Do babies learn from baby media?

In recent years, parents in the United States and worldwide have purchased enormous numbers of videos and DVDs designed and marketed for infants, many assuming that their children would benefit from watching them. We examined how many new words 12- to 18-month-old children learned from viewing a popular DVD several times a week for 4 weeks at home. The most important result was that children who viewed the DVD did not learn any more words from their monthlong exposure to it than did a control group. The highest level of learning occurred in a no-video condition in which parents tried to teach their children the same target words during everyday activities. Another important result was that parents who liked the DVD tended to overestimate how much their children had learned from it. We conclude that infants learn relatively little from infant media and that their parents sometimes overestimate what they do learn

Clinical, biochemical and molecular characteristics of Filipino patients with mucopolysaccharidosis type II - Hunter syndrome

Background: Mucopolysaccharidosis type II, an X-linked recessive disorder is the most common lysosomal storage disease detected among Filipinos. This is a case series involving 23 male Filipino patients confirmed to have Hunter syndrome. The clinical and biochemical characteristics were obtained and mutation testing of the IDS gene was done on the probands and their female relatives. Results: The mean age of the patients was 11.28 (SD 4.10) years with an average symptom onset at 1.2 (SD 1.4) years. The mean age at biochemical diagnosis was 8 (SD 3.2) years. The early clinical characteristics were developmental delay, joint stiffness, coarse facies, recurrent respiratory tract infections, abdominal distention and hernia. Majority of the patients had joint contractures, severe intellectual disability, error of refraction, hearing loss and valvular regurgitation on subspecialists' evaluation. The mean GAG concentration was 506.5 mg (SD 191.3)/grams creatinine while the mean plasma iduronate-2-sulfatase activity was 0.86 (SD 0.79) nmol/mg plasma/4 h. Fourteen (14) mutations were found: 6 missense (42.9%), 4 nonsense (28.6%), 2 frameshift (14.3%), 1 exon skipping at the cDNA level (7.1%), and 1 gross insertion (7.1%). Six (6) novel mutations were observed (43%): p.C422F, p.P86Rfs∗44, p.Q121∗, p.L209Wfs∗4, p.T409R, and c.1461-1462insN[710]. Conclusion: The age at diagnosis in this series was much delayed and majority of the patients presented with severe neurologic impairment. The results of the biochemical tests did not contribute to the phenotypic classification of patients. The effects of the mutations were consistent with the severe phenotype seen in the majority of the patients

Designing Picturebook Apps : Valuing Culture & Community

This article examines picturebook apps as sites of value negotiation and design in support of community and culture, illustrated through the ongoing design and development of an O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree community-centred picturebook app, Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow (Pīsim Miskam Omiskanow). We introduce the C&T community to early research on electronic picturebooks, and illustrate how picturebook theory is expanded with the remediation of print texts into multimodal narrative experiences. We turn to the case of Pīsim to further enrich and diversify these conceptions, weaving elements of culture into earlier models of picturebook apps. We draw on design theory, specifically the concept of values as hypotheses, to offer storied insights on how the design process of the Pīsim picture book app is enriched through its commitment to the originating community. We conclude with implications for the community-grounded design of interactive cultural belongings, not limited to picturebooks, including museum exhibits, educational installations, and digitized cultural heritage pieces.Arts, Faculty ofiSchool (Library, Archival and Information Studies)UnreviewedFacultyGraduat