The Earlier the Better? Individual Participant Data and Traditional Meta-analysis of Age Effects of Parenting Interventions

Strong arguments have been made for early intervention for child problems, stating that early is more effective than later, as the brain is more malleable, and costs are lower. However, there is scant evidence from trials to support this hypothesis, which we therefore tested in two well-powered, state-of-the-art meta-analyses with complementary strengths: (a) Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis of European trials of Incredible Years parenting intervention (k = 13, n = 1696; age = 2–11); (b) Larger, trial-level robust variance estimation meta-analysis of a wider range of parenting programs (k = 156, n = 13,378, M_age = 2–10) for reducing disruptive behavior. Both analyses found no evidence that intervention earlier in childhood was more effective; programs targeted at a narrower age range were no more effective than general ones.     

Economics of Distance and Online Learning: Theory,Practice, and Research William J. Bramble and Santosh Panda,Editors

Business school deans at institutions accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business were surveyed on distance education programs offered at their respective schools. This study examined sixteen characteristics of the distance education programs: the number of offerings, the question of not offering distance education, future plans, degree level of programs, number of years offered, number of graduates, length of programs, public or private institutions, grant funding, faculty qualifications and student-faculty ratio, method of delivery, use of a librarian, geographic areas served, tuition rates, financial aid, and the successful aspects. The results of this study may be used to make decisions in planning new distance education programs and the enhancement of existing programs.     

Speech development patterns and phonological awareness in preschool children

To examine the association between speech production and early literacy skills, this study of 102 preschool children looked at phonological awareness in relation to whether children were delayed, typical, or advanced in their articulation of consonants. Using a developmental typology inspired by some of the literature on speech development (Kahn and Lewis, The Kahn-Lewis phonological analysis, 1986; Shriberg, Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36(1):105-140, 1993a), we found that failure to master the early-8 consonants and a greater prevalence of certain types of production errors were associated with deficient phonological awareness. We also found that children who made no consonant errors had advanced phonological awareness relative to other children in the sample. In all cases, both productive speech patterns and speech errors were more closely linked with rhyme awareness than with phoneme awareness. The association between speech production and rhyme awareness may provide some new directions for the early preschool assessment of risk for reading problems.     

An investigation of the need for sign language assessment in deaf education

The attitudes of educators of the deaf and other professionals in deaf education concerning assessment of the use of American Sign Language (ASL) and other sign systems was investigated. A questionnaire was distributed to teachers in a residential school for the deaf in California. In addition to questions regarding the availability of sign language assessment at their schools, participants responded to items concerning their motivation to use a test for sign language measurement. Of the 100 distributed surveys, 85 were completed and returned. Results showed overwhelming agreement among respondents concerning the importance of sign language assessment, along with the need for tools that appropriately measure signing skills.     

Does cardiopulmonary resuscitation cause rib fractures in children? A systematic review

BACKGROUND: There is a diagnostic dilemma when a child presents with rib fractures after cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) where child abuse is suspected as the cause of collapse. We have performed a systematic review to establish the evidence base for the following questions: (i) Does cardiopulmonary resuscitation cause rib fractures in children? (ii) If so, what are the frequency and characteristics of these fractures that may help to distinguish them from rib fractures caused by physical abuse? METHODS: We performed a literature search of original articles, references, textbooks, and conference abstracts, published in any language from 1950 to 1 October 2005. Articles were identified from ASSIA, Caredata, Medline, Ovid Medline in Process, ChildData, CINAHL, Embase, ISI Proceedings, SIGLE, Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and TRIP databases. We included all studies that addressed rib fractures and CPR in children less than 18 years, and excluded review articles, expert opinion, consensus guidelines, and studies that were significantly methodologically flawed on critical appraisal. Each study underwent two independent reviews (with a third review if there was disagreement). Each reviewer used standardized criteria for study definition, data extraction, and critical appraisal, to determine the quality of the study and to establish if it met the inclusion criteria of this systematic review. FINDINGS: Of the 427 studies reviewed, 6 were included: 1 case control, 4 cross-sectional, and 1 case series. These represent data on 923 children who underwent CPR. Three children sustained rib fractures as a result of resuscitation; all three of these had fractures that were anterior (two mid-clavicular and one costo-chondral). We did not find any child in the literature who had a posterior rib fracture due to CPR. Resuscitation was performed variably by both medical and non-medical personnel. CONCLUSION: Rib fractures after cardiopulmonary resuscitation are rare. When they do occur, they are anterior and may be multiple. As the studies performed to date did not use the most sensitive techniques for detecting rib fractures, further prospective studies of children would be valuable to provide additional clarification on this question.     

The students' experience of reading

Many studies have focused on student learning through text and have investigated relationshipsbetween approach, conception, outcomes, taskdefinitions and context. However, little research has beenundertaken on trying to understand the meaningthat reading in the academic context has for theindividual student. The aim of the study reportedhere was to reveal this meaning and to show how theway a student approaches reading is bound upwith this. Extracts from four case studies of studentreaders are presented, describing how each studentapproaches the reading of the same text, and how thisapproach seems to be related to the student's generalapproach to academic reading, what reading in generalmeans to them, and the significance that being astudent has for each of them. It is argued that thenormally neutral or pleasurable private activity ofreading is disturbed in the academic context bythe potential for this activity to be made public through the various assessment activitieswhich bound the student's daily reading life. Whenengaging in reading for academic purposes, studentsare no longer engaging in a private activityundertaken for its own sake, but in an activity whoseevaluated outcomes will – crucially – tell themsomething about their worth in the eyes of others. Reading in the academic context cannot thus be viewedas a purely neutral cognitive process undertaken in asocial vacuum, but has to be understood within boththe personal and biographical context of theindividual reader, and within the socio-cultural andpolitical context of the particular reading activity.     

Why Can’t Students Get the Sources They Need? Results from a Real Electronic Resources Availability Study

Availability studies are used to estimate the proportion of items in a library collection that are available to users, and the proportion of items in a library collection that are unavailable to users as a result of system and/or human errors. Sanjeet Mann of the Armacost Library at the University of Redlands used a series of availability studies to more accurately understand and troubleshoot the e-resources access errors that keep undergraduate students at the university from obtaining the full text of electronic resources. In this presentation, Mann shared the details of his process, his results, and the implications of those results for improving local search systems as well as a conceptual model of e-resource availability errors based on the results of his research.     

The relation between reading ability and morphological skills: Evidence from derivational suffixes

The English orthography represents both phonemes and morphemes, implying that sensitivity to each of these units could play a role in the acquisition of decoding skills. This study offers some new evidence about sensitivity to morphemes and the decoding skills of American children in grades three to six. It focuses on knowledge of derivational suffixes, which is examined with sentence completion and sentence acceptability tasks that manipulate the suffixes in real words (e.g., electric, electricity) and nonsense derived forms (e.g., froodly, froodness). Both written and spoken materials are considered over the course of two experiments in which the children also received various reading tests, as well as tests of phonological awareness, vocabulary and intelligence. The results indicate that knowledge of derivational suffixes increases with grade level, along with decoding ability and phoneme awareness. Path analyses further reveal that, although there is a consistent correlation between performance on the derivational suffix materials and phoneme awareness and decoding ability, performance on the derivational suffix materials makes an independent and increasing contribution to decoding ability throughout the higher elementary grades.