The Role of Parent Education and Parenting Knowledge in Children's Language and Literacy Skills among White,Black, and Latino Families

This study investigated the role of parenting knowledge of infant development in children's subsequent language and pre‐literacy skills among White, Black and Latino families of varying socioeconomic status. Data come from 6,150 participants in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort. Mothers' knowledge of infant development was measured when children were 9 months old, and child language and pre‐literacy skills were measured during the fall of the preschool year prior to Kindergarten when children were approximately four years old. Mothers' knowledge of infant development was uniquely related to both maternal education and race/ethnicity. Reported sources of parenting information/advice also varied by education and race/ ethnicity and were related to parenting knowledge. Further, controlling for demographic factors, parenting knowledge partially mediated the relation between parent education and child language and pre‐literacy skills, and this relation differed by race/ethnicity. One way to eliminate socioeconomic status achievement gaps in children's early language and literacy skills may be to focus on parents' knowledge of child development, particularly in Latino families. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological Outcomes in Fathers of Critically Ill Children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Systematic Review

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Systematically review evidence of psychological distress in fathers of children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Two...     

Separate but Equal: Teachers’ Intolerance for Ethnic,and Cultural Diversity as Experienced in 6th Grade Israeli Classrooms

This study gave a voice to 71 Israel-born and immigrant students from the former USSR and from Ethiopia to convey in their own words their experience of teachers’ intolerance for ethnic and cultural diversity in 6^th grade classrooms. In-depth group and individual interviews were conducted and subsequently analyzed through Strauss constant comparative method. Israeli native and students from the former USSR, Ethiopia, and Morocco reported that immigrant and ethnic students’ language, culture and traditions were often the target of teachers’ verbal attacks, and prejudice. Immigrant parents were not spared by teachers and demeaned for their inability to help their children. Ethiopians’ skin color was mentioned as a major criterion for exclusion and separation. Fear of punishment and parents’ reluctance to interfere often rendered students helpless. This study stresses the centrality of schools and teachers in reflecting the acculturation expectations of the dominant society and in enabling immigrant students achieve a safe sense of ethnic identity. Teacher education programs that enhance teaching in culturally diverse classroom are imperative in global economy with worldwide migration.     

Culture and the Interaction of Student Ethnicity with Reward Structure in Group Learning

This study tests the hypothesis that cultural differences in group orientation predict an interaction between the student variable—ethnicity—and a learning context variable—reward structure—on math performance after group learning. One hundred and thirty-two African-American and European-American female and male fourth and fifth grade students studied math estimation in one of three group learning contexts. The learning contexts operationalized were: intergroup competitive, interpersonally competitive, and communal-no reward. ANCOVA confirmed a predicted interaction of ethnicity with learning context on post study session performance. Although there was no difference overall, African-American and European-American students performed best in the aggregate in different contexts. Independent ratings of students' group-positive behaviors mirrored the two-way interaction between learning context and ethnicity. The findings suggest that important student variables interact with the variable elements of group learning and should be studied in greater detail. They also support Boykin's (1994) contention that the cultural context of learning is a critical mediator of children's achievement.     

An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self‐Monitoring: Links to Moral Disengagement and Unethical Business Decision Making

The majority of research on self‐monitoring has focused on the positive aspects of this personality trait. The goal of the present research was to shed some light on the potential negative side of self‐monitoring and resulting consequences in two independent studies. Study 1 demonstrated that, in addition to being higher on Extraversion, high self‐monitors are also more likely to be low on Honesty‐Humility, which is characterized by a tendency to be dishonest and driven by self‐gain. Study 2 was designed to investigate the consequences of this dishonest side of self‐monitoring using two previously unexamined outcomes: moral disengagement and unethical business decision making. Results showed that high self‐monitors are more likely to engage in unethical business decision making and that this relationship is mediated by the propensity to engage in moral disengagement. In addition, these negative effects of self‐monitoring were found to be due to its low Honesty‐Humility aspect, rather than its high Extraversion side. Further investigation showed similar effects for the Other‐Directedness and Acting (but not Extraversion) self‐monitoring subscales. These findings provide valuable insight into previously unexamined negative consequences of self‐monitoring and suggest important directions for future research on self‐monitoring. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Neuroanatomical correlates of category-specific semantic disorders: A critical survey

Current models of verbal short‐term memory (STM) propose various mechanisms for serial order. These include a gradient of activation over items, associations between items, and associations between items and their positions relative to the start or end of a sequence. We compared models using a variant of Hebb's procedure in which immediate serial recall of a sequence improves if the sequence is presented more than once. However, instead of repeating a complete sequence, we repeated different aspects of serial order information common to training lists and a subsequent test list. In Experiment 1, training lists repeated all the item–item pairings in the test list, with or without the position–item pairings in the test list. Substantial learning relative to a control condition was observed only when training lists repeated item–item pairs with position–item pairs, and position was defined relative to the start rather than end of a sequence. Experiment 2 attempted to analyse the basis of this learning effect further by repeating fragments of the test list during training, where fragments consisted of either isolated position–item pairings or clusters of both position–item and item–item pairings. Repetition of sequence fragments led to only weak learning effects. However, where learning was observed it was for specific position–item pairings. We conclude that positional cues play an important role in the coding of serial order in memory but that the information required to learn a sequence goes beyond position–item associations. We suggest that whereas STM for a novel sequence is based on positional cues, learning a sequence involves the development of some additional representation of the sequence as a whole.