THE EFFECTS OF TEXT ADAPTATION ON RATED APPEAL AND DIFFICULTY

This study was designed to investigate how low‐achieving readers rate high‐interest low vocabulary adaptations and their original story versions for difficulty and appeal. Five hundred and seventy‐six Title 1 junior and senior high school students were assigned randomly to read and rate one of eight story versions (three original versions and five adaptations). Significant differences in difficulty and appeal ratings were found across the eight story versions. Adaptations were rated as being easier than original stories. Generally, changes in length and readability did not affect appeal. The one exception to this finding was a story adaptation that also had a substantial content modification. The quality of a story was found to be the important factor affecting appeal.     

Assessing Legal Strains and Risk of Suicide Using Archived Court Data

Relatively little is known about legal entanglements and suicide risk. This matched case–control study estimated the risk of suicide associated with legal strains using online court archives, a novel source of exposure data. Court records linked to suicide deaths (N = 315), controls (N = 630), and unintentional injury and poisoning deaths (N = 630) for an urban county from 2000 to 2005 revealed that nearly a third of suicide victims had recent court involvement, twice the proportion among controls. Misdemeanors, car accidents, and foreclosures were each associated with a threefold risk of suicide. Implications for suicide prevention and research are discussed.     

The home observation for measurement of the environment (HOME) scale: A review of research

Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scale is perhaps the most widely used instrument to assess the quality of a young child's home learning environment. In this paper, the HOME'S psychometric properties and methodological uses are explored, and its utility as a research and clinical instrument is examined. Strengths of the HOME scale include the relatively wide range of information available pertaining to its psychometric properties and its use in studies of a variety of populations for a variety of purposes. Weaknesses include the fact that most research relating HOME scores to later child development is correlational. Several suggestions for future research are offered.     

Refuge in the Bosoms of the Mountains: A Ninth-Century Muslim Appraisal of Monastic Piety

ABSTRACT

This article examines a relatively little-known text, the Kitāb al-ruhbān/Book of Monks, from the ninth-century Muslim moralist, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā. The topical range of Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s own literary corpus was extensive, yet the concern for ascetic practices forms a consistent thread throughout his work. As for this particular text, the esoteric wisdom associated with asceticism is specifically communicated through the teachings of Christian hermits. The Kitāb al-ruhbān, formulated as a collection of short dialogues and edifying statements regarding Christian monastic piety, profoundly demonstrates the continuing appreciation for monastic insight, particularly amongst Muslim ascetics, well into the Islamic period. There are, moreover, no explicit traces of sectarianism or confessional barriers here. Instead, the sagacious maxims for maintaining a righteous life are often passed from Christian hermits to devout Muslim listeners. This text thus further reveals the intricate connections between Christian monastic communities and medieval Islamic mystical culture.     

Cetacean responses to violation of expectation paradigm in a free-swim context

Animal Cognition - The investigation of individual responses to unexpected stimuli or outcomes provides insights into basic cognitive processes, such as mental representations, emotional states of...     

Perceptual organization and apparent brightness in subjective contour figures

According to a number of theories subjective contours arise from brightness contrast and/or assimilation. The apparent brightness gradients generated by these effects are assumed to give rise to the perception of contours delineating the gradients. A study is reported in which naive observers were shown a subjective contour display and asked to report what they saw. They were then asked to judge whether the center or the surround of the display appeared brighter. Subjects whose reports indicated that they had seen the subjective contour figure showed an overwhelming preference for the center of the display being brighter than the surround. However, subjects who did not see the subjective contour figure did not differ significantly in their selection of the center over the surround. This finding presents difficulties for any theory which derives subjective contours from the apparent brightness difference.