The utility of written numerals for preschool children when solving additive problems / La utilidad de los numerales escritos en la resolución de problemas aditivos en niños preescolares

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact the presence conventional written numerals has on solving additives problems. We asked 45 children (aged four and five) to solve ten different 5 + 3 type problems by adding tokens that were placed into an opaque box in view of the children. The participants’ performance in counting, recognizing written numerals and solving a number conservation task were assessed. The results suggest that the presence of written numerals facilitated children’s ability to perform additive operations: they were able to use these numerals as a reference to calculate the amount of tokens added, even those who had not shown good quantitative judgement in the number conservation task. Identifying preschoolers’ possible reliance on written numerals could eventually influence formal teaching conditions.     

Les protecteurs naturels. Le droit des passants et du hasard

Medical law is written by jurisprudence and authors as well as by legislation. When a person is severely ill, in the case of emergency, and has no tutor to decide medical treatment, everybody may – and must – help him in that decision. “Good Samaritans” are so able to decide in certain circumstances. That is the right written by our Cour de cassation.     

Evaluation of a self-instruction package for conducting stimulus preference assessments

Research suggests that inexperienced individuals cannot accurately implement stimulus preference assessments given written instructions alone. Training that includes written instructions supplemented with feedback from a professional with expertise in conducting preference assessments has proven effective; unfortunately, expert-facilitated direct training may not be widely available. In the current study, we used multiple baseline designs to evaluate the efficacy of an antecedent-only self-instructional package to train staff members to implement two methods of stimulus preference assessments. Accuracy was low when participants had access to written instructions alone. When access to enhanced written instructions was provided (i.e., technical jargon was minimized; instructions included pictures, diagrams, and step-by-step examples), inexperienced staff accurately implemented the assessments. Results are discussed in terms of opportunities to disseminate behavior-analytic technologies through self-instruction and print resources.     

中文读写能力及其相关因素的结构模型

运用问卷调查法考查了中文儿童读写能力及其相关因素之间的关系.通过验证性因素分析对量表的信度和效度指标进行了分析,发现量表具有较好的项目信度和结构效度.结构模型分析发现阅读听写能力影响书面语意义理解和书写技能,而书面语意义理解和书写技能对书面表达有显著影响.家庭阅读背景影响儿童的口语能力和阅读听写能力,口语能力影响意义理解和阅读听写能力,基本知觉加工影响口语能力和阅读听写,动作技能影响书写技能.上述结果表明中文字词识别、书写技能和意义理解水平都影响书面表达,即段落产生能力.而口语能力、家庭阅读背景、基本知觉加工和动作技能分别对读写能力的不同侧面产生影响.本研究还分析了模型的年龄和性别特点.     

Media Effects on Ethnic Identity Among Linguistic Majorities and Minorities

Research on media effects has documented the media's influence on beliefs and behavior while cross‐cultural psychology has documented the effects of the language used in communication on identification with the ingroup and the outgroup. Media usage in the outgroup language should, therefore, affect identification patterns. This research investigates media effects in the acculturation process through a longitudinal design involving minority and majority group members evolving in the same bilingual environment. Subjects were Francophone students (N= 235) from minority and majority settings attending a bilingual (French–English) university. Results revealed that majority students increased significantly written and public media consumption in English whereas minority students increased French written media consumption. Furthermore, increased usage of English written and audiovisual media was related to identity changes in favour of the Anglophone group. Finally, path analysis emphasized the mediating role played by English language confidence and the determining role of ethnolinguistic vitality.     

Mental Health Literacy of Australian Rural Adolescents: An Analysis Using Vignettes and Short Films

The mental health literacy (MHL) of rural adolescents has rarely been investigated. This study examined the MHL of 122 rural‐based adolescents (49 males, 73 females) aged 12–18 years (M = 16, SD = 1) using written vignettes and short films to examine knowledge about depression. For the written vignettes, 68% of the rural adolescents were able to correctly identify someone with depression, which is similar to the findings for metropolitan adolescents; however, knowledge about recovery times and avenues of assistance were below that of their metropolitan peers. Participants were less likely to correctly diagnose depression when suicidal intent was not expressed and when the scenario was presented in the more naturalistic form of a film. This finding raises questions about the place of films and written vignettes in future MHL research.     

