The development of children at familial risk for dyslexia: Birth to early school age

Children at risk for familial dyslexia (n = 107) and their controls (n = 93) have been followed from birth to school entry in the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD) on developmental factors linked to reading and dyslexia. At the point of school entry, the majority of the at-risk children displayed decoding ability that fell at least 1 SD below the mean of the control group. Measures of speech processing were the earliest indices to show both group differences in infancy and also significant predictive associations with reading acquisition. A number of measures of language, including phonological and morphological skill collected repeatedly from age three, revealed group differences and predictive correlations. Both the group differences and the predictive associations to later language and reading ability strengthened as a function of increasing age. The predictions, however, tend to be stronger and the spectrum of significant correlations wider in the at-risk group. These results are crucial to early identification and intervention of dyslexia in at-risk children.     

Young children's attitudes toward the disabled: A classroom intervention using children's literature

With the increasing inclusion of special needs children in regular classrooms, experiences which encourage positive attitudes toward the disabled are essential. The purpose of this project was: 1) to examine the thinking and attitudes of young children regarding the capabilities of disabled children and the potential for friendship and 2) to assess the effectiveness of children's literature and related activities in influencing attitudes toward the disabled. Results suggested that children's attitudes were generally positive and realistic regarding the capabilities and the potential for friendship with the disabled. The use of selected children's books and book related activities positively influenced children's attitudes.     

The Development of Gender Stereotype Components

Developmental research has been limited by a narrow concept of stereotypes. A more complex model is presented, and developmental changes in gender stereotypes were investigated using the new model. In 2 studies, children were told about several sex-unspecified children, each described as having 1 masculine or 1 feminine characteristic. The children then predicted the likelihood of each story child having other masculine and feminine characteristics. In Study 1, 56 children (4–6 years) were told about target children who liked either a masculine or feminine toy, and then children predicted the targets' interests in other toys. In Study 2, 76 older children (6, 8, 10 years) were told about target children with a masculine or feminine characteristic from 1 of 4 categories (appearance, personality, occupations, toys), and then they predicted the likelihood of targets having other masculine and feminine characteristics from the same and from different categories as the cue. 2 developmental trends emerged: ( a ) children appear first to learn associations among characteristics relevant to their own sex and, later, to learn them for the other sex, and ( b ) older children's stereotypic judgments are more extreme than those of younger children. The implications of these results for the development of stereotypes, assessing gender knowledge, and understanding social judgments are discussed.     

Researching undergraduate social science research

The experience(s) of undergraduate research students in the social sciences is under-represented in the literature in comparison to the natural sciences or science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The strength of STEM undergraduate research learning environments is understood to be related to an apprenticeship-mode of learning supported by more experienced (post-graduate) peers, often through ongoing research projects. Studies of undergraduate research reveal that this is not typical in the social sciences, and students report facing specific challenges to the development of their identities as researchers that include fear, intellectual confusion and emotional unsettlement. This paper examines how a social science learning environment, designed as a research study itself, fostered beginning researchers communities of practice, realised a distinct mode of apprenticing based on peers’ similarly peripheral community membership, and enabled students to reframe emotional unsettlement. It argues that, effectively mediated, talk can powerfully improve undergraduate social science research students’ experiences.     

The persistence of preschool effects: Do subsequent classroom experiences matter?

Using rich longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), we find that children who attended preschool enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care (effect size of .14). This study considers the circumstances under which the preschool advantage persists, that is, the types of classrooms in which students who did not attend preschool “catch up” to their counterparts who did. Specifically, we focus on two dimensions of the early school environment—class size and the level of academic instruction provided. The findings suggest that most of the preschool-related gap in academic skills at school entry is quickly eliminated for children placed in small classrooms and classrooms providing high levels of reading instruction. Conversely, the initial disparities persist for children experiencing large classes and lower levels of reading instruction. These results point out that the longer-term effects of early childhood experience partly depend on classroom experiences during at least the first years of school.     

