The Effects of Two Different Reading Acceleration Training Programs on Improving Reading Skills of Second Graders

It has been well established that poor reading skills in the first grades of primary school can lead to poor reading skills in all coming years. A reading acceleration program (RAP) known to improve reading skills in adults and children with and without reading difficulties (RD) was tested for its effect on children in second grade with standard reading skills. The influence of the RAP on improving all reading skills—decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension—was examined. Seventy-nine children in second grade were divided into two study groups and one control group. Each study group received a training program that emphasizes reading skills: decoding, fluency, and comprehension were trained at the levels of words and sentences in Version A and at the levels of words and paragraphs in Version B. Both programs significantly improved reading skills compared with the control group that was not trained: Group A improved word fluency whereas Group B improved accuracy measures (word, pseudo-word, and text). Both training groups showed significantly greater improvement over time than the control group on reading comprehension. We conclude that a RAP training that combines words, sentences, and paragraphs is the most effective for improving reading skills.     

A Population Study of Victimization, Relationships, and Well-Being in Middle Childhood

The paper presents a population-based study on the association of victimization and peer and adult relationships with children’s life satisfaction, self-esteem, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. The study extends previous research by examining 2-, 3-, and 4-way higher-order interaction effects (moderation hypotheses) of adults and peer relationships, victimization, and gender on positive and negative aspects of children’s well-being. The study draws from a representative population-level sample of 2,792 4th graders (M _age = 9.70 years; 48.2 % girls). Data were obtained via student self-report survey on the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI). Given the nested data (children within classrooms), we employed multi-level regression analyses. Positive relationships with adults and peers were most strongly associated with life satisfaction and self-esteem, whereas victimization was most strongly associated with depressive symptoms and anxiety. No significant 2- or 3-way interactions were identified. The 4-way interaction of gender, adult connectedness, peer connectedness, and victimization was significant for three outcomes; that is, victimization was particularly strongly associated with low life satisfaction, low self-esteem, and high depressive symptoms for girls with low self-reports of peer and adult connectedness. The findings have implications for promoting children’s well-being in school and community contexts, corroborating interventions that foster relationship-building skills and simultaneously reduce victimization.     

Enhancing Athletic Performance Using Digital Video in Consulting

Video has been used successfully in psychosocial interventions to help train communication skills, document behaviors, and as a feedback tool for behavior modification strategies. The need for equipment portability, together with editing expertise, has limited video use in sport psychology. Newer digital video systems help overcome these problems, meaning that sport psychologists can readily use this technology in the field. We discuss and provide experiential observations of how digital video can be used to improve player, coach, and team performance. Also reviewed are new consultation opportunities for sport psychologists with video skills. These new areas center on perceptual skills training and talent identification using perceptual skills testing.     

Failures,Fathers, and Fetal Fortunes: Reply to Commentaries by Avgi Saketopoulou and Jeanne Wolff Bernstein

This reply focuses on three themes highlighted in discussions by Avgi Saketopoulou and Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: “failure” in working with severely disturbed individuals, the structural fragility born of the ablation of the paternal, and Nina Farhi's notion of “annealed identifications.”     

The Confluence of Psychiatric Symptoms and Neurodegenerative Disease: Impact on Genetic Counseling

Hereditary neurodegenerative diseases can present with a psychiatric prodrome that overlaps with psychiatric symptoms that are not primary to these diseases. When individuals present for predictive testing while experiencing such symptoms, clinicians including genetic counselors, must proceed with caution and evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis. Legitimate reasons may exist for moving forward with testing. Additionally predicting the consequences of testing is unrealistic so that the clinicians must do their best to prepare patients for both positive and negative results. A multidisciplinary team following the Huntington disease protocol remains the gold standard care for predictive testing for such patients. We discuss 3 case histories that demonstrate the complex nature of genetic counseling and testing in the presence of psychiatric symptoms, whether emanating from the disease itself or the results of living in an affected family.     

Family Involvement in a Whole-School Bullying Intervention: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Communication and Influence with Children

Research indicates that involving families in school efforts to prevent and manage bullying behaviour is essential to success. Parents can influence their children's involvement in bullying situations by modelling positive social behaviour, offering advice about appropriate responses to bullying, and encouraging help-seeking. This paper reports family-related findings from the three-year group randomized control trial of the Friendly Schools Friendly Families (FSFF) intervention, which provided training and whole-school, classroom and family resources to build the capacity of schools to prevent bullying victimization and perpetration. Over 1400 parents and carers of Grades 2, 4 and 6 school students completed a survey at baseline and two post-tests. Parents exposed to the FSFF parent component received resources about ways to reduce bullying, build parenting skills and enhance parent–child communication; they also completed home activities with their children; and were encouraged to engage with their children’s school to reduce bullying. Mothers and fathers reported significant increases in the frequency of discussions with their child about bullying. Mothers were more likely than fathers to give pro-social, passive and help-seeking advice compared to fathers, who were more likely to encourage their child to ‘fight back’. The intervention improved fathers’ perceptions of their influence on children’s responses to being bullied. These results highlight the importance of working with both male and female caregivers when addressing children’s bullying behaviour. The findings also demonstrate that a parent intervention can have a positive impact on parent–child communication about bullying when it is an integral part of a whole-school approach.     

Idiom Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children

This study examines the effect of familiarity, context, and linguistic convention on idiom comprehension in Mandarin speaking children. Two experiments (a comprehension task followed by a comprehension task coupled with a metapragmatic task) were administered to test participants in three age groups (6 and 9-year-olds, and an adult control group). Laval (Journal of Pragmatics 35(2):723–739, 2003) showed that familiarity had an effect on idiom comprehension for French 9-year-olds. However, our finding showed that familiarity was important for 6-year-old Chinese children when a context was not given. Abkarian et al. (Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 35:580–587, 1992) claimed that context has little or no effect on comprehension for children under 6. Our results show that context has an effect on 6-year-old children’s understanding of idioms in a different way. Overall, our major research findings are: (1) Familiarity first appeared in responses at age 6. (2) Context played an important role in idiom comprehension and had different effects on different age groups. (3) Linguistic convention starts from age 6 on, and a significant effect took place at the age of 9. (4) Metapragmatic knowledge showed at the age of 6 and could surface even younger. As context and linguistic convention have a substantial effect on the comprehension of idioms, it is necessary to take them into account to explain language functioning and communicative situations.     

Applying signal-detection theory to the study of observer accuracy and bias in behavioral assessment

We evaluated the feasibility and utility of a laboratory model for examining observer accuracy within the framework of signal-detection theory (SDT). Sixty-one individuals collected data on aggression while viewing videotaped segments of simulated teacher-child interactions. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to determine if brief feedback and contingencies for scoring accurately would bias responding reliably. Experiment 2 focused on one variable (specificity of the operational definition) that we hypothesized might decrease the likelihood of bias. The effects of social consequences and information about expected behavior change were examined in Experiment 3. Results indicated that feedback and contingencies reliably biased responding and that the clarity of the definition only moderately affected this outcome.