Self or (M)other? Infants’ Sensitivity to Bodily Overlap With Their Mother Reflects Their Dyadic Coordination

Adults experience greater self-other bodily overlap in romantic than platonic relationships. One of the closest relationships is between mother and infant, yet little is known about their mutual bodily representations. This study measured infants’ sensitivity to bodily overlap with their mother. Twenty-one 6- to 8-month-olds watched their mother’s face or a stranger’s face being stroked synchronously versus asynchronously with their own face. Infants preferred synchrony only when viewing their mother, not when viewing the stranger. Infants who strongly preferred synchrony with their mother also experienced less coordination with her in naturalistic interactions. Infants thus appear sensitive to bodily overlap with their mother, and this overlap reflects dyadic coordination, supporting theoretical accounts of intersubjectivity in the development of the bodily self.     

Using electronic communication to bridge the research to practice gap among mentoring professionals

The field of mentoring includes a broad base of stakeholders, such as researchers and practitioners who implement mentoring programs. The research-to-practice gap is an ongoing area of concern in many fields of social science including mentoring. One reason for this is that researchers and practitioners often operate in isolation. Technology is playing an ever-increasing role in the professional lives of practitioners and researchers, therefore, this study explored the engagement of both groups through the YOUTHMENTORING list serve; a resource provided by the University of Illinois-Chicago. Through a comprehensive qualitative study of list serve content, connections, and engagement it was found that the YOUTHMENTORING list serve promoted collaboration among stakeholders. Members found the resource to be valuable to their practice. Implications for the field and future research are discussed.     

Graphonomics,automaticity and handwriting assessment

A recent review of handwriting research in Literacy concluded that current curricula of handwriting education focus too much on writing style and neatness and neglect the aspect of handwriting automaticity. This conclusion is supported by evidence in the field of graphonomic research, where a range of experiments have been used to investigate this issue from a movement perspective. The present article offers a brief introduction to a graphonomic approach to handwriting analysis and the findings of graphonomic research about handwriting automaticity. These findings indicate that attentional control to any characteristic of the writing process (e.g. direction, lexical status, movement, style) results in an impairment of handwriting automaticity. These findings support and add a new dimension to previous conclusions.     

The Independence of Research—A Review of Disciplinary Perspectives and Outline of Interdisciplinary Prospects

Minerva - The independence of research is a key strategic issue of modern societies. Dealing with it appropriately poses legal, economic, political, social and cultural problems for society, which...     

Live and Online: Using Co-Streaming to Reach Users

The increase in distance education students and the changing preferences for online instruction led the Health Sciences Library to seek creative approaches to traditional classroom instruction. Library instructors compared two different class formats: online-only classes and in-person classes with online sections. The second format, called “co-streaming,” provided instruction in traditional classroom and virtual environments at the same time. A postclass survey was used to gather users' evaluations of the instruction and the format via which it was offered. This paper examines the user response to, and satisfaction with, the co-streaming classes.     

The Constructivist Roots of Moral Education

The success of doctoral student mentoring is largely dependent upon faculty members, but structural and institutional obstacles compound deficiencies in the performance of all participants. University leaders must emphasize the value of mentorship in stimulating positive learning conditions and stress the importance of recognizing faculty members engaged in teaching beyond the classroom. Without organizational attention to a quality mentoring program and rewards for mentoring efforts, some faculty members perform as trainers, illusionists, tricksters, and escapists, potentially turning academia into a doctoral circus. If the quality of doctoral mentoring in today's academia is to improve, systemic change is crucial.     

Beyond Warmth and Conflict: The Developmental Utility of a Boundary Conceptualization of Sibling Relationship Processes

Translating relationship boundaries conceptualizations to the study of sibling relationships, this study examined the utility of sibling enmeshment and disengagement in predicting child adjustment difficulties in a sample of 282 mothers and adolescents (mean age = 12.7 years). Mothers completed a semistructured interview at the first measurement occasion to assess sibling interaction patterns. Adolescents, mothers, and teachers reported on children’s adjustment problems across 2 annual waves of assessment. Supporting the incremental utility of a boundary conceptualization of sibling relationships, results of latent difference score analyses indicated that coder ratings of sibling enmeshment and disengagement uniquely predicted greater adolescent adjustment difficulties even after taking into account standard indices of sibling relationship quality (i.e., warmth and conflict) and sibling structural characteristics (e.g., sex).     

The Vestiges of Childhood Interparental Conflict: Adolescent Sensitization to Recent Interparental Conflict

This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (M_age = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated that the mediational path among Wave 4 interparental conflict during adolescence, change in youth negative reactivity (Waves 4–5), and their psychological problems (Waves 4–6) was significant for teens who experienced low, rather than high, levels of childhood interparental conflict (Waves 1–3). Supporting the stress sensitization model, analyses showed that adolescents exposed to high interparental conflict during childhood evidenced greater increases in negative reactivity than their peers when recent parental conflicts were mild.