A Posture of Reciprocity: A Practical Approach to Collaboration Between Professionals and Parents of Culturally Diverse Backgrounds

The current emphasis on developing culturally responsive services for families of children with disabilities from culturally diverse backgrounds informs the need for professional self-awareness whereby professionals learn to recognize not only the cultural specificity of personal values and beliefs but also of their professional practice. We describe an approach, the posture of reciprocity, that enables professionals to acquire this level of cultural awareness. Examples to illustrate applications of the posture are provided.     

From syntactical to textual strategies of argumentation

The paper focuses on tevelopmental relations between syntactical complexity, cohesion — especially conjuctional connection — and textual coherence in a sample of 150 argumentative texts written by school children (grades 4, 7, 10 and 12) and young adults (university students). In common sense and even in linguistics and psychology written text and especially written argument has been taken to be the prototype of syntactically complex, self-contained and explicit text over a long period of research on the topic. Thus it has been argued that syntactic connectedness and explicit cohesion of propositions were the most valuable indicators for a well-done contextualization and abstraction of content space and rhetorical space in writing. Empirical data show this common-sense position to be questionable. The discussion emphazises the role of argumentative implicitness as a necessary condition for getting the reader involved in the discourse and thus for the emergence of coherence in argumentative texts.     

汉语儿童的语音意识特点及阅读能力高低读者的差异

选取小学３,４,５年级儿童各２０名作为被试,系统探讨了儿童汉语普通话的音节意识、首音韵脚意识和音位意识的特点及发展,根据老师的评价把被试分为好的读者和差的读者。研究结果表明,语音意识测验成绩随年级的增长而提高;音节意识与首音一韵脚意识先于音位意识而发展;好、差读者在语音意识测验成绩上差异显著,而且,年级差异与好、差读者差异的程度和趋势是一致的,好、差读者在语音意识发展的速度上是不同的。     

Afterimages: a tool for defining the neural correlate of visual consciousness

Our visual system not only mediates information about the visual environment but is capable of generating pictures of nonexistent worlds: afterimages, illusions, phosphenes, etc. We are "aware" of these pictures just as we are aware of the images of natural, physical objects. This raises the question: is the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) of such images the same as that of images of physical objects? Images of natural objects have some properties in common with afterimages (e.g., stability of verticality) but there are also obvious differences (e.g., images maintain size constancy, whereas afterimages follow Emmert's Law: when seen while screens at different distances are observed, an afterimage looks larger, the greater the distance of the screen). The differences can be explained by differences in the retinal extent of images and afterimages, which favors the view that both have the same NCC. It seems reasonable to assume that before neural activity can produce awareness, all the computations necessary for a veridical representation of, e.g., an object, must be completed within the neural substrate and that information characteristic of a particular object must be available within the NCC. Given these assumptions, it can be shown that no retinotopic (in a strict sense) cortical areas can serve as the NCC, although some type of topographic representation is necessary. It seems also to be unlikely that neurons classified as cardinal cells alone can serve as NCC.     

意志与意识对记忆的交互影响

运用加工分离程序,研究了编码和提取时不同意志和意识水平对部首补笔的影响。结果发现：除编码阶段和提取阶段的意志之间不存在交互作用之外,同一阶段和（或）不同阶段的意志和（或）意识之间均存在显著的或非常显著的交互作用。研究表明：意志和意识两个因素对记忆存在复杂影响,在记忆研究中应关注意志因素的作用。研究结果验证了记忆的状态依存性。     

Immigration: going home or going to pieces

Immigration may constitute a family crisis. Because of its lengthy duration, this crisis may be an unrecognized factor in the problem which brings patients into therapy. The immigration crisis may bring an individual into renewed contact with past unresolved emotional issues. It also affects the structure, hierarchies, and values of the family as a system. The therapist who relates only to presenting symptoms and ignores the context of the immigration crisis may lose credibility with patients and miss important therapeutic opportunities. Case studies are given to illustrate the statement.     

Emotion processing in children who do and do not stutter: An ERP study of electrocortical reactivity and regulation to peer facial expressions

PurposeEvent-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the neural correlates of emotion processing in 5- to 8-year-old children who do and do not stutter.MethodsParticipants were presented with an audio contextual cue followed by images of threatening (angry/fearful) and neutral facial expressions from similarly aged peers. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). These conditions reflected social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children.ResultsP100, N170, and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components were elicited over parietal and occipital electrodes. The threat condition elicited an increased LPP mean amplitude compared to the neutral condition across our participants, suggesting increased emotional reactivity to threatening facial expressions. In addition, LPP amplitude decreased during the reappraisal condition— evidence of emotion regulation. No group differences were observed in the mean amplitude of ERP components between children who do and do not stutter. Furthermore, dimensions of childhood temperament and stuttering severity were not strongly correlated with LPP elicitation.ConclusionThese findings are suggestive that, at this young age, children who stutter exhibit typical brain activation underlying emotional reactivity and regulation to social threat from peer facial expressions.     

Un style décisionnel adapté requiert de l’énergie psychologique : étude auprès de dirigeants de PME québécoises

To better understand the contribution of certain psychological factors involved in decision making, this study examines the mediating role of psychological states (work engagement and emotional exhaustion) in the relationship between the sense of competence at work and adaptive decision-making style. The sample comprised 201 small and medium-sized enterprises managers in Quebec who completed a self-report online questionnaire. Results indicated that work engagement and exhaustion act distinctly. Only engagement explains the relationship between a sense of competence and an adaptive decision-making style. In the pandemic context, which exacts a high toll on psychological health, it becomes important for the decision-making of managers to not only prevent their state of exhaustion, but also improve their state of engagement.     

Emotional intelligence and attentional bias for threat‐related emotion under stress

Emotional intelligence (EI ) can buffer potentially harmful effects of situational and chronic stressors to safeguard psychological wellbeing (e.g., Mikolajczak, Petrides, Coumans & Luminet, 2009 ), yet understanding how and when EI operates to promote adaptation remains a research priority. We explored whether EI (both trait and ability) modulated early attentional processing of threat‐related emotion under conditions of stress. Using a dot probe paradigm, eye movement (fixation to emotive facial stimuli, relative to neutral) and manual reaction time data were collected from 161 adults aged 18–57 years (mean age = 25.24; SD = 8.81) exposed to either a stressful (failure task) or non‐stressful (control) situation. Whilst emotion management ability and trait wellbeing corresponded to avoidance of negative emotion (angry and sad respectively), high trait sociability and emotionality related to a bias for negative emotions. With most effects not restricted to stressful conditions, it is unclear whether EI underscores ‘adaptive’ processing, which carries implications for school‐based social and emotional learning programs.