Sure Start Dino parent satisfaction survey

This project report evaluates the Sure Start Dino programme, established in 2002, in Halton.NC

Friction of (110) Diamond in the Presence of Small Hydrocarbon Molecule

Molecular dynamic simulations have been used to explore the friction between two (110) diamond surfaces in sliding contact. In general, when a third-body hydrocarbon molecule is placed between two computer generated diamond surfaces in sliding contact, the result is a reduction of friction as the load iH increased compared to the same surfaces in the absence of third-body molecules. The size, shape, and alignment of the third-body hydrocarbon molecules play an essential role in the reduction of friction. Results for a system with ethane presented as a third-body molecule will be compared to previous theoretical studies as well as existing experimental data

Motion processing in children with autism

It has often been reported that individuals with autism process visual motion information atypically. This thesis uses psychophysical methods and a parent-report questionnaire to characterise better the nature of atypical motion processing in children with autism. In Chapter 1, I review the evidence for atypical sensory perception in autism, focusing on the processing of dynamic information. In Chapter 2, I show that children with autism are just as sensitive to speed information as typically developing (TD) children, but have elevated motion coherence thresholds specifically for slow stimuli. In Chapter 3, I analyse questionnaire results which suggest that children with autism have difficulties processing speed-related information in everyday life. In Chapters 4 and 5 I use an equivalent noise direction integration task alongside a standard motion coherence paradigm to determine whether local and/or global factors limit sensitivity to coherent motion information in TD children and children with autism. In Chapter 4, I show that the ability to average motion information drives age-related increases in coherent motion sensitivity in TD children. In Chapter 5, I present the unexpected finding that children with autism have enhanced integration of motion information compared to TD children. In an attempt to resolve discrepant motion coherence findings, I reveal that children with autism are equally susceptible to correspondence noise as TD children in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7, I discuss the importance of these findings within the context of current theoretical accounts, and suggest that we need a more nuanced account of motion processing abilities in autism. In particular, I argue that motion processing in autism may be characterised by increased integration and reduced segregation of signal from noise

The effects of grouping on speed discrimination thresholds in adults, typically developing children, and children with autism.

Adult observers show elevated speed discrimination thresholds when comparing the speeds of objects moving across a boundary compared to those moving parallel to a boundary (Verghese &amp; McKee, 2006)-an effect that has been attributed to grouping processes in conjunction with a prior for smooth motion. Here, we extended Verghese and McKee's (2006) paradigm to typically developing children (n = 35) and children with autism (n = 26) and compared their performance with that of typical adults (n = 19). Speed discrimination thresholds were measured in three conditions: (a) with dots moving parallel to a boundary, (b) with dots moving perpendicular to a boundary, and (c) with dots in each stimulus half moving in orthogonal, oblique directions. As expected, participants had higher speed discrimination thresholds when dots appeared to cross a boundary compared to when dots moved parallel to the boundary. However, participants had even higher thresholds when dots moved in oblique, orthogonal directions, where grouping should be minimal. All groups of participants showed a similar pattern of performance across conditions although children had higher thresholds than adult participants overall. We consider various explanations for the pattern of performance obtained, including enhanced sensitivity for shearing motions and reduced sensitivity for discriminating different directions. Our results demonstrate that the speed discrimination judgments of typically developing children and children with autism are similarly affected by spatial configuration as those of typical adults and provide further evidence that speed discrimination is unimpaired in children with autism.</p

Averaging, not internal noise, limits the development of coherent motion processing.

The development of motion processing is a critical part of visual development, allowing children to interact with moving objects and navigate within a dynamic environment. However, global motion processing, which requires pooling motion information across space, develops late, reaching adult-like levels only by mid-to-late childhood. The reasons underlying this protracted development are not yet fully understood. In this study, we sought to determine whether the development of motion coherence sensitivity is limited by internal noise (i.e., imprecision in estimating the directions of individual elements) and/or global pooling across local estimates. To this end, we presented equivalent noise direction discrimination tasks and motion coherence tasks at both slow (1.5°/s) and fast (6°/s) speeds to children aged 5, 7, 9 and 11 years, and adults. We show that, as children get older, their levels of internal noise reduce, and they are able to average across more local motion estimates. Regression analyses indicated, however, that age-related improvements in coherent motion perception are driven solely by improvements in averaging and not by reductions in internal noise. Our results suggest that the development of coherent motion sensitivity is primarily limited by developmental changes within brain regions involved in integrating motion signals (e.g., MT/V5)

Children on the autism spectrum update their behaviour in response to a volatile environment

