34 research outputs found
Enhancing Peer Interaction in Early Childhood Special Education: Chains of Childrenâs Initiatives, Adultsâ Responses and Their Consequences in Play
This article focuses on the initiatives taken by children and the responses given by professional adults with regard to the pedagogy of enhancing peer interaction among diverse learners. The study took place in four integrated special groups of public early childhood education. In groups of this kind, typically developing children and those with special educational needs (SEN) spent time together on a daily basis. We analysed 12 videotaped play sessions with 33 (3- to 6-year-old) children and 10 adults to examine the childrenâs initiatives, the adultsâ responses, and the consequences that ensued. The study revealed verbal and nonverbal initiatives followed by a variety of responses scaffolding the childrenâs interaction and participation. However, the nonverbal or faint initiatives, especially those taken by the children with SEN, were at risk of being unnoticed or ignored. These findings call for professional reflection on pedagogical sensitivity in recognizing and responding to the initiatives of children.</p
Association of screen time with long-term stress and temperament in preschoolers: results from the DAGIS study
Screen time is increasing rapidly in young children. The aim of this
study was to examine associations of long-term stress and temperament
with screen time in Finnish preschool children and the moderating role
of socioeconomic status. Cross-sectional DAGIS data were utilized.
Long-term stress was assessed using hair cortisol concentration,
indicating values of the past 2Â months. Temperament was reported by the
parents using the Childrenâs Behavior Questionnaire (the Very Short
Form), and three broad temperament dimensions were constructed:
surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control. Screen time was
reported by the parents over 7Â days. The highest education level in the
household was used as an indicator of socioeconomic status. In total,
779 children (mean age, 4.7â±â0.9 years, 52% boys) were included in the
study. Of the temperament dimensions, a higher effortful control was
associated with less screen time (BÂ =âââ6.70, pâ=â0.002).
There was no evidence for an association between hair cortisol
concentration and screen time nor a moderating role of socioeconomic
status in the associations (pâ>â0.05).Conclusion:
Our findings indicate that preschool children with a higher score in
effortful control had less screen time. Because effortful control
reflects general self-regulatory abilities, promoting these skills may
be effective in reducing screen time in young children.</p
Microbial Ligand Costimulation Drives Neutrophilic Steroid-Refractory Asthma
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Asthma is a heterogeneous disease whose etiology is poorly understood but is likely to involve innate responses to inhaled microbial components that are found in allergens. The influence of these components on pulmonary inflammation has been largely studied in the context of individual agonists, despite knowledge that they can have synergistic effects when used in combination. Here we have explored the effects of LPS and ÎČ-glucan, two commonly-encountered microbial agonists, on the pathogenesis of allergic and non-allergic respiratory responses to house dust mite allergen. Notably, sensitization with these micro-bial components in combination acted synergistically to promote robust neutrophilic inflammation, which involved both Dectin-1 and TLR-4. This pulmonary neutrophilic inflammation was corticosteroid-refractory, resembling that found in patients with severe asthma. Thus our results provide key new insights into how microbial components influence the development of respiratory pathology
Microbial ligand costimulation drives neutrophilic steroid-refractory asthma
Funding: The authors thank the Wellcome Trust (102705) and the Universities of Aberdeen and Cape Town for funding. This research was also supported, in part, by National Institutes of Health GM53522 and GM083016 to DLW. KF and BNL are funded by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, BNL is the recipient of an European Research Commission consolidator grant and participates in the European Union FP7 programs EUBIOPRED and MedALL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD