The Behaviour of Young Children with Social Communication Disorders During Dyadic Interaction with Peers

Children with social communication disorders are known to experience more problematic peer relations than typically-developing children. However, detailed observation of their behaviour and communication during interaction with peers has not previously been undertaken. Micro-analytic observational methods were used to analyse the audio-taped interaction of children (N?=?112) selected from mainstream schools (ages 5–6 years-old) on a computerised dyadic collaborative task. Comparisons were made between children with average-to-high- and low-pragmatic language skill as measured by the Test of Pragmatic Skills. Dyads were composed of an average-to-high-skilled child plus a low-skilled child (32 dyads), or of two average-to-high-skilled children (24 dyads). Consistently with their pragmatic language scores, low-skilled children were more likely to ignore other children’s questions and requests than were average-to-high-skilled children. When average-to-high-skilled children worked with low-skilled children, as opposed to with other average-to-high-skilled children, they showed some sensitivity and adaptation to these children’s difficulties; they used significantly more directives, clarification and provided more information. However, there was a cost in terms of the emotional tone of these interactions; when working with low-skilled children, the average-to-high-skilled children expressed considerably more negative feelings towards their partners than with another average-to-high-skilled child. In conclusion, observation of the interaction of average-to-high- and low-skilled children suggests promise for peer-assisted interventions and specifies which communicative behaviours could be targeted. However, care should be taken to manage the affective climate of these interactions for the benefit of all children involved.     

Effect on Comprehension of Preposed versus Postposed Adverbial Phrases

A challenge for psycholinguistics is to describe how linguistic cues influence the construction of the mental representation resulting from the comprehension of a text. In this paper, we will focus on one of these linguistic devices: the sentence-initial positioning of spatial adverbials such as In the park.... Three self-paced reading experiments were conducted to test the ‘Discourse Framing Hypothesis’ according to which preposed adverbials can be seen as frame builders announcing that incoming contents satisfy the same informational criterion specified by the adverbial. Our results indicate that spatial adverbials do not play the same role when they are in sentence-initial and in sentence-final position. These results are discussed in the framework of Zwaan’s Event Indexing Model.     

Assessment of cognitive function across pregnancy using CANTAB: A longitudinal study

Significant changes in endogenous plasma hormone levels are required to sustain pregnancy which provides a unique opportunity to study their effect on cognitive function.     

Shyness and Psychosocial Functioning in South Korean Children

The purpose of this study was to examine whether anxious shyness and regulated shyness, initially identified in the Chinese culture, is found in South Korean children, and to explore whether these two forms of shyness were differentially related to children's psychosocial functioning. Participants were 544 fourth to sixth grade children (251 girls, M age = 11.38 years old) who were recruited from an elementary school in Bucheon City, South Korea. Children's anxious and regulated shyness were measured using peers' nominations and teachers' ratings, whereas their social preference and social impact were assessed using peers' nominations. Parents rated their children's temperamental shyness and effortful control, and children self‐reported their loneliness and interpersonal concerns. The results of confirmatory factor analysis replicated the two factor model of shyness found in previous studies of Chinese children. Anxious shyness and regulated shyness were positively associated and were similarly related to temperamental shyness. Anxious shyness was negatively related to effortful control and social preference, and positively associated with self‐reported loneliness and interpersonal concerns, whereas regulated shyness was positively related to effortful control and social preference and negatively associated with loneliness and social impact. These results were generally consistent with prior Chinese findings and provided preliminary support for the construct validity of anxious and regulated shyness in another Asian culture that emphasizes interdependence and modesty. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological Consequences of Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death in a Sample of Bereaved Parents

This study aimed to explore a broad range of psychological reactions to trauma in a sample of bereaved parents in order to assess whether the traumatic framework is adequate for describing the entire range of emotional reactions to infant death. A sample of bereaved parents (N = 455) who lost their child through perinatal or postnatal loss were compared to a control group of parents (N = 110) who gave birth to a healthy child. Multivariate regression analysis clearly demonstrated that bereaved parents scored significantly higher on the Depression, Anxiety, Dissociation, Sleep Disturbances, Somatization, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Aggression subscales of the Trauma Symptom Checklist. Consistent with previous studies, the results showed that for up to 5 years postloss bereaved parents expressed elevated levels of trauma-specific and psychological outcomes, in particular interpersonal sensitivity and aggression.     

Unlocking the beauty of the imperfect duty to aid: Sen's idea of the duty of assistance

This paper examines the links between acting upon a duty to assist, responsibility for these actions, and how such actions link with incremental moral duties that can amass as a consequence of such action. More specifically, this paper is concerned with practices of international aid and assistance, whereby public and privately funded donations enable the actions of parties outside of the territorial and jurisdictional boundaries of a community and state to directly influence the functioning of that community, and the incremental moral duties to which such action can give rise. Using a Senian account of the basis of moral duty, it explains how agents are responsible for the outcomes of their acts of assistance, even when mediated through international institutional actors, and how such acts can give rise to accumulative duties and obligations that are not bound or constrained by territorial boundaries or pre-existing special obligations.     

Correlations Between Handshape and Movement in Sign Languages

Sign language phonological parameters are somewhat analogous to phonemes in spoken language. Unlike phonemes, however, there is little linguistic literature arguing that these parameters interact at the sublexical level. This situation raises the question of whether such interaction in spoken language phonology is an artifact of the modality or whether sign language phonology has not been approached in a way that allows one to recognize sublexical parameter interaction. We present three studies in favor of the latter alternative: a shape-drawing study with deaf signers from six countries, an online dictionary study of American Sign Language, and a study of selected lexical items across 34 sign languages. These studies show that, once iconicity is considered, handshape and movement parameters interact at the sublexical level. Thus, consideration of iconicity makes transparent similarities in grammar across both modalities, allowing us to maintain certain key findings of phonological theory as evidence of cognitive architecture.     

西部沙漠图像研究:岩画的神话叙事和图形语汇

引言在西部沙漠中,神话叙事将各地的自然特征,比如山脉和岬角,联系在一起;通常这些梦境节点(Dreaming nodes)也是发现岩画的主要区域.这里的岩画遗址除了一系列其他世俗的和未确定的主题外,还经常包含被描述为代表祖先的图案(参见伯恩特,1964;帕尔默,1975,1977).     

The update of semantic memories in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

It is still controversial to what extent neocortical consolidated memories are susceptible of change by processes of reconsolidation and transformation throughout experience, and whether the medial temporal lobes are necessary for this update of semantic consolidated memories, as they are for episodic remembering. We hypothesize that patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) who have deficits in episodic memory may also have difficulties in updating information on added new features of objects. Sixteen participants with aMCI and 20 healthy control participants performed a semantic word-to-picture task, in which they were asked to identify as belonging to a given semantic category NEW objects, that have incorporated novel features, as well as OLD items, semantically and visually SIMILAR items and UNRELATED items. Patients with aMCI made a greater percentage of errors than healthy controls. Participants globally made greater percentages of errors in difficult types of items, namely NEW and SIMILAR, as compared to easier ones, OLD and UNRELATED. Importantly, an item by diagnostic group interaction effect was observed, and post hoc analysis showed that patients with aMCI made a higher percentage of errors than controls in NEW items only. In conclusion, patients with aMCI had a particular difficulty in identifying the NEW items of the word-to-picture task as compared to the control participants, supporting the concept of a flexible and dynamic conceptual knowledge system, involving the update of semantic memories and the integration of new attributes in a constant transformation process, which is impaired in these patients.