Impaired tactual perception in children with Down's syndrome

Using standardized neuropsychological tests, tactual finger discrimination, graphaesthesia and stereognosis were studied in a group of 11 children aged 7–11 years with Down's syndrome (DS). All tasks were solved without visual control. The performance was subnormal in each test and the results of the stereognosis test were particularly poor. It was ascertained that the DS children could understand test instructions. Moreover, under visual control all objects used in the stereognosis test were handled correctly. The results suggest that tactual perception is subnormal in children with DS. The pathogenesis of the somatosensory abnormalities should be explored.     

Self-regulation and academic achievement in elementary school children

Self-regulation is a key construct in children's healthy and adaptive development. In this chapter, the authors situate self-regulation in a theoretical context that describes its underlying components that are most important for early school success: flexible attention, working memory, and inhibitory control. The authors review evidence that supports substantive links between these aspects of self-regulation and academic achievement in young children. They also discuss methodological challenges in reliably and validly assessing these skills (involving measures that are biased, are not applicable across broad age ranges, or triangulated) and describe some recent advances in measures of self-regulation (involving the NIH Toolbox or the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders assessment) that are reliable, ecologically valid, and predictive of children's school achievement.     

Bullying experiences and literacy achievement amongst primary school children

This study investigated the association between school bullying and literacy achievements in a sample of primary school children from Johannesburg, South Africa. The children (n?=?443; females?=?56%, males?=?44%) attending six primary schools in the Soweto area suburbs, self-reported their experience of bullying by peers. In addition, they completed tests of literacy. The results indicate that learners who self-reported being bullied performed poorly in literacy tests when compared to their peers, who were not subjected to bullying. In particular, those who experienced bullying scored lower on tasks that required literacy skills in phonics, spelling, and word choice. The findings indicate that learner support for school bullying survivors should aim to address the deleterious effects of bullying on literacy development.     

A training program to improve the memory of children with Down's syndrome

This study starts out from the general agreement about the explicit memory deficits in children with Down's syndrome. Our aim is to explore the possibilities of the computer as a valuable instrument with which to train memory by teaching cognitive rehearsal strategies. The sample was made up of 40 students with Down's syndrome and was divided into two research groups: control and experimental. The results show a clear tendency towards memory improvement in the experimental group. These results can be considered indicators of the effectiveness of the intervention. They are also very interesting for education, in the sense that teachers can help the students with Down's syndrome to improve their memory capacity.     

Static and dynamic balance skills of trainable children with Down's syndrome.

This study compared static and dynamic balance performance of 25 subjects with Down's Syndrome and 25 without Down's Syndrome; controls were placed on CA and IQ. No significant difference between the two samples' static balance performance was noted; subjects with the Down's Syndrome had significantly superior dynamic balance performance.     

Perceived age and sex characteristics of voices of institutionalized children with Down's syndrome.

It was hypothesized that the voices of children with Down's syndrome would be perceived as younger than their true chronological age and that perceptual auditors would have considerable difficulty in identifying the correct sex of these children by voice alone. Perceived age and sex were investigated in 20 institutional children with Down's syndrome who were matched for sex and age with a control group of 20 normal children. Randomized matched verbal samples were played backwards to a group of 16 listener/judges who rated the samples as to age and sex. The results indicated that the voices of these Down syndrome children were perceived as being more than 2 yr. younger than their group mean age and that there was a negative correlation between the biological sex of such children and their perceived sex.     

Direct and relational bullying among primary school children and academic achievement

The association between bullying behaviour and academic achievement was investigated in 1016 children from primary schools (6-7-year-olds/year 2: 480; 8-9-year-olds/year 4: 536). Children were individually interviewed about their bullying experiences using a standard interview. Key Stage I National Curriculum results (assessed at the end of year 2) were collected from class teachers, and parents completed a behaviour and health questionnaire. Results revealed no relationship between direct bullying behaviour and decrements in academic achievement. Conversely, higher academic achievement at year 2 predicted bullying others relationally (e.g. social exclusion at year 4). Relational victimisation, Special Educational Needs (SEN), being a pupil from a rural school or small classes and low socioeconomic status (SES) predicted low academic achievement for year 2 children. Findings discount the theory that underachievement and frustration at school leads to direct, physical bullying behaviour.     

