Connecting inside out: Development of the social brain in infants and toddlers with a focus on myelination as a marker of brain maturation

Early childhood is a sensitive period for learning and social skill development. The maturation of cerebral regions underlying social processing lays the foundation for later social-emotional competence. This study explored myelin changes in social brain regions and their association with changes in parent-rated social-emotional development in a cohort of 129 children (64 females, 0–36 months, 77 White). Results reveal a steep increase in myelination throughout the social brain in the first 3 years of life that is significantly associated with social-emotional development scores. These findings add knowledge to the emerging picture of social brain development by describing neural underpinnings of human social behavior. They can contribute to identifying age-/stage-appropriate early life factors in this developmental domain.     

Spelling of Inflected Verb Morphology in Children with Spelling Deficits

Children with spelling deficits demonstrate significant difficulty using inflectional morphology in their writing. This study investigated whether phonological deficits account for these pronounced difficulties or if they are more accurately explained by limitations in morphological or orthographic awareness. Twenty–six 11—13–year–old children with spelling deficits, 31 younger spelling–level–matched children, and 31 age–matched children were asked to spell a series of verbs with past tense and progressive markers in dictated sentences and in list form. Performance on spelling tasks was compared to performance on phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness tasks. Results suggest that children with spelling deficits have significant difficulty including inflections as well as spelling inflections and base words. Difficulty was most pronounced in a sentence context. Ability to spell inflectional forms was related to variation in morphological awareness in children with spelling deficits and to variation in orthographic awareness in spelling–level–matched children.     

Non-finite loss and challenges to communication between parents and professionals

Elizabeth Bruce PhD, a psychologist in private practice, and Cynthia Schultz PhD, honorary associate at LaTrobe University, both live and work in Australia. Their work on supporting parents who have children with special needs, however, has been published around the world. In this article Bruce and Schultz explore the notion of 'non-finite loss', defined as the ongoing sense of grief experienced by parents caring for children with severe disabilities. The authors discuss the issues that professionals need to consider when working with parents in these circumstances. The article closes with a set of recommendations for promoting more effective partnerships between parents and professionals.     

Publishing education

This article is an overview of the development of education for publishing programs in the U.S. Information and addresses for the main introductory summer programs, the continuing education programs, the degree-granting Masters Programs, and a selection of organizations outside the United States offering courses in publishing are included in the article.     

Utilizing Systems Development Methods in Archival Systems Research: Building a Metadata Schema Registry

This paper discusses the use of systems development research methods in the context of ongoing research that is formulating a specification for a metadata schema registry. The paper extrapolates from this discussion how such methods can be utilized in archival systems research and how such an approach differs from commercial systems engineering. In particular, the paper suggests that adopting a user-centred prototyping approach in a research context allows for exploration of the interplay between theory and practice, advancing the practice, while also offering new insights into theoretical concepts. It argues that these research methods are of increasing interest to the archival profession in order to conceptualise and realise the tools necessary to support recordkeeping and archival processes in digital environments.