A follow-up study of dyslexic boys

Over 500 men who attended the Gow School, an independent school for boys with developmental dyslexia, were given a follow-up questionnaire from 1 to 38 years after they left the school. More than half had graduated from college; business was the most frequently chosen major in college; most were employed in managerial or related business positions; and their adult reading habits and attitudes did not compare well with those of other men of similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Socioeconomic status and IQ were not predictive of adult outcome among these men in contrast to their effect in the general population. An important result was that severity of the reading problem upon entrance to Gow and the academic and remedial progress of the men while at the school were highly predictive of adult educational, occupational, and attitudinal status. This work was supported by funds from NIH grant HD00486, the Gow School, and the John F. Kennedy Institute.     

A Cultural Perspective on Professional Beliefs of Childcare Teachers

Preschool is an institution for cultural preservation, which responds to social change. Guided by this assumption, this study used a recent video of Chinese preschool in conjunction with the questionnaire from Preschool in Three Cultures, a study by Joseph Tobin and his colleagues in the 1980s, to examine the cultural and professional beliefs of three groups of U.S. early childhood educators (preservice, inservice non-Head Start, and inservice Head Start). We examined participants’ cultural beliefs, critical comments on the preschool, and group differences in their comments. Results show that participants’ beliefs about necessary qualities for a teacher remained stable from the 1980s in the U.S. But a shift occurred in beliefs about why society needs preschools. More education and longer employment were linked significantly to more critical comments of Chinese practice. There was a marked difference in professional and cultural beliefs by educators’ group affiliations.

The International Adult Literacy Survey: What Does It Really Measure?

The paper evaluates the work of the International Adult Literacy Survey as reported in OECD 1997. It assesses its contribution to understanding literacy in terms of the perspective of the New Literacy Studies. It outlines this perspective as a basis for a critique that is mostly concerned with the validity of the test. Three criticisms of the survey are made: that it provides only a partial picture of literacy; that culture is treated as bias; and that the test items do not represent the real-life items as claimed. Finally, the paper concludes with an overall evaluation of what the IALS achieves in terms of its own aims.     

A Family Focused Intervention Influences Hippocampal-Prefrontal Connectivity Through Gains in Self-Regulation

The stressors associated with poverty increase the risks for externalizing psychopathology; however, specific patterns of neurobiology and higher self-regulation may buffer against these effects. This study leveraged a randomized control trial, aimed at increasing self-regulation at ~11 years of age. As adults, these same individuals completed functional MRI scanning (M_age = 24.88 years; intervention n = 44; control n = 49). Functional connectivity between the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex was examined in relation to the intervention, gains in self-regulation, and present-day externalizing symptoms. Increased connectivity between these brain areas was noted in the intervention group compared to controls. Furthermore, individual gains in self-regulation, instilled by the intervention, statistically explained this brain difference. These results begin to connect neurobiological and psychosocial markers of risk and resiliency.     

Preschool children’s use of meta-talk to make rational collaborative decisions

In collaborative decision-making, partners compare reasons behind conflicting proposals through meta-talk. We investigated UK-based preschoolers’ (mixed socioeconomic status) use of meta-talk (Data collection: 2018–2020). In Study 1, 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads (N = 128, 61 girls) heard conflicting claims about an animal from two informants. One prefaced her claim with “I know”; the other with “I think”. Dyads identified the more reliable informant through meta-talk (“She said she knows”). In Study 2, 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 64, 34 girls) searched for a toy with an adult partner making incorrect proposals. Children refuted this through reporting what they had witnessed (It cannot be there because “I saw it move”, “she moved it”). In preschool period, children start using meta-talk to make rational collaborative decisions.     

We Be Burnin'! Agency,Identity, and Science Learning

This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Focusing on how youth engaged a summer unit on understanding and modeling the relationship between energy use and the health of the urban environment, we use ethnographic data to discuss how the youth asserted themselves as community science experts in ways that took up and broke down the contradictory roles of being a producer and a critic of science/education. Our findings suggest that youth actively appropriate project activities and tools in order to challenge the types of roles and student voice traditionally available to students in the classroom.