Interactional conditions of syntax acquisition: A review

This paper reviews how and why children's acquistion of syntactic structures is influenced by verbal communication with adults. It argues that those interactions involve cooperative problem-solving and can be interpreted within interactionist theory. It surveys several ways in which adults model a child's syntactic structure to convey the child's intended meaning. These are: expansion; extension; modelling without prior child utterance; and modelling after metalinguistic interruption of the conversation.University of BielefeldState Institute for Early Education     

Providing Consultation About Boundary Dilemmas to Paraprofessional Staff Working With People With Severe Psychiatric Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Social justice has been suggested as a possible global moral framework for school psychology. It is, however, culturally understood and research suggests that the engagement with “social justice” in school psychology has been largely limited to a U.S. context. This project sought to extend international understandings and practices of social justice in school psychology. A thematic analysis of nine interviews with educational psychologists based in England was conducted. Social justice was defined as complex, and participants suggested it is important to educational psychology practice in part because of current cuts to public services and educational reforms. Findings also indicated a role for social justice consultation, building relationships, and engaging with broader macrolevel work to enact a social justice agenda. We discuss these findings in relation to previous literature, concluding that our research begins to document the seeds of a broader social justice agenda in school psychology.     

Ability and Achievement Characteristics of Australian University Students with Self-Reported Specific Learning Disabilities

There is a lack of empirical data on the ability and achievement characteristics of Australian university students seeking accommodation under the Disability Discrimination Act because of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD). A series of 30 self-referred students was assessed individually using an extensive test battery (WJ-R) based on a modern, comprehensive model of intelligence and achievement. Comparisons with known characteristics of North American students with and without SLD are reported as well as individual profile patterns relevant to definitions of SLD. Intra-cognitive weaknesses were found in cognitive processing speed, memory, auditory and visual intelligence. Contrary to expectation, reading was not an area of weakness. As expected, basic writing skills were poor for many students (18 out of 30). The variability of profile patterns requires an individualised approach to assessment, careful translation into recommendations, and ongoing evaluation of learning outcomes.     

Interkulturelles Lernen — Zur Grundlegung eines didaktischen Prinzips interkultureller Begegnungen

In the Federal Republic of Germany there have in recent years been many varied encounters between Germans and representatives of other cultures, particularly those from Third World countries. These have increasingly been organized with an awareness of global interdependence and have as a result opened the door to the influence of foreign cultures and to an unmistakeable movement in the direction of a multicultural society. An intercultural pedagogical approach and didactic theory are faced with the task of resolving the consequent problems related to education and training. The author firstly attempts to systematize as a typology the practice of learning as it occurs in intercultural encounters in so far as this relates to the Federal Republic of Germany. He suggests that ‘intercultural learning’ should be seen as the didactic principle underlying the organization of learning in such encounters. Through a detailed discussion of his central concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘learning’ and of the issue of ‘interculturalism’, and by sketching a theoretical model of the stages and goals of the learning taking place, he then makes plain the necessary enlargement of the German concept of ‘Kultur’ and the process of differentiation which the concept of learning will have to engage in if it is to be applicable to educational activity in international or intercultural contexts.     

Femoral indicator injection for transpulmonary thermodilution using the EV1000/VolumeView®: do the same criteria apply as for the PiCCO®?

Objective

Comparison of global end-diastolic volume index (GEDVI) obtained by femoral and jugular transpulmonary thermodilution (TPTD) indicator injections using the EV1000/VolumnView® device (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, USA).

Methods

In an 87-year-old woman with hypovolemic shock and equipped with both jugular and femoral vein access and monitored with the EV1000/VolumeView® device, we recorded 10 datasets, each comprising duplicate TPTD via femoral access and duplicate TPTD (20 ml cold saline) via jugular access.

Results

Mean femoral GEDVI ((674.6±52.3) ml/m²) was significantly higher than jugular GEDVI ((552.3±69.7) ml/m²), with P=0.003. Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated a bias of (+122±61) ml/m², limits of agreement of ?16 and +260 ml/m², and a percentage error of 22%. Use of the correction-formula recently suggested for the PiCCO® device significantly reduced bias and percentage error. Similarly, mean values of parameters derived from GEDVI such as pulmonary vascular permeability index (PVPI; 1.244±0.101 vs. 1.522±0.139; P<0.001) and global ejection fraction (GEF; (24.7±1.6)% vs. (28.1±1.8)%; P<0.001) were significantly different in the case of femoral compared to jugular indicator injection. Furthermore, the mean cardiac index derived from femoral indicator injection ((4.50±0.36) L/(min·m²)) was significantly higher (P=0.02) than that derived from jugular indicator injection ((4.12±0.44) L/(min·m²)), resulting in a bias of (+0.38±0.37) L/(min·m²) and a percentage error of 19.4%.

Conclusions

Femoral access for indicator injection results in markedly altered values provided by the EV1000/VolumeView®, particularly for GEDVI, PVPI, and GEF.