Early Social Interaction: A Case Comparison of Developmental Pragmatics and Psychoanalytic Theory

This book brings together various threads of the research work I have been involved with over a number of years. This research is based on a longitudinal video recorded study of one ofmydaughters as shewas learning howto talk. The impetus for engaging in this work arose from a sense that within developmental psychology and child language, when people are interested in understanding howchildren use language, they seem over-focused or concerned with questions of formal grammar and semantics. My interest is on understanding how a child learns to talk and through this process is then understood as being or becoming a member of a culture. When a young child is learning how to engage in everyday interaction she has to acquire those competencies that allow her to be simultaneously oriented to the conventions that inform talk-ininteraction and at the same time deal with the emotional or affective dimensions of her experience. It turns out that in developmental psychology these domains are traditionally studied separately or at least by researchers whose interests rarely overlap. In order to understand better early social relations (parent–child interaction), I want to pursue the idea that we will benefit by studying both early pragmatic development and emotional development. Not surprisingly, the theoretical positions underlying the study of these domains provide very different accounts of human development and this book illuminates why this might be the case. What follows will I hope serve as a case-study on the interdependence between the analysis of social interaction and subsequent interpretation

Modelling individual variability in cognitive development

Investigating variability in reasoning tasks can provide insights into key issues in the study of cognitive development. These include the mechanisms that underlie developmental transitions, and the distinction between individual differences and developmental disorders. We explored the mechanistic basis of variability in two connectionist models of cognitive development, a model of the Piagetian balance scale task (McClelland, 1989) and a model of the Piagetian conservation task (Shultz, 1998). For the balance scale task, we began with a simple feed-forward connectionist model and training patterns based on McClelland (1989). We investigated computational parameters, problem encodings, and training environments that contributed to variability in development, both across groups and within individuals. We report on the parameters that affect the complexity of reasoning and the nature of ‘rule’ transitions exhibited by networks learning to reason about balance scale problems. For the conservation task, we took the task structure and problem encoding of Shultz (1998) as our base model. We examined the computational parameters, problem encodings, and training environments that contributed to variability in development, in particular examining the parameters that affected the emergence of abstraction. We relate the findings to existing cognitive theories on the causes of individual differences in development

Physical playlist:bringing back the mix-tape

To those of a certain age the concept of the mix-tape holds fond memories, and generally not of the musical content they contained, but rather the emotional and physical connection they represented with either its creator or recipient. They provided an embodiment of the time and effort it its creation and thus presented the same qualities of other handmade gifts. The advent of digital content, and particularly the mp3, for storage and streaming meant that audio content could be shared more quickly and easily than ever before. However, the creation of a digital playlist does not embody the same qualities present in a mix-tape and thus has not gained the same cultural significance. This research re-imagines the mix-tape for digital content as physical customizable jewellery that can once again embody values not generally attributed to digital content. Through a discussion of the design process and the results of preliminary evaluation, the potential benefits on the user experience of sharing digital content through physical objects have been highlighted

Prenatal factors contribute to the emergence of kwoshiorkor or marasmus in severe undernutrition: evidence for the predictive adaptation model

Severe acute malnutrition in childhood manifests as oedematous (kwashiorkor, marasmic kwashiorkor) and non-oedematous (marasmus) syndromes with very different prognoses. Kwashiorkor differs from marasmus in the patterns of protein, amino acid and lipid metabolism when patients are acutely ill as well as after rehabilitation to ideal weight for height. Metabolic patterns among marasmic patients define them as metabolically thrifty, while kwashiorkor patients function as metabolically profligate. Such differences might underlie syndromic presentation and prognosis. However, no fundamental explanation exists for these differences in metabolism, nor clinical pictures, given similar exposures to undernutrition. We hypothesized that different developmental trajectories underlie these clinical-metabolic phenotypes: if so this would be strong evidence in support of predictive adaptation model of developmental plasticity

Hinkle v. Sam Blanken & Co.: Dismissals for Discovery Abuse – Toward a New Standard in the District of Columbia

These notes are part of the District of Columbia Survey

Hinkle v. Sam Blanken & Co.: Dismissals for Discovery Abuse – Toward a New Standard in the District of Columbia

These notes are part of the District of Columbia Survey