Editor\u27s Welcome for Volume 3, Issue 1

Welcome to the fall issue of volume 3 of the JPER. The spring issue appeared with a focus on women in prison. Brittnie Aiello and Krista McQueeney contributed an article on the implications for understanding motherhood as a mechanism of moral identity and social control. They discussed how incarcerated mothers constructed moral identities in the face of stigma of incarceration. Following an analysis of data from participant observation and in-depth interviews with incarcerated mothers, they discuss how mothers claim moral identities by embracing the identity of incarcerated mothers to reinforce the assumptions that motherhood is compulsory and should be reserved for women with enough money and standing to give their children advantages

Editor\u27s Welcome for Volume 3, Issue 2

Welcome to the fall issue of volume 3 of the JPER. The spring issue appeared with a focus on women in prison. Brittnie Aiello and Krista McQueeney contributed an article on the implications for understanding motherhood as a mechanism of moral identity and social control. They discussed how incarcerated mothers constructed moral identities in the face of stigma of incarceration. Following an analysis of data from participant observation and in-depth interviews with incarcerated mothers, they discuss how mothers claim moral identities by embracing the identity of incarcerated mothers to reinforce the assumptions that motherhood is compulsory and should be reserved for women with enough money and standing to give their children advantages

Symptoms of ADHD are related to education and work experience among incarcerated adults

Several reports document increased prevalence of attention deficit and hyperactivity (ADHD) and similar symptoms in incarcerated members of the community, but little is known about how the symptoms are related to education and work experience. An ongoing study among Norwegian inmates reveals that 60 % report signs of ADHD. In the present study a sample of 600 inmates incarcerated in Norway filled out a questionnaire including the WURS-k (Wender Utah Rating Scale, short form) and questions to survey completed education level and work experience. A clear relationship was found between the WURS-k score and earlier job-experience, with increased probability of ADHD with work experience from low socio-economic status jobs. The scale was also found to share variance with the inmates’ reported education history, as higher education reduces the probability of ADHD among the incarcerated adults. Thus, the WURS-k could be a useful screening instrument in education assessment among inmates. The link between the present findings and development of anti-social behaviour is discussed

Can a Questionnaire Be Useful for Assessing Reading Skills in Adults? Experiences with the Adult Reading Questionnaire among Incarcerated and Young Adults in Norway

Background: Good screening tools can be of immense value in educational counselling for adults. We report two studies where we explored the factor structure and discriminative power of the Adult Reading Questionnaire (ARQ) in different samples of young adults at risk for reading impairments. Method: The ARQ was designed to screen for literacy skills with low resource requirement. The instrument includes 11 questions regarding reading and writing skills and 6 questions regarding attention deficits and hyperactivity. The first study included of 246 undergraduate students. One-third of the sample were under assessment of specific learning impairments/dyslexia. The second study included 1475 incarcerated adults, where 1 in 4 reported specific reading impairments. Results: Principal Component Analyses (PCA) with varimax rotation returned four components for the participants in Study 1: Reading skills, Reading habits, Attention, and Hyperactivity. For the incarcerated sample in Study 2, the analysis returned three components, as the Attention and Hyperactivity items were combined. Conclusion: The ARQ is useful for identifying individuals at risk for dyslexia with acceptable measures of sensitivity and specificity, as well as for identifying those who report difficulties with reading and writing but have not been assessed for their difficulties earlier. The increased prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) seen among incarcerated adults must be considered when screening for reading problems as it may confound the scores on reading questionnaires.publishedVersio

Terminologi for vansker med språk hos barn og unge – en konsensusstudie

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Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.

Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for "all," "none," "some," "some…not," and "most" in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the National Academy of Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.160134111