PHONEMIC PROCESSING OF CHILDREN WITH LANGUAGE DEFICITS; WHICH TASKS BEST DISCRIMINATE CHILDREN WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES FROM AVERAGE READERS?

ABSTRACT

This comparative study investigated the levels of phonemic awareness that accounted for differences between children with learning disabilities (LD) and children of average reading ability of the same chronological age level (CA) and younger children of average reading ability at the same reading age level (RA). Two planned comparisons were implemented. All three groups were assessed on three levels of phonemic awareness represented as a hierarchical set: awareness of onset and rime, simple phonemic awareness, and compound phonemic awareness. Compared to the RA group, the LD group performed significantly worse only on the first level of phonemic awareness, the awareness of onset and rime. Results of a stepdown analysis revealed that compared with the CA matched group, the LD group performed significantly worse on compound phonemic awareness with all preceding variables partialled from the analysis. Implications for diagnosis and remediation of learning disabilities is explicated.     

An Examination of Historical Loss Thinking Frequency and Rumination on Suicide Ideation in American Indian Young Adults

No research has empirically investigated whether frequency of historical loss thinking is a potential risk factor for suicide ideation in American Indians. Results of this study demonstrated that the frequency of historical loss thinking was positively associated with brooding and reflection at a small magnitude, but was not directly related to suicide ideation. Bootstrapping analyses indicated small indirect effects of historical loss thinking frequency on suicide ideation through brooding and reflection individually, but only through brooding when analyzed in a parallel mediation model. These findings suggest that American Indians who more frequently engage in historical loss thinking may be susceptible to suicide ideation via an increase in ruminative tendencies, specifically brooding.     

Going beyond the Human: Christians and Other Transhumanists

Transhumanism is a Christian concept. Although today's transhumanism has secularized the original Christian promise for divinization or theosis by adding evolution and technological progress, Christians should critically re‐take ownership of the role transhumanism plays in the sanctification process.     

TORTURE AND JUST WAR

I offer an argument for why torture, as an act of state‐sponsored force to gain information crucial to the well‐being of the common good, should be considered as a tactic of war, and therefore scrutinized in terms of just war theory. I argue that, for those committed to the justifiability of the use of force, most of the popular arguments against all acts of torture are unpersuasive because the logic behind them would forbid equally any act of mutilating or killing in battle. I will also argue that looking at torture through the perspective of the just war tradition forces us to place strictures on the practice that make it hard to justify, helps us to see why torture should never be legalized, helps us to clarify when circumstances might justify torture, and suggests what sort of character is required to recognize when those circumstances have occurred.