Improving spelling for at‐risk kindergartners through element skill frequency building

A student's ability to spell affects literacy outcomes. Students profit from explicit spelling instruction but may also benefit from frequency building or systematic practice. The method of frequency building leads toward effortless performance or behavioral fluency. Reaching certain frequencies of behavior produces a critical learning outcome called application. The current study focused on the effects of building element spelling behaviors for at‐risk kindergartners and the subsequent application to a compound spelling skill. Visual and quantitative analysis suggest a clear experimental effect between the attainment of performance criterion for letter sounds, letter naming, and sequencing on students' spelling behavior. A discussion of the results precedes future research directions.     

Only the right noise? Effects of phonetic and visual input variability on 14‐month‐olds' minimal pair word learning

Seminal work by Werker and colleagues (Stager & Werker [1997] Nature, 388, 381–382) has found that 14‐month‐old infants do not show evidence for learning minimal pairs in the habituation‐switch paradigm. However, when multiple speakers produce the minimal pair in acoustically variable ways, infants' performance improves in comparison to a single speaker condition (Rost & McMurray [2009] Developmental Science, 12, 339–349). The current study further extends these results and assesses how different kinds of input variability affect 14‐month‐olds' minimal pair learning in the habituation‐switch paradigm testing German learning infants. The first two experiments investigated word learning when the labels were spoken by a single speaker versus when the labels were spoken by multiple speakers. In the third experiment we studied whether non‐acoustic variability, implemented by visual variability of the objects presented together with the labels, would also affect minimal pair learning. We found enhanced learning in the multiple speakers compared to the single speaker condition, confirming previous findings with English‐learning infants. In contrast, visual variability of the presented objects did not support learning. These findings both confirm and better delimit the beneficial role of speech‐specific variability in minimal pair learning. Finally, we review different proposals on the mechanisms via which variability confers benefits to learning and outline what may be likely principles that underlie this benefit. We highlight among these the multiplicity of acoustic cues signalling phonemic contrasts and the presence of relations among these cues. It is in these relations where we trace part of the source for the apparent paradoxical benefit of variability in learning.     

公共政策情境中行为习惯的形成机制与培养策略

引导社会成员重塑日常良好行为习惯是增强公共政策有效性的重要路径和切入点, 洞悉并把握行为习惯的形成机制对具体培养策略的制定和实施大有裨益。行为习惯是指通过高频重复的奖励习得, 在记忆中形成的情境与反应之间的内隐联结。作为一种特殊的内隐记忆系统, 行为习惯具有自动化、情境线索依赖性、对当前奖励低敏感性等特征。行为习惯的形成机制包含两个独立且共发的习得机制, 即联结习得机制和奖励习得机制。在日常良好行为习惯的形成初期, 目标引导着个体对行为价值的习得。在培养社会成员日常良好行为习惯的过程中, 应将情境线索的稳定性、高频行为的低认知重复以及奖励的合理设置, 作为公共政策助推社会成员养成日常良好行为习惯的三大核心策略。未来的研究方向应着力于加强习惯研究的学科视阈融合, 更新行为习惯领域的研究范式, 重置公共设施以提升有益行为的易达性, 以及引入商业模式以共促社会成员日常良好行为习惯的重塑。     

儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍关联的认知神经过程

行为抑制型儿童相较于普通儿童更容易在童年中期和青春期出现心理障碍, 具有更高的发展风险性。此类儿童比非抑制型儿童表现出更多的退缩动机、更长的预期过程与前注意过程、更少的注意控制、对负性信息更多的注意偏向、异常活跃的反应监控过程和更慢的习惯化过程。这些与心理障碍患者相似的认知神经过程是儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍间的重要联系途径, 并能作为预测指标筛选有更高发展风险性的个体。除儿童本身的特质外, 环境因素也能通过塑造认知神经过程, 进而影响儿童的发展结果。因此在未来的研究中, 可以考虑不同文化背景下的儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍关联的认知神经过程差异。进而从个体特质和环境因素两方面寻找行为抑制型儿童发展的保护性因素。     

时间视角下的组织公正研究

组织公正的动态研究是在时间视角下分析组织公正的变化及其影响。根据研究中不同的时间跨度,可将该领域的研究分为短期公正变化与长期公正变化研究。短期公正变化研究主要分析公正事件在日层次上的变化对组织内个体的影响。长期公正变化则分析组织内个体过往的公正经历如何影响他们当前的心理与行为。研究主要从自我调节资源的变化、不确定管理、社会认知及长时社会交换角度解释公正的动态影响。未来可从公正动态变化的特征、前因机制及其差异化影响机制开展研究。     

Fetal behavioral responses to the touch of the mother’s abdomen: A Frame-by-frame analysis

The aim of the present study was to examine whether fetuses respond to the touching of the mother’s abdomen, and if they do, whether they differentiate based on familiarity and the source of the touch, utilizing 3D real-time (4D) sonography.Behavioral responses of 28 fetuses (20th to 33rd week of gestation; N = 15 in the 2nd and N = 13 in the 3rd trimester) were frame-by-frame coded using a coding system comprising 20 codes and were analyzed in four conditions, during the touch of the (1) mother, (2) the father, (3) the stranger and in a (4) no-touch, control condition.Fetuses showed differential responses to the touch, in particular in the duration of their reaching out to touch the uterus wall in the four conditions, and self-touch, dependent on the gestational age of the fetus. Fetuses in the 3rd trimester touched the uterus wall significantly longer than fetuses in the 2nd trimester did, when the mother touched compared to the control condition. At the same time, fetuses in the 3rd trimester also touched themselves less during the mother’s touch, compared when the stranger touched and also compared to the control condition.This differential response of the older fetuses might be due to the maturation of the central nervous system, and may indicate the emergence of a proprioceptive self-awareness by the 3rd trimester.     

Self-guided behavioral skills training: A public health approach to promoting nurturing care environments

The World Health Organization identified the promotion of “Nurturing Care Environments” as a global health priority. Responsive caregiving, 1 of 5 domains describing nurturing care, is critical for healthy child development. Relatively little research has evaluated population-level interventions aimed to increase responsive caregiving during the first 1,000 days of an infant's life. In this pilot study, we evaluated an intervention designed for population-level dissemination that targeted responsive caregiving. The self-guided behavioral skills training aimed to teach mothers to imitate infant vocalizations. The intervention was delivered within an on-line asynchronous training. All 3 mothers increased vocal imitative behavior following training without receiving coaching or behavior-specific feedback from an implementer. The results offer a preliminary proof of concept with implications for population-level intervention design and evaluation.     

A National Survey of Social Justice Engagement Among Professional Counselors

This exploratory survey examined the relationship between 169 professional counselors’ social justice engagement and demographic, personality, and contextual factors. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that counselors’ sexual orientation, trait extraversion, and postgraduate training predicted their level of engagement in social justice behaviors. The authors recommend that counselor training in social justice be focused on quality, rather than quantity, and that personality and identity characteristics of individuals be incorporated into pedagogical practices.