Factor structure of the McCarthy screening test

The factor structure of the McCarthy Screening Test was investigated with a sample of 555 children. The sample consisted of 300 boys and 255 girls, whose mean age was 61.4 months; approximately 80% were white and 20% were black. The data from the present study and from the MST standardization samples were analyzed by a principal components analysis (with ones in the diagonal) followed by a varimax rotation. The results from the data analysis seem to indicate that the subtests all measure parts of the same attribute (cognitive and sensorimotor functions) in varying degrees.     

Transnationalising American progressivism and emancipation: Frances B. Johnston and progressive education at the 1900 Paris universal exposition

ABSTRACT

At the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, Frances Benjamin Johnston, one of America’s first women photographers, played a key role in publicising in Europe American progressivism and emancipation in education. Through displaying photographs taken in the Washington DC public schools, she revealed to the international audience how American progressive reformers were aiming at providing a freer, more child-centred and democratic education to children in the public schools. Such pioneering effort to disclose these accomplishments was met with considerable interest and laudatory comments from French officials and school professionals. Being a prominent character in American photography, Johnston’s life and work have long aroused the interest of historians of art and women. However, her role in publicising progressive education’s ideals and emancipatory dimensions remain an understudied and yet important topic in order to analyse the transnationalising of American progressivism in education. Using archival and primary sources from the French and US governments, this article analyses the reception of the American educational exhibit displayed at the 1900 universal exposition in France. It thus aims at highlighting the ways in which photography was used as a powerful medium to document, spread and propagandise American reform effort in education across the Atlantic.     

Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Investigation

We examined the contribution of working memory capacity to the development of children’s reading comprehension. We present data from three waves of a longitudinal study when the children were 7 years (Grade 1), 8 years (Grade 2) and 9 years (Grade 3). Two questions were raised: The first question concerned the developmental changes of the relative contribution of working memory in predicting reading comprehension compared to vocabulary and decoding skills. The second question explored to what extent reading comprehension could be predicted by working memory capacity measured at a prior time. At the end of each grade, reading comprehension, nonword reading, vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity were assessed. To test the first question, the predictive power of working memory capacity was compared to vocabulary and decoding skills by performing concurrent multiple-regression analyses in each grade. The results showed that working memory capacity emerged as a direct predictor of reading comprehension in Grade 3. To address the second question, we performed multiple-regression analyses predicting reading comprehension from working memory, nonword reading, and vocabulary measured at a prior time. In these analyses, the autoregressive effect was taken into account to separately assess the unique contribution of each predictor to the development of later reading comprehension. The results showed that Grade 1 vocabulary and Grade 2 working memory had additional effects on Grade 3 reading comprehension after the autoregressive effect of reading comprehension had been accounted for. These findings support the idea that, as word recognition becomes automated throughout the early grade levels, working memory becomes an important determinant of reading comprehension. There is also evidence that working memory capacity directly influences the development of reading comprehension skills. The direction of the causal flow is discussed.     

Coping with aversive stimulation in the neonatal period: quiet sleep and plasma cortisol levels during recovery from circumcision

Measures of behavioral state and plasma cortisol were obtained on 80 healthy, full-term, 2-3-day-old, male newborns who were scheduled to be circumcised. To establish baseline or precircumcision levels, the newborns were observed, and behavioral state was recorded for the half hour prior to circumcision. Blood was sampled via heelstick for plasma cortisol determination at the end of this observation period. The newborns were then circumcised and assigned randomly to one of 4 postcircumcision, blood-sampling time-point groups. The time points were 30, 90, 120, and 240 min following the beginning of circumcision. Behavioral state was observed during circumcision and for the half hour prior to taking the second blood sample. The results showed a return to baseline cortisol levels sometime prior to 240 min, with data from an additional group of 10 newborns indicating that the return occurred by 150 min. Behavioral distress during circumcision was associated with elevations in plasma cortisol at 30 and 90 min. Quiet sleep was correlated negatively with plasma cortisol prior to circumcision, and significant increases in quiet sleep followed circumcision, with the greatest increase corresponding to the period of most rapid reductions in cortisol.     

Evidence for a preserved sensitivity to orthographic redundancy and an impaired access to phonological syllables in French developmental dyslexics

To evaluate the orthographic and phonological processing skills of developmental dyslexics, we (a) examined their abilities to exploit properties of orthographic redundancy and (b) tested whether their phonological deficit extends to spelling-to-sound connections for large-grain size units such as syllables. To assess the processing skills in dyslexics, we utilized the illusory conjunction paradigm to investigate the nature of reading units in French dyslexic and control children matched in reading age. In control children, reading units were defined by both orthographic redundancy and phonological syllable information. In dyslexics, however, reading units were defined only by orthographic redundancy. Therefore, despite their impairment in reading acquisition, developmental dyslexics have the ability to encode and exploit letter frequency co-occurrences. In contrast, their access to phonological syllables from letters was impaired, suggesting that their phonological deficit extends to large grain-size phonological units.     

Self‐perception of gifts and talents among adults in a longitudinal study of academically talented high‐school graduates

Definitions of giftedness and self‐perceptions of abilities were examined among adults who have been participating in a longitudinal study of academically talented students since their high‐school graduation in 1988. For the present study, participants answered open‐ended questions and completed scales measuring adult giftedness and adult self‐perceptions of abilities in 12 different domains. Gender differences in perceptions were examined. When participants were asked if they believed they were gifted in high school and now, more men than women responded affirmatively to both questions. Further, significant gender differences were identified for perceived competencies in four areas: job competence, nurturance, athletic competence, and morality. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.