Using Tablets to Collect Data From Young Children

Mobile, touch-screen devices are increasingly ubiquitous in children’s lives. The extensive use of such devices presents an exciting opportunity for data collection. We describe a simple method for creating cross-platform, interactive tablet experiments using open Web-based resources. We illustrate this method by collecting data from 1- to 4-year-old children in a word-recognition paradigm, using 3 different techniques: tablets, eye tracking, and an in-person storybook paradigm. Both accuracy and reaction-time data from the tablet compared favorably with the other methods. Tablets should be considered as a viable method for collecting low-cost, well-controlled developmental data.     

A Review on Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Awareness,Knowledge, and Attitudes

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is one of the most common genetic causes of infant death. There is presently no cure, but the therapeutic pipeline is promising. Given the prevalence of SMA coupled with the potential for new treatment options, universal carrier screening, and newborn screening, we conducted a literature review of the awareness, knowledge, and attitudes held by the public and non-geneticist clinicians about various aspects of SMA. We then identify recommendations for targeting additional research, training, and educational efforts to increase awareness. In the limited available literature, we found that the public is generally unfamiliar with SMA but has favorable views of carrier and newborn screening. Clinicians also had limited understanding of SMA. Further research into knowledge and attitudes of healthcare providers and the general public will help develop a better understanding of education gaps and inform outreach efforts. These educational efforts are needed to complement the momentum as treatments are being developed and tested. Furthermore, professional societies are proposing routine carrier screening and SMA may achieve newborn screening status, which will change the SMA landscape for genetics professionals and families. Thus, it is important to explore knowledge and attitudes about SMA to allow us to prepare for when SMA attains higher public and clinician recognition.     

A Big Five approach to self-regulation: personality traits and health trajectories in the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health

Self-regulatory processes influencing health outcomes may have their origins in childhood personality traits. The Big Five approach to personality was used here to investigate the associations between childhood traits, trait-related regulatory processes and changes in health across middle age. Participants (N = 1176) were members of the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health. Teacher assessments of the participants’ traits when they were in elementary school were related to trajectories of self-rated health measured on 6 occasions over 14 years in middle age. Five trajectories of self-rated health were identified by latent class growth analysis: Stable Excellent, Stable Very Good, Good, Decreasing and Poor. Childhood Conscientiousness was the only childhood trait to predict membership in the Decreasing class vs. the combined healthy classes (Stable Excellent, Stable Very Good and Good), even after controlling for adult Conscientiousness and the other adult Big Five traits. The Decreasing class had poorer objectively assessed clinical health measured on one occasion in middle age, was less well-educated, and had a history of more lifespan health-damaging behaviors compared to the combined healthy classes. These findings suggest that higher levels of childhood Conscientiousness (i.e. greater self-discipline and goal-directedness) may prevent subsequent health decline decades later through self-regulatory processes involving the acquisition of lifelong healthful behavior patterns and higher educational attainment.     

Book reviews

Missing Persons: A Critique of Personhood in the Social Sciences Mary Douglas & Steven Ney, 1998 California: University of California Press 223 pp., US$24.95 ISBN 0–520–20752–1

Re‐forming the Body: Religion, Community and Modernity Philip A. Mellor & Chris Shilling, 1997 London: Sage Publications 234 pp., £40.00 (hb), £13.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8039–7722–0 (hb), ISBN 0–8039–7723–9 (pb)

Transnational Religion and Fading States Susanne Hoeber Rudolph & James Piscatori, eds., 1997 Boulder, Colorado, & Oxford: Westview Press viii + 280 pp., US$69.00/£50.00 (hb), US$24.00/£13.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8133–2767–9 (hb), ISBN 0–8133–2768–7 (pb)

Encyclopaedia of Religion and Society William H. Swatos, Jr., ed., 1998 London: AltaMira Press (SAGE) xiv + 590 pp., £76.00 (hb) ISBN: 0 7619–9956–0

Power and the Church: Ecclesiology in an Age of Transition Martyn Percy, 1998 London: Cassell vii + pp. 239, £35.00 (hb), £14.99 (pb) ISBN 0–304–70107–6 (hb); ISBN 0304 701 05‐X (pb)

Faith and Power, Christianity and Islam in ‘Secular’ Britain Lesslie Newbigin, Lamin Sanneh & Jenny Taylor, 1998 London: SPCK 177 pp., £12.99 ISBN 0–281–05153–4

New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam Peter B. Clarke, ed., 1998 London: Luzac Oriental x + 400 pp., £37.00 ISBN 1–898–942–17‐X

Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics and Social Change in East‐Central Europe and Russia Sabrina P. Ramet, 1998 Durham & London: Duke University Press 424 pp, £66.50 (hb), £22.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8223–2056–8 (hb), ISBN 0–8223–2070–3 (pb)

New Religious Phenomena in Central and Eastern Europe Irena Borowik & Grzegorz Babinski, eds., 1997 Krakow: Nomos 392 pp., US$25 (+ p&p) ISBN 83–85527–56–7

Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition Rebecca Alpert, 1997 New York: Columbia University Press 214 pp., £19.95, US$28.00 (hb) ISBN 0–231–09660–7

Jesus is Dread: Black Theology and Black Culture in Britain Robert Beckford, 1998 London: Darton, Longman & Todd 194 pp., £10.95 ISBN: 0–232–52241–3

Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel, eds., 1998 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 222 pp., £12.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7486–1057‐X

Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia Lynne Hume, 1997 Carlton South, Australia: Melbourne University Press xiii + 272 pp., $29.95 ISBN 0–522–84782‐X

Ageing and Spirituality Albert Jewell, ed., 1998 London/Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers 191 pp. £14.95 ISBN 1–85302–631‐X

Dying, Death and Bereavement in a British Hindu Community New Religious Identities in the Western World Volume 1 Shirley Firth, 1997 Leuven, Belgium: Peeters 240 pp., BEF 1070 (pb) ISBN 90–6831–976–0

Interpreting Death: Christian Theology and Pastoral Practice Peter C. Jupp & Tony Roger, eds., 1997 London: Cassell 218 pp., £16.99 ISBN 0–304–33784–6

Historical Dictionary of the Bahá'í Faith Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies and Movements, No. 17 Hugh C. Adamson & Philip Hainsworth, 1998 Lanham, Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press ix + 505 pp., US$ 65.00 (hb) ISBN 0–8108–3353–0

Taking With The Left Hand: Enneagram Craze, People of the Bookmark, & The Mouravieff Thenomenon’ William Patrick Patterson, 1998 Fairfax, California: Arete Communications 149 pp., US$12.95 (pb) ISBN 1–879514–10–9     

Teachers Coping with the Stress of Classroom Discipline

Of all of the activities that comprise the role of a teacher, classroom discipline is one of the most significant. In selecting an approach to classroom discipline, some teachers experience, and have to deal with, tensions arising from their desire to use educationally justifiable models while still quickly gaining and maintaining order in the classroom. This paper examines teachers' estimations of the stress that arises when they are unable to discipline students as they would ideally prefer. More importantly, the way teachers cope with any stress which does arise is documented using the Coping Scale for Adults. The results indicate that teachers who report more stress are those most interested in empowering their students in the decision making process. Associated with increased concern is a greater use of Worry, Self-Blame, Tension Reduction, Wishful Thinking and Keep to Self. The most concerned teachers also express a greater tendency to get sick as a result of the stress. These data suggest the need for professional development curricula for teachers to assist them in effectively sharing power with students and in reflecting upon a range of more productive coping strategies.     

Implicit learning: An analysis of the form and structure of a body of tacit knowledge

Subjects learned implicitly the underlying structure of an artificial language by memorizing a set of representative exemplars from the language. The form and structure of their resulting knowledge of the language was evaluated and analyzed over a four day period by several procedures: (a) solving anagrams from the language, (b) determining the well-formedness of novel letter strings, and (c) providing detailed introspective reports. Several important implications about implicit acquisition of a novel complex system emerged. First, the memorial representation of a structured system is acquired through the dual operations of a differentiation-like process based upon relational invariances and a configurational process based upon overall structure. Second, the form of tacit knowledge is an abstract representation of the intrinsic structure of the stimulus field. Third, while the ability to make explicit what is known implicitly increases with performance levels, the conscious apprehension of structure always lags behind what is known unconsciously.     

Interference with real world knowledge

Two experiments are described in which subjects studied made-up, fantasy facts about well-known persons and then were asked to verify actual facts about these persons. Reaction time to the actual facts was longer the more fantasy propositions studied about a person. Reaction time was also longer when the verification test involved a mixture of actual and fantasy facts rather than just actual facts. A mathematical version of the ACT model (Anderson, 1976) was fit to the data. It provides a satisfactory fit, better than an alternate model. However, some of the parameter values estimated for the ACT model seemed unreasonable.     

Negative reinforcement with shock-frequency increase

Two avoidance-conditioning experiments in which responding delayed shocks are reported. Rats receiving an average of two shocks per minute (imposed condition) could produce, by pressing a bar, a 3-min alternate condition. Six (Experiment I) or more (Experiment II) shocks occurred in the alternate condition. All shocks in the alternate condition were delayed and delivered at 1-sec intervals. With long delays, all subjects produced the alternate condition and spent a large percentage of each session in the alternate condition. The first experiment demonstrated that the longer the delay from onset of the alternate condition to onset of the shocks, the more session time spent in the alternate condition. The second experiment indicated that despite increased shock frequency, behavior is acquired and maintained when responding leads to sufficient delay. Individual subjects produced the alternate condition by bar pressing in essentially one of two patterns. One pattern, termed postshock, involved bar pressing immediately after shock; the other, termed posttransition, involved responding immediately after the transition from the alternate to the imposed condition. These results indicate that shock-frequency reduction is not necessary for avoidance conditioning; delay to shock onset is sufficient.