Typical adults can track reward probabilities across trials to estimate the volatility of the environment and use this information to modify their learning rate (Behrens et al., 2007). In a stable environment, it is advantageous to take account of outcomes over many trials, whereas in a volatile environment, recent experience should be more strongly weighted than distant experience. Recent predictive coding accounts of autism propose that autistic individuals will demonstrate atypical updating of their behaviour in response to the statistics of the reward environment. To rigorously test this hypothesis, we administered a developmentally appropriate version of Behrens et al.'s (2007) task to 34 cognitively able children on the autism spectrum aged between 6 and 14 years, 32 age- and ability-matched typically developing children and 19 typical adults. Participants were required to choose between a green and a blue pirate chest, each associated with a randomly determined reward value between 0 and 100 points, with a combined total of 100 points. On each trial, the reward was given for one stimulus only. In the stable condition, the ratio of the blue or green response being rewarded was fixed at 75:25. In the volatile condition, the ratio alternated between 80:20 and 20:80 every 20 trials. We estimated the learning rate for each participant by fitting a delta rule model and compared this rate across conditions and groups. All groups increased their learning rate in the volatile condition compared to the stable condition. Unexpectedly, there was no effect of group and no interaction between group and condition. Thus, autistic children used information about the statistics of the reward environment to guide their decisions to a similar extent as typically developing children and adults. These results help constrain predictive coding accounts of autism by demonstrating that autism is not characterized by uniform differences in the weighting of prediction error

Judgemental and developmental mentoring in Further Education Initial Teacher Education in England: Mentor and mentee perspectives

This article presents findings from a study which sought to identify the extent to which trainee teachers and their mentors considered their mentoring experiences and approaches to be judgemental or developmental. The article draws on a case study of trainee teachers and mentors on an Initial Teacher Education programme at a Further Education college on the south coast of England. Data were generated from an initial survey of 22 teachers, from which seven pairs of teachers and mentors also participated in part-structured individual interviews and direct observation of one of their mentoring meetings. In addition, 8 of the interviewees also participated in a follow up email survey. The findings highlight significant variation in mentoring practices, with both judgemental and developmental mentoring approaches in use. A distinct discrepancy is also identified between the perceptions of mentors and mentees regarding the nature of the mentoring experience, with most mentors describing their approaches as developmental and most mentees describing these as judgemental. In addition, mentor education was found to enhance mentors’ enactment of developmental as opposed to judgemental mentoring. A number of possible implications for policy, practice and further research are discusse

Digital Resources for Targeted Mathematics Support

SPIRIT Maths (Students’ Perceptions Informing and Redefining Innovative Teaching of Mathematics in Higher Education) is a project that was established in Munster Technological University (MTU) to investigate students’ attitudes towards mathematics and to explore a more student-centred development of mathematics resources. One of the aims of the project was to create a collection of student-preferred digital materials with a view to improving student engagement, building students’ confidence in mathematics and helping students to succeed in their mathematics modules.The findings of a survey disseminated to first year students in MTU indicated that students would be most likely to use the resources if they were geared towards their specific module; to maximise impact, resources were developed for two modules, one in Engineering and one in Business, that are each taken by large numbers of students. The resources were integrated on the learning management system and are available to all MTU students taking a mathematics module. Three interlinked digital resources were developed: (1) a series of interactive self-assessment questions, (2) corresponding videos showing worked solutions and (3) an associated bank of practice questions developed using a digital tutor to provide instant feedback. It is hoped that the complementary resources will facilitate student learning through a combination of active learning, explicit instruction and the ready availability of the resources.This article describes these resources and how they were developed, and outlines how these are being promoted to students. We also report on the feedback received from a small number of students who tested the resources and discuss how to measure student engagement with the resources

Ensemble perception of emotions in autistic and typical children and adolescents.

Ensemble perception, the ability to assess automatically the summary of large amounts of information presented in visual scenes, is available early in typical development. This ability might be compromised in autistic children, who are thought to present limitations in maintaining summary statistics representations for the recent history of sensory input. Here we examined ensemble perception of facial emotional expressions in 35 autistic children, 30 age- and ability-matched typical children and 25 typical adults. Participants received three tasks: a) an ‘ensemble’ emotion discrimination task; b) a baseline (single-face) emotion discrimination task; and c) a facial expression identification task. Children performed worse than adults on all three tasks. Unexpectedly, autistic and typical children were, on average, indistinguishable in their precision and accuracy on all three tasks. Computational modelling suggested that, on average, autistic and typical children used ensemble-encoding strategies to a similar extent; but ensemble perception was related to non-verbal reasoning abilities in autistic but not in typical children. Eye-movement data also showed no group differences in the way children attended to the stimuli. Our combined findings suggest that the abilities of autistic and typical children for ensemble perception of emotions are comparable on average. Keywords: Ensemble perception, Autism, Summary statistics, Facial expressions, Emotion