的语文学科兴趣发展特点及教育启示

本文采用问卷调查法，对645名4～6年级学生的语文学科兴趣发展特点进行研究。结果表明：语文学科兴趣发展存在性别差异，女生的语文学科兴趣高于男生；语文学科兴趣发展存在年级与城乡的交互效应，农村学生在情感与教师因素分量表上，随着年级的增长，呈线性上升趋势，“卷入”与“价值因素”则呈先下降后上升的趋势，城市学生在卷入、教师以及情感分量表上，随年级的增长呈线性下降趋势，“价值因素”则呈先下降后上升的趋势。     

Mastery motivational climate: influence on physical play and heart rate in African American toddlers

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a planned mastery motivational physical play session on physical activity (i.e., heart rate [HR] and physical play intensity [PAHR > 50]) in toddlers (N = 21), as compared to a nonplanned free play session. Participants wore a monitor to measure HR over two, 30 min play conditions. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to evaluate the effect of the play conditions. A significant difference between conditions and physiological measures revealed that the mastery motivational physical play session resulted in higher HR and PAHR > 50 when compared to free play. These findings suggest the mastery motivational session resulted in more vigorous physical play in toddlers than free play.