Improving Social Interactions Between Learning Disabled Adolescents and Teachers: A Child Effects Approach

This research was published by the KU Center for Research on Learning, formerly known as the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities.This study investigated whether LD adolescents could be taught to change their classroom behavior in ways that would effect how their teachers treated them and whether they could be taught to generalize positive changes in their interactions with teachers. Six LD junior high students were taught three social skills: initiating positive interactions, responding to requests, and recruiting attention for individual help. The students were successful in learning the social skills in the training session; however, they did not exhibit these skills on a consistent basis in their classroom. Teachers perceived the subjects' classroom behavior as more appropriate

Interactions Between Teachers and Learning Disabled and Non-Learning Disabled Adolescents

This research was published by the KU Center for Research on Learning, formerly known as the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities.A number of recent studies with learning disabled children have suggested that they may have poor social skills; however, research with LD adolescents in school settings has reported few differences in LD and non-LD student-teacher interactions . In this study, an observational measurement system was used to examine interactions of LD students and their teachers and to compare these interactions with those of their normal peers . The students' perceptions of their classroom interactions were also assessed. No significant differences between LD student-teacher and NLD student-teacher interactions were observed . In addition, LD and NLD students exhibited similar perceptions of their interactions with their teachers

Family Participation and Involvement in Early Head Start Home Visiting Services: Relations with Longitudinal Outcomes Executive Summary

Home visiting is an intervention approach used widely to provide individualized services to families living in poverty and children facing risks for poor development. Home visiting programs are often, by design, an indirect means to promote healthy child development and employ a variety of strategies ranging from checking child health and safety to encouraging positive parenting to helping parents access education and employment opportunities. Most home visiting programs, however, state that promoting child development is their overarching goal. Most home visitors work with parents to facilitate “developmental parenting,” a term introduced by Roggman, Boyce, and Innocenti (2008) to describe healthy parent-child interactions likely to support positive outcomes for their children. Promoting developmental parenting captures the overall approach of Early Head Start (EHS) home-based programs (Administration on Children and Families, 2002), the focus of this report

Policy Brief #1: Child Care Assets: What are 14 Key Assets of Child Care Providers that Support Quality?

In 2000, university researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Iowa State University, University of Kansas and the University of Missouri and state child care and early education program partners in four states (Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska) initiated the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium (MCCRC). The focus of the Consortium’s work is to conduct a multiyear study on a range of issues associated with child care quality and conditions. Across the four states, a stratified random selection of 2,022 child care providers participated in a telephone survey conducted by the Gallup Organization, representing licensed child care centers, licensed family child care homes, registered child care homes, and subsidized care license exempt family and (in one state) license exempt center care. Providers responded to questions about background and practices often associated with quality. Of the providers responding to the phone survey, 365 were randomly selected for in-depth observations to assess quality, using conventional measures of child care quality (see back of this brief). This report shows the relation between observed quality and many provider characteristics and professional improvement efforts

Nebraska Child Care Workforce and Quality: Summary Policy Brief #7

The study showed the average child care provider in Nebraska is female, married and a parent. This provider had some training or education beyond high school but not an advanced degree, was active in child care training, had a First Aid/CPR certificate, considered child care her profession or calling, had been in the child care field for over 5 years and planned to remain a provider. The average provider was observed to provide minimal quality child care. In Nebraska, using well-established observational measures of quality, center-based preschool care averaged 4.16 on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R); 4.49 on the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS); and family child care averaged 4.46 on the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS). A “5” is considered “good” quality. There was great variability across all types of care. · Family child care quality was higher in Nebraska and Missouri than in Iowa and Kansas. · In center-based care, there were no differences between providers who cared for children receiving government child care subsidies and those who did not but in family child care there were differences. Quality, training, education and professionally-oriented attitudes were lower among subsidy-receiving family child care providers than for non-subsidy receiving counterparts. · Providers in Early Head Start/Head Start partnerships offered higher quality care and received more training than other child care providers. Nebraska like two other states invested training funds to enable Early Head Start/Head Start programs to partner with programs to follow the Head Start Performance Standards and these partnerships did appear to result in higher quality than average

Community Service: Editor pride and user preference on local newspaper websites

Armed with readily accessible online traffic logs that provide detailed information about the items users are selecting to view, editors are voicing concern about the potential effect on their own content decisions. Through a survey of local British newspaper editors, this article examines the overlap between user preferences, as suggested by assessments of website traffic, and content that editors identify as their best. Results are considered in the context of two related subsets of agenda-setting theory, as well as the sociological process of “making news.” The study finds overlap between broad categories of stories preferred by editors and users, but a considerable disconnect over the nature of the items within those categories

Molecular Systematics of the Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Endemic Brachyuran Family Bythograeidae: A Comparison of Three Bayesian Species Tree Methods

Brachyuran crabs of the family Bythograeidae are endemic to deep-sea hydrothermal vents and represent one of the most successful groups of macroinvertebrates that have colonized this extreme environment. Occurring worldwide, the family includes six genera (Allograea, Austinograea, Bythograea, Cyanagraea, Gandalfus, and Segonzacia) and fourteen formally described species. To investigate their evolutionary relationships, we conducted Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian molecular phylogenetic analyses, based on DNA sequences from fragments of three mitochondrial genes (16S rDNA, Cytochrome oxidase I, and Cytochrome b) and three nuclear genes (28S rDNA, the sodium–potassium ATPase a-subunit ‘NaK’, and Histone H3A). We employed traditional concatenated (i.e., supermatrix) phylogenetic methods, as well as three recently developed Bayesian multilocus methods aimed at inferring species trees from potentially discordant gene trees. We found strong support for two main clades within Bythograeidae: one comprising the members of the genus Bythograea; and the other comprising the remaining genera. Relationships within each of these two clades were partially resolved. We compare our results with an earlier hypothesis on the phylogenetic relationships among bythograeid genera based on morphology. We also discuss the biogeography of the family in the light of our results. Our species tree analyses reveal differences in how each of the three methods weighs conflicting phylogenetic signal from different gene partitions and how limits on the number of outgroup taxa may affect the results

Involvement in Early Head Start home visiting services: Demographic predictors and relations to child and parent outcomes

One strand of home visiting research investigates effi cacy while another investigates under what conditions programs achieve outcomes. The current study follows the latter approach. Using a within-program design in a sample of 11 home-based sites in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study, this study found that three components of home visits (quantity of involvement including number of home visits, duration in the program, length of visits and intensity of service; quality of engagement including global ratings of engagement by staff and ratings of engagement during each home visit; and the extent to which home visits were child focused) represented distinguishable aspects of home visit services. Demographic variables predicted components of involvement, and home visit involvement components were differentially related to outcomes at 36 months, after controlling for demographic/ family factors and earlier functioning on the same measure. Only one quantity of involvement variable (duration) predicted improvements in home language and literacy environments at 36 months. Quality of involvement variables were negative predictors of maternal depressive symptoms at 36 months. Finally, the proportion of time during the visit devoted to child-focused activities predicted children’s cognitive and language development scores, parent HOME scores, and parental support for language and learning when children were 36 months of age. Implications for home visiting programs and policies are discussed