Celebrating young Indigenous Australian children's speech and language competence

World-wide it is important to recognize Indigenous children's speech and language competence and their language learning environments. Indigenous Australian children participated in the child cohort of Footprints in Time: Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, a national study supported by Indigenous Australians and the Australian Government collected annually (in waves). There were 692 3–5-year-old children in wave 1, and two years later, 570 5–7-year-old children were in wave 3 (77.0% of children in wave 1 were also in wave 3). Data were obtained via parent interviews and direct assessment. The children spoke between one and eight languages including: English (wave 1: 91.2%, wave 3: 99.6%), Indigenous languages (wave 1: 24.4%, wave 3: 26.8%), creoles (wave 1: 11.5%, wave 3: 13.7%), foreign languages (non-Indigenous languages other than English) (wave 1: 2.0%, wave 3: 5.1%), and sign languages (wave 1: 0.6%, wave 3: 0.4%). Children who spoke an Indigenous language were more likely to live in moderate to extreme isolation than their English-speaking counterparts. Parental concern about speech and language skills was similar to data for non-Indigenous children with approximately one quarter of parents expressing concern (wave 1: yes = 13.9%, a little = 10.4%). Children's language environments were rich, with many family members and friends telling oral stories, reading books, and listening to the children read. Almost a third of families wanted to pass on their cultural language, and many indicated that they would like their child to learn an Indigenous language at school. Overall, Indigenous Australian children have rich cultural and linguistic traditions and their speech and language competence is promoted through family, community, and educational experiences.     

Language maintenance and loss in a population study of young Australian children

Information about children's cultural and linguistic diversity and language acquisition patterns is important for the development of sustainable educational practices. While there is some knowledge about language maintenance and loss in adults and older children, there is limited information about young children. The first three waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), involving 4252 young children, were considered longitudinally over the first five years of life to identify patterns of language maintenance and loss among those who speak languages other than English. The most common languages other than English spoken by the children were Arabic, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish, and Greek and 9.1% of all children were reported to use a language other than English at wave 1, 15.7% at wave 2, and 15.2% at wave 3. Overall, 91.5% of children maintained speaking a language other than English between wave 1 and wave 2, and 86.6% did so between wave 1 and wave 3. Children's patterns of language acquisition and loss over the first five years of life varied within and between language groups. For example, Arabic-speaking children tended to maintain Arabic throughout early childhood, whereas Italian-speaking children's use of Italian decreased over the first five years of life while use of English steadily increased. Environmental and personal factors such as parental language use, presence of a grandparent in the home, type of early childhood care, first- and second-generation immigrant status, and parental perception of support from the educational environment were related to language maintenance among non-English speaking children.     

Does war contribute to family violence against children? Findings from a two-generational multi-informant study in Northern Uganda

After 20 years of civil war in Northern Uganda, the continuity of violence within the family constitutes a major challenge to children's healthy development in the post-conflict era. Previous exposure to trauma and ongoing psychopathology in guardians potentially contribute to parental perpetration against children and dysfunctional interactions in the child's family ecology that increase children's risk of maltreatment. In order to investigate distal and proximal risk factors of child victimization, we first aimed to identify factors leading to more self-reported perpetration in guardians. Second, we examined factors in the child's family environment that promote child-reported experiences of maltreatment. Using a two-generational design we interviewed 368 children, 365 female guardians, and 304 male guardians from seven war-affected rural communities in Northern Uganda on the basis of standardized questionnaires. We found that the strongest predictors of self-reported aggressive parenting behaviors toward the child were guardians’ own experiences of childhood maltreatment, followed by female guardians’ victimization experiences in their intimate relationship and male guardians’ posttrautmatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and alcohol-related problems. Regarding children's self-report of victimization in the family, proximal factors including violence between adults in the household and male guardians’ PTSD symptom severity level predicted higher levels of maltreatment. Distal variables such as female guardians’ history of childhood victimization and female guardians’ exposure to traumatic war events also increased children's report of maltreatment. The current findings suggest that in the context of organized violence, an intergenerational cycle of violence persists that is exacerbated by female guardians’ re-victimization experiences and male guardians’ psychopathological symptoms.     