Exposure Through Written Emotional Disclosure: Two Case Examples

Written disclosure is a procedure in which individuals repeatedly write about the most traumatic experience of their lives with as much emotion as possible. Research has demonstrated that, relative to a control writing condition, written disclosure is associated with improvements in physical and psychological functioning. As a result of these findings, there has been suggestion that written disclosure may be used as a primary intervention for psychological distress. In this paper, two case studies are presented in which written disclosure was used as an intervention for trauma-related psychopathology. The written disclosure procedure resulted in significant symptom improvements for one individual but not for the other. Differences between the two cases are highlighted and the strengths and weaknesses of the written disclosure procedure as a stand-alone intervention are considered.     

Preserved orthographic length and transitional probabilities in written spelling in a case of acquired dysgraphia

We present the performance of a patient with acquired dysgraphia, DS, who has intact oral spelling (100% correct) but severely impaired written spelling (7% correct). Her errors consisted entirely of well-formed letter substitutions. This striking dissociation is further characterized by consistent preservation of orthographic, as opposed to phonological, length in her written output. This pattern of performance indicates that DS has intact graphemic representations, and that her errors are due to a deficit in letter shape assignment. We further interpret the occurrence of a small percentage of lexical errors in her written responses and a significant effect of letter frequencies and transitional probabilities on the pattern of letter substitutions as the result of a repair mechanism that locally constrains DS' written output.     

Choosing an mft internship: Ingredients of a successful experience

Abstract

Although internships are now required for MFT doctoral students, little has been written about internships. This article outlines key factors doctoral students need to consider when selecting an internship site.     

Comparison of Different Feedback Procedures in Second Language Vocabulary Learning

Research into the learning of Second Language (SL) vocabulary by beginning learners has indicated that the simultaneous presentation of the First and Second Language words results in blocking of the learning process by the familiar First Language (FL) word. Previous research also suggests that blocking by the First Language can be eliminated by bringing it in as informative feedback (either as a written or spoken word). Our experiments were designed to further extend this research. The use of a picture, either as feedback or simultaneously presented with its equivalent, along with the aural feedback and the conventional procedures were investigated in Experiment 1. Results revealed that pictures blocked the learning process less than the written FL word when both were presented with their SL referent. When used as feedback, however, pictures were not as good as the spoken FL word. Experiment 2 demonstrated that aural feedback was the best type of feedback when compared with the picture and written FL presentations, and that the picture feedback was better than the written feedback. Taken together, the results of these two studies showed that all forms of feedback overcame the problem of blocking created by simultaneous presentation of the FL and SL words, and that aural feedback was the most effective feedback procedure. It was suggested that the superiority of aural feedback was likely to be a consequence of the use of a different input channel to that of the visually presented written SL word.     

The development of metalinguistic awareness and its relation to reading achievement

The relation between certain aspects of metalinguistic ability and reading, e.g., morpho-phonological ability and reading, has been well documented in the literature. What has not been fully discussed is the relation between structural-relational (semantic-syntactic) linguistic knowledge and reading development. This study examined two types of questions about this relation: (a) which aspects of structural-relational metalinguistic awareness in what forms and during which age periods are significantly related to reading achievement? and (b) what is the relation between metalinguistic awareness in oral language processing and written language processing? Sixty-four subjects, from fourth graders to adults, participated in the study. Each subject was asked to judge and produce corrections of nongrammatical, anomalous, and ambiguous stimulus items in sentences and passages. These items were presented in both oral and written modes. Results indicated that reading achievement and age were positively related to metalinguistic ability. Subjects were better able to judge than produce correct forms. While ambiguity was the most difficult task, nongrammaticality was the most discriminating task. Good readers' performance on oral tasks equalled their performance on written tasks by adulthood.     

The Impact of the Core Knowledge Curriculum on Creativity

The Core Knowledge Sequence, which has been proposed as a voluntary national curriculum and has been adopted in many school districts across the United States, is unusually specific about the content students are expected to learn at each grade level. This has led to suggestions that it may promote rote learning and result in a decline in creativity. This possibility was investigated by comparing the creative performance of middle school students who had been attending Core Knowledge schools to that of students at a matched non-Core Knowledge school. There were 3 comparisons: poems written by seventh-grade students, short stories written by seventh-grade students, and short stories written by eighth-grade students. Experts evaluated the creativity of these stories and poems using a consensual assessment technique. Only 1 of the 3 comparisons yielded a statistically significant difference, and that difference favored Core Knowledge students. These results suggest that the Core Knowledge Curriculum and its detailed and specific requirements of content to be studied at each grade level do not negatively impact students' creativity and may even have a positive impact on creative performance in some areas.     

From syntactical to textual strategies of argumentation

The paper focuses on tevelopmental relations between syntactical complexity, cohesion — especially conjuctional connection — and textual coherence in a sample of 150 argumentative texts written by school children (grades 4, 7, 10 and 12) and young adults (university students). In common sense and even in linguistics and psychology written text and especially written argument has been taken to be the prototype of syntactically complex, self-contained and explicit text over a long period of research on the topic. Thus it has been argued that syntactic connectedness and explicit cohesion of propositions were the most valuable indicators for a well-done contextualization and abstraction of content space and rhetorical space in writing. Empirical data show this common-sense position to be questionable. The discussion emphazises the role of argumentative implicitness as a necessary condition for getting the reader involved in the discourse and thus for the emergence of coherence in argumentative texts.     

小学傣汉双语者汉语词汇形音的语义通达特点

采用语义启动研究范式,探讨傣族小学2、4、6年级汉语词汇和语音的语义通达特点。结果表明：1）对图片语义的提取存在学习年龄效应,2年级的反应时显著长于4、6年级;2）汉语词汇和语音都能显著促进图片语义的提取,但语音促进作用更明显;3）汉语词汇对图片语义提取的促进作用随年级的升高而增加,汉语语音的促进作用随年级的升高而减少。     

Libertarianism,Climate Change,and Individual Responsibility

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that (i) even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, (ii) although the boundary-crossings that are due to our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and (iii) there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle.

     

Video Feedback in Philosophy

Marginal comments on student essays are a near‐universal method of providing feedback in philosophy. Widespread as the practice is, however, it has well‐known drawbacks. Commenting on students' work in the form of a video has the potential to improve the feedback experience for both instructors and students. The advantages of video feedback can be seen by examining it from both the professor's and the student's perspective. In discussing the professor's perspective, this article shares observations based on the author's experience delivering feedback through video. Turning to the student's view, it discusses qualitative feedback solicited from students that indicates a clear preference for video feedback over written marginalia. In particular, students describe video feedback as more informative, more personal, better at suggesting improvements on future assignments, enhancing the professor's ability to communicate through tone of voice and gesture, and easier to understand compared to written feedback.     

Explaining the modality and contiguity effects: New insights from investigating students' viewing behaviour

The study examined viewing behaviour and learning outcome during multimedia learning in order to explore split‐attention processes in modality and spatial contiguity effects. Fourty students viewed a computer instruction depicting the process of lightning. Exploratory text was spoken, written near or written far from accompanying animations. Students who received spoken text outperformed students who received written text in recalling the major steps (retention) and in identifying correct solutions to problems (transfer), replicating a modality effect. Differences between near and far written text presentation in retention (d = 0.51) and transfer (d = 0.68) tests failed statistical significance. Two major characteristics concerning the learners' viewing behaviour were identified: (a) in written text presentation, learning was largely text directed and (b) learning success was related to the time learners' spent looking at animations, indicating that the processing of animations is a crucial factor in explanations of modality and spatial contiguity effects. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.