Evaluating four and five-year old children's responses to interactive television programs

While it is commonly believed that 'interactive' media provides benefits to young children not obtained from 'non-interactive' media, there has been little research examining this issue, or the kinds of interactivity that elicit these benefits. The present study examined the attention, comprehension, and enjoyment of young children viewing different kinds of interactive television programs compared with those of children viewing the control prototype (non-interactive) programs. Three interactive prototypes and one control prototype of Dora the Explorer, Hi-5, and Play School were examined on these outcome measures. The interactive prototypes allowed participants to make simple choices about program content using a television remote control. Four hundred and ninety eight children aged four (49.4%) and five (50.6%) years individually viewed one of the prototypes, and the children's attention, comprehension, and enjoyment were examined. Participants were boys (49.7%) and girls (50.3%) drawn from Government (64.9%), Catholic (27.6%) and Independent (7.4%) schools in Perth, Western Australia. Significantly higher attention, comprehension, or both were found for children interacting with two of the prototypes allowing increased viewer participation compared to children viewing the control prototype prototypes. Interactive prototypes allowing participants to repeat sections of program content also elicited significantly higher comprehension than control prototypes. However, interactive prototypes allowing participants to customise aspects of the program did not result in differences in the outcome measures compared with control prototypes. It was also found that interactive prototypes offering participants narrative choices were associated with significantly lower attention, comprehension or enjoyment for either interacting or non-interacting participants compared to the control prototypes. It is argued that interactivity, per se, does not bestow any benefits, with only specific models of interactivity resulting in higher comprehension or attention. In fact, some applications allowing young children to make choices about program narrative appears to disrupt program comprehension. It is concluded that successful interactivity builds upon the features of well-designed traditional children's television; opportunities for increased participation, and the repetition of content

Human subcortical brain asymmetries in 15,847 people worldwide reveal effects of age and sex

The two hemispheres of the human brain differ functionally and structurally. Despite over a century of research, the extent to which brain asymmetry is influenced by sex, handedness, age, and genetic factors is still controversial. Here we present the largest ever analysis of subcortical brain asymmetries, in a harmonized multi-site study using meta-analysis methods. Volumetric asymmetry of seven subcortical structures was assessed in 15,847 MRI scans from 52 datasets worldwide. There were sex differences in the asymmetry of the globus pallidus and putamen. Heritability estimates, derived from 1170 subjects belonging to 71 extended pedigrees, revealed that additive genetic factors influenced the asymmetry of these two structures and that of the hippocampus and thalamus. Handedness had no detectable effect on subcortical asymmetries, even in this unprecedented sample size, but the asymmetry of the putamen varied with age. Genetic drivers of asymmetry in the hippocampus, thalamus and basal ganglia may affect variability in human cognition, including susceptibility to psychiatric disorders

The impact of co-payment increases on dispensings of government-subsidised medicines in Australia

Purpose: Patient co-payments for medicines subsidised under the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) increased by 24% in January 2005. We investigated whether this increase and two related co-payment changes were associated with changes in dispensings of selected subsidised medicines in Australia. Method: We analysed national aggregate monthly prescription dispensings for 17 medicine categories, selected to represent a range of treatments (e.g. for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gout). Trends in medication dispensings from January 2000 to December 2004 were compared with those from January 2005 to September 2007 using segmented regression analysis. Results: Following the January 2005 increase in PBS co-payments, significant decrease in dispensing volumes were observed in 12 of the 17 medicine categories (range: 3.2-10.9%), namely anti-epileptics, anti-Parkinson\u27s treatments, combination asthma medicines, eye-drops, glaucoma treatments, HmgCoA reductase inhibitors, insulin, muscle relaxants, non-aspirin antiplatelets, osteoporosis treatments, proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) and thyroxine. The largest decrease was observed for medicines used in treating asymptomatic conditions or those with over-the-counter (OTC) substitutes. Decrease in dispensings to social security beneficiaries was consistently greater than for general beneficiaries following the co-payment changes (range: 1.8-9.4% greater, p = 0.028). Conclusions: The study findings suggest that recent increase in Australian PBS co-payments have had a significant effect on dispensings of prescription medicines. The results suggest large increase in co-payments impact on patients\u27 ability to afford essential medicines. Of major concern is that, despite special subsidies for social security beneficiaries in the Australian system, the recent co-payment increase has particularly impacted on utilisation for this group