Just a talking book? Word learning from watching baby videos

This study examined the relationship between viewing an infant DVD and expressive and receptive language outcomes. Children between 12 and 15 months were randomly assigned to view Baby Wordsworth, a DVD highlighting words around the house marketed for children beginning at 12 months of age. Viewings took place in home settings over 6 weeks. After every 2 weeks and five exposures to the DVD, children were assessed on expressive and receptive communication measures. Results indicated there was no increased growth on either outcome for children who had viewed the DVD as compared to children in the control group, even after multiple exposures. After controlling for age, gender, cognitive developmental level, income, and parent education, the most significant predictor of vocabulary comprehension and production scores was the amount of time children were read to.     

The Associations between Mobile Media use and Food Consumption in Parent-Child Dyads

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Mobile media is an emerging factor that may affect children’s dietary behaviors in the family environment. However, little research has examined...     

How to Choose a Measure of Resilience: An Organizing Framework for Resilience Measurement

Existing measures of resilience include disparate content that is based on qualitatively different conceptualizations of the construct. Consequently, there is confusion and inconsistency regarding the measurement and application of resilience. To promote clarity, the authors conduct an examination of resilience measurement approaches. This was accomplished by elaborating on three fundamentally distinct conceptualizations of resilience that can serve as an organizing framework for measurement; (1) attribute/resource-focused; (2) process-focused; and (3) outcome-focused. To verify the utility of this framework, qualified and trained subject matter experts (SMEs) completed a content analysis categorization task by sorting 227 items from 11 scales into these categories. Frame-of-reference (FOR) training was used to prepare the SMEs. Results were largely supportive of the three category framework, as overall SME agreement was 86.76 percent and only 10 of 227 items (4.41%) were categorized as “unclear” with regard to the categories. At the same time, SME agreement varied across the scales and sub-dimensions examined, suggesting that some scales/sub-dimensions are more conceptually clear than others in terms of the three categories. Based on the results, the authors provide guidance for how to choose a measure of resilience and discuss different workplace applications that are aligned with the aforementioned categories.     

Women's Perceptions of the Prison Environment: When Prison is "the safest place i've ever been"

Incarcerated women's perceptions of the prison environment were explored with respect to relative level of safety from interpersonal abuse in prison as compared to before incarceration. Perceived levels of safety were analyzed based on reported past experiences of interpersonal violence. Participants were 65 women incarcerated in a medium security prison for women with mental and physical health problems. Women's perceptions of safety were evaluated using close–ended quantitative and open–ended qualitative self–report questions. The results suggest that, for some women, prison may be a relatively safe environment and that perceived level of safety may vary with the extent of previous experience of interpersonal violence in childhood and adulthood. Given that the structure of correctional institutions often incorporates abusive dynamics, the directionality of the findings is theoretically and socially important. The patterns apparent in these data are also consistent with other research and theory on the experiences of incarcerated women.