Child and family-level correlates of direct and indirect peer victimization among children ages 6–9

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and child and family-level correlates of direct and indirect victimization by peers among children ages 6–9. Four hundred and twenty-five children were included in the final sample. Data for this study were drawn from the first wave of the Developmental Victimization Survey. Logistic regression models were used to examine associations between children's demographics, anxiety, depression, anger, parent–child relationship, and exposure to family violence and children's experience of direct or indirect victimization by peers. The results showed that increased depression scores and exposure to family violence were associated with increased risk for direct and indirect victimization by peers. Black children were more likely to experience direct victimization and less likely to experience indirect victimization compared to White children. Child's race significantly moderated the association between parental criticism and indirect victimization. Child's gender did not significantly moderate these associations. Implications for developmentally specific prevention and intervention approaches that are grounded in a social-ecological framework are discussed.     

Family violence exposure and associated risk factors for child PTSD in a Mexican sample

This study was undertaken in an effort to help illuminate the deleterious effects of traumatic stress on children and families in Mexico. Rates of exposure to traumatic events, family and community violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were investigated in 87 school-age children and their mothers. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to examine potential family and ecological risk factors for the presence of child PTSD. A total of 51 children (58.6%) reported an event that met the DSM-IV A criteria, and 36 children (41.4%; 20 boys and 16 girls) met criteria for full PTSD. Traumatic exposure in this sample was considerable, particularly intense, and chronic as a result of interpersonal violence in the home and community. Results support the need for preventive systemic interventions targeting the individual level, parent–child dyadic level, and the larger cultural and community context.     

对家庭中儿童权利保护的调查与思考

通过对家庭中儿童身心健康全面发展权和隐私权状况的调查与分析，指出一些家长走到了《未成年人保护法》的对立面，成为侵犯儿童权利的“罪魁”．并从传统思想、应试教育、法律意识等三个方面分析形成这种状况的原因，提出相应的解决对策。     

Supporting families: a nurturing teacher education strategy in Nauru

There has been little recent documentation concerning Pacific family support for family members locally involved in university study in their Pacific home country and how such responses affect both parties. Some studies dealing with family support for student family members, including Pacific families residing in the USA, have been published. A New Zealand Ministry of Education report on Pasifika students’ educational success rates raised the need for effective family support contexts. Another study researched the family support negotiation patterns of mature-age part-time students in Australia, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea. Only one University of the South Pacific research focused on Pacific family and community expectations of family members studying and residing with their families in their Pacific home countries. This Nauru-based study describes mixed support responses from Nauruan families towards their teacher education student family members and Nauru Department of Education student engagement and well-being development strategies.     

超前的文艺美学观

结合我国当前文艺界的现状及列夫·托尔斯泰的作品，阐述托尔斯泰关于艺术的起源、艺术的作用、写作目的、艺术作品的内容、主题、评价优秀文艺作品的标准等观点。     

传播学受众研究视域下的学习研究

教育是一种典型的文化信息传播活动,教学、学习的实质就是实现信息的传播、共享.受众研究是传播学研究的前沿领域,在典型的教学传播活动中,现代教育研究也日益转向学习研究,受众研究与学习研究两者有着密切的内在关系.教学理论研究日益重视学生在教学传播过程中的主体地位和强调学生在教学中的主体作用.在教育教学传播过程中,教师和学生的互动性是其主要特征,注重分析教育教学传播过程中的互动特征,并着力改善互动的条件、提高互动的水平,是促进教育教学质量提高的一条有效途径.     

Adaptive swarm-based routing in communication networks

INTRODUCTION Communication network management ibecoming increasingly difficult due to thincreasing size, rapidly changing topology, ancomplexity of communication networks. Currenrouting algorithms cannot adequately tackle sucnetworks. Centralized algorithms have scalabilitproblems; static algorithms have trouble keepinup-to-date with network changes; and othedistributed and dynamic algorithms havoscillation and s…