Using the newspaper to support children's emerging literacy

Young children's literacy development involves emerging knowledge, skills, and attitudes about both written and oral language. However, until relatively recent years, children's oral language development has received the lion's share of attention in most early childhood programs. What young children know about written language and their natural ability to learn about writing and reading have been underestimated and misinterpreted and so have received little developmentally appropriate support from early childhood program administrators, teachers, parents, and the public.June Rose Richie is Associate Professor of curriculum and instruction, while Janet E. Foster is Assistant Professor and John M. Johnston is Professor of early childhood education, at Memphis State University, Memphis, TN.     

Language Development at Home and School: Gains and losses in young bilinguals

In this paper we examine the topic of the language development of three young bilingual children at both home and school. Our aim is to consider the language issues that arise in such children, taking into account their parents' language background and experience of school systems, language practices and 'policy' in the home, and the children's experience of a year of nursery school as reported by their teachers. We try to show how different strands of the children's experience fit together; their 'mother tongue', their mothers' aspirations for them, their teachers' view of their progression, and their competence in English, all considered against the background of current curriculum guidance. We conclude with an examination of the gains and losses these children have made in the school system so far, and with an analysis of what the roles of 'mother tongue' might be for children in these and similar circumstances.     

Literacy-based behavioural interventions delivered by peers: a teaching strategy for students with severe disabilities

Many children with severe disabilities do not perform basic daily living skills needed for typical school and home environments. Previous research on literacy-based behavioural interventions (LBBIs) has shown promise for promoting skill acquisition and maintenance in some learners; however, only one study has examined the effectiveness of this intervention when delivered by peers. In this study, peer classmates were taught to deliver an LBBI story that highlighted hand-washing skills in three students with severe disabilities. Results showed that the accuracy of students’ new skills increased dramatically after their peers delivered the stories with pictures and printed words, and these skills maintained after the LBBI stories were removed. Further, each of the students demonstrated accurate hand-washing in novel environments using different sinks. This study builds on previous LBBI studies by incorporating peers into the story delivery, and using the intervention to teach new self-care skills.     

Measuring the attitudes of human service professionals toward deafness

The Attitudes to Deafness Scale is a 22-item measure of attitudes toward people who are deaf designed for use with human service professionals. Attitude statements were generated from personal accounts by deaf people in the literature and from a focus group in which deaf people discussed their experience of hearing people's attitudes toward them. A 60-item scale was administered to a group of 121 clinical and forensic psychologists during their training. Item analysis was conducted to select items that effectively distinguished participants with a positive attitude from those with a negative attitude toward deaf people. The scale may be used in any context where a professional group comes into contact with people who are deaf.     

What predicts the malnutrition among a select group of Filipino older persons in institutionalized setting? A partial least square study

The overall intent of this study is to examine the relationship among several factors that influence the malnutrition of a select group of Filipino elderly in institutionalized setting. A total of 102 residents were purposively recruited from three different institutionalized care settings at the national capital region of the Philippines. A multi-aspect questionnaire was used to characterize the demographic and nutrition profiles of the participants. Data were treated statistically using the partial least square design. Notably, the study showed that 48.0% of the elderly residents in institutions were at risk of malnutrition, 36.3% were malnourished, and 15.7% have normal nutritional status. Malnutrition was found to be prevalent among the female group, aged >70 years old, functional impairment (p = <0.01), poor eating habits (p = 0.01), lower dietary intake (p = 0.01), and eating difficulties (p = 0.04). However, statistically significant relationships between eating habits (p = 0.08) and dietary intake and comorbidities (p = 0.32) and malnutrition were not established. Impliedly, administrators of homecare institutions are invited to pay greater attention to the nutritional status of the elderly by institutionalizing nutrition assessment and evaluation practices and nutrition care planning that respond to the identified nutritional needs and concern of the elderly.     

A developmental-genetic analysis of common fears from early adolescence to early adulthood

A 51-item fear survey was administered to more than 2,600 adolescents and adults, including m ore than 400 pairs of like-sex twins, to examine developmental patterns and genetic influences on common fears. Raw data were age-sex standardized and subjected to factor analysis, and preliminary analyses of the factor scores documented both age and genetic effects. Some fears habituate with age; others exhibit sensitization; and, for some fears, intensity is uniform across development. Genetic effects were found for all factors, but the magnitude of such effects varied. Based on these initial analyses, developmental patterns of genetic and environmental influences on self-assessed fears were examined in 354 pairs of like-sex twins, ages 14-34. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to predict a twin's fearfulness from the co-twin's fear, the age and zygosity of the twin pair, and the interactions of these 3 predictors. For all fear factors, co-twin's score and the interaction of co-twin's score with pair zygosity significantly contributed to the prediction of a twin's fearfulness, but the magnitude of both effects varied for different fears. For 2 fear factors, Personal Death and Loved One's Misfortunes, 3-way interactions of co-twin's score, age, and zygosity were observed. The findings suggest significant genetic modulation of developmental patterns in the acquisition and maintenance of some adaptive fears.     

Nationwide survey of postsecondary education services for students with learning disabilities

Postsecondary services for students with learning disabilities vary a great deal from campus to campus, and published guides to postsecondary education services are often inaccurate and incomplete. A nationwide survey was conducted to investigate student service provisions in 2-year colleges and 4-year colleges and universities. The purpose of the study was to identify and catalog postsecondary education service goals and options for students with learning disabilities, and to determine differences between the goals service providers have for these students and services actually provided. The findings and their implications for service providers at both high school and college levels are discussed.     

Information processing in seven-month-old infants as a function of risk status

7-month-old full-terms and high-risk preterms (less than 1,500 grams at birth) were compared on problems of visual recognition memory and tactual-to-visual cross-modal transfer. On the visual problems, preterm infants showed significantly less differential attentiveness to novelty than full-terms. They also required longer exposure times during visual familiarization, primarily because of longer pauses between fixations. Preterms and full-terms exhibited different patterns of looking, as indicated by the duration of fixation and the frequency in shifts of gaze. On the cross-modal problems, preterms and full-terms both exhibited similar and significant preferences for familiar rather than novel stimuli, a direction of preference which suggests that these problems were relatively difficult for both groups. For the preterms, novelty and exposure-time scores were found to be related to several medical risk factors. Novelty preferences were compromised in preterms who had suffered RDS postnatally, particularly those who had required prolonged mechanical ventilation. In general, high-risk preterms exhibited deficits in visual recognition memory and in the ability to recruit, sustain, and shift attention.