A Study of Reasoning Talk Between Australian Chinese Mothers and Their Preschool Children: What Messages Are Mothers Sending?

The everyday conversations that occur between mothers and children, particularly those involving reasoning, are a major vehicle for the transmission of information and values to young children. This study explored the manner in which five Australian Chinese mothers engaged in reasoning talk with their preschool-aged children. A total of 83 instances of spontaneous reasoning talk were identified and analysed according to the manner in which the mothers justified their claims or statements, using Hasan’s reasoning structure framework to underpin the analysis. Both regulatory and nonregulatory contexts were analysed. The analysis revealed that in regulatory contexts, where a child’s behaviour is being controlled (for example, “eat up your dinner quickly”), mothers provided more socially based reasons to justify their directives. In nonregulatory contexts, such as shared reading, they used more logical reasoning based on universal laws of nature. The findings suggest that the reasoning talk that takes place between mothers and children provides a rich opportunity for mothers to convey their values to their children, with implications for children’s learning across a number of domains.     

Insider-outsider-inbetweener? Researcher positioning,participative methods and cross-cultural educational research

This article reflects on the use of participative techniques with final-year secondary school students in one rural community in Western Kenya as an enabling tool for an outsider to both gain insider perspectives and develop a more insider role in that community by privileging and legitimating participant-driven data. Conclusions put forward the concept of the ‘inbetweener’ researcher, neither entirely inside or outside, and consider how using such methods allowed the formulation of authentic participative knowledge (co-)construction and construction of meaningful relationships in the field.     

Understanding the role of learning and teaching support materials in enabling learning for all

There are many assumptions about the ways in which textbooks and other learning and teaching support materials (LTSM) can contribute to improved learning outcomes in many international contexts. These can focus on ways that they can implement the school curriculum, often in lieu of good pedagogical practice. Drawing on case studies from Rwanda and South Africa, the complexity of the role of LTSM as part of classroom enactment is shown. The discussion suggests that there are enabling factors to this including support for teachers’ use of LTSM and the availability of materials to all learners. A framework is presented in which LTSM, teachers and learners can become equal partners in teaching and learning, but only when adequate language and other pedagogical support structures are provided. Conclusions consider the potential impact for LTSM use when it is elevated to a medium that is accessible and useful to both teachers and learners.     

Environmental dystopias: Margaret Atwood and the monstrous child

ABSTRACT

The future of childhood is often described in terms of utopian thinking. Here, the turn is towards dystopia as a fertile source of wild imaginings about the future. The dystopian literary fictions featured here act as a message and are projections of an uneasy future requiring a reader to see the present differently. Such projections make reading dangerous as they create an alternative world often disorderly and dismissive of contexts that are familiar and safe. In these scenarios, the child is often a key figure. In the work by Atwood (Oryx and Crake; The Year of the Flood; MaddAddam), the world is an environmental nightmare. The focus is on MaddAddam, in which the child is an object of desire and both monstrous and redemptive. A reading of MaddAddam as a posthuman text is undertaken and it is argued that Atwood's dystopia creates a discourse of monstrosity (both weird and beautiful) that contaminates thoughts about the child/children/childhood and the future.     

Why Talk about Mental States? The Significance of Children's Conversations with Friends, Siblings, and Mothers

Natural language data from 38 47-month-olds recorded at home in unstructured observations were analyzed and comparisons made of characteristics of mental state term use in child-friend, child-sibling, and child-mother dyads. Significantly more references to mental states were made by the children in conversations with siblings and friends than with mothers. Frequent use of mental state terms by both partners was related to cooperative interaction in both child-friend and child-sibling dyads and several associations were found with measures of language fluency, gender, and maternal education, although these varied across the 2 dyads. Children's use of mental state terms in conversations with siblings and friends was correlated with their performance on two false belief measures. Results highlight the importance of extending investigations into the social implications of the development of children's "theories of mind."