Incentivizing physical activity using token reinforcement with preschool children

We combined several single‐subject designs to assess the effects of contingent and noncontingent token reinforcement on moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) exhibited by 4 preschool‐aged children. Higher overall levels and longer bouts of MVPA reliably occurred when tokens were delivered contingent on MVPA for 3 of the 4 children when compared to baseline (no token) and for 2 of the 4 children when compared to noncontingent‐token conditions. The present study demonstrated that the delivery of tokens contingent on MVPA can increase and maintain MVPA exhibited by preschool‐aged children, resulting in more MVPA than in baseline conditions and conditions in which tokens are awarded without respect to MVPA. These results demonstrate that token economies can be used to increase MVPA and they add to the evidence base supporting the use of token economies to address a range of behavior problems.     

Predicting school achievement from cognitive and non-cognitive variables in a Chinese sample of elementary school children

The present study had two aims: First, to investigate the joint and specific roles of working memory (WM) and intelligence as predictors of school achievement. And second, to replicate and extend earlier findings (Spinath, Spinath, Harlaar, & Plomin, 2006) on the incremental validity of non-cognitive over cognitive abilities in the prediction of school achievement. The present sample consisted of N = 179 Chinese primary school children in the fourth grade. All measures including working memory (WM), intelligence and motivational items were assessed in class. Teachers provided test scores for the domains of Chinese and Math. We found that WM was a good predictor of school achievement and comparable in predictive power to intelligence. Together, cognitive ability including both WM and intelligence explained 17.8% and 36.4% of the variance in children's Chinese and Math scores, respectively. The relative importance of WM and intelligence varied with school domains with greater predictive power of WM for Math while intelligence explained a greater proportion of the variance in Chinese although the magnitude of this difference was only moderate. Domain-specific motivational constructs contributed only marginally to the prediction of school achievement for both Chinese and Math.     

Exploring pathways from television viewing to academic achievement in school age children

The author's purpose in this study was to test 4 hypotheses that proposed different paths for the influences of children's television viewing on their academic achievement. Data were drawn from the 1997 Child Development Supplement (CDS) to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The population for this study included 1,203 children between the ages of 6 and 13 years from the CDS-PSID data set. The author used structural equation modeling to test pathways from children's television viewing to their academic achievement. The author assumed that children's television viewing hindered their academic achievement by reducing certain traits that related to academic achievement. Results showed that 3 hypothetical models fit the data--the time-displacement hypothesis, the mental effort-passivity hypothesis, and the attention-arousal hypothesis. A 4th hypothetical model, the learning-information hypothesis, which proposed that children's television viewing practices stimulate their academic achievement, was not supported. In sum, children who watched more television tended to spend less time doing homework, studying, and reading for leisure. In addition, their behaviors became more impulsive, which resulted in an eventual decrease in their academic achievement.     

Substitution effects in a generalized token economy with pigeons

Pigeons made repeated choices between earning and exchanging reinforcer‐specific tokens (green tokens exchangeable for food, red tokens exchangeable for water) and reinforcer‐general tokens (white tokens exchangeable for food or water) in a closed token economy. Food and green food tokens could be earned on one panel; water and red water tokens could be earned on a second panel; white generalized tokens could be earned on either panel. Responses on one key produced tokens according to a fixed‐ratio schedule, whereas responses on a second key produced exchange periods, during which all previously earned tokens could be exchanged for the appropriate commodity. Most conditions were conducted in a closed economy, and pigeons distributed their token allocation in ways that permitted food and water consumption. When the price of all tokens was equal and low, most pigeons preferred the generalized tokens. When token‐production prices were manipulated, pigeons reduced production of the tokens that increased in price while increasing production of the generalized tokens that remained at a fixed price. The latter is consistent with a substitution effect: Generalized tokens increased and were exchanged for the more expensive reinforcer. When food and water were made freely available outside the session, token production and exchange was sharply reduced but was not eliminated, even in conditions when it no longer produced tokens. The results join with other recent data in showing sustained generalized functions of token reinforcers, and demonstrate the utility of token‐economic methods for assessing demand for and substitution among multiple commodities in a laboratory context.