A Bilingual Advantage for Children with Autism: Effect of a Bilingual Education on Set Shifting in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The proposed study will examine the effect of an early bilingual school environment on the set shifting abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). More specifically, it will evaluate how an English-French bilingual education program affects the set shifting abilities of children with ASD compared to a monolingual English education program. Set shifting will be measured by the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task both before and after the respective education programs. I hypothesize that there will be a main effect of both time point and education program on set shifting abilities such that (a) set shifting abilities will improve from pre-instruction to post-instruction, and (b) those who receive a bilingual education will outperform those who receive a monolingual education on set shifting ability overall. I also hypothesize that these main effects will be qualified by an interaction, such that (c) bilingual classroom instruction will result in better set shifting abilities particularly at post-instruction when compared to monolingual classroom instruction. If future results from this proposed study do indeed suggest that the proposed hypotheses are correct, it would be interesting to further explore what this would mean for a possible restructuring of current programs in place for the education of children with autism such as the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program

The Pending Gauntlet to Free Exercise: Mandating that Clergy Report Child Abuse

This Article analyzes the conflict between statutory child abuse reporting requirements for clergy and the clergy-communicant privilege for confidential communications made within specific religious practices. The constitutional conflict arises between the state\u27s interest in the protection of children by requiring that suspected cases of abuse be reported and the clergy\u27s interest in the free exercise of their religious tenets by maintaining confidentiality. This analysis recognizes that state legislators have broadened reporting requirements to include more and more classes of people in an effort to arrest the tremendous increase in child abuse in the past decade. As a result, the shield of privileged communi cations between clergy and communicant, attorney and client, doctor and patient, and counselor and client, has become more narrowly defined. The legislative reevaluation of the clergy-communicant privilege involves a greater constitutional issue: whether the religious liberty interest protected by the Free Exercise Clause can withstand one of the most egregious situations within society, the abuse of children. This Article evaluates the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion, specifically the right to maintain privileged communications as an exercise of religious practice, in light of the United States Supreme Court\u27s treatment of other rights guaranteed by the Constitution. For example, if a priest is to assert the privilege to maintain the confidentiality of information received within the Sacrament of Penance, the interest in doing so must equal or outweigh the state\u27s interest in protecting children. A number of United States Supreme Court decisions have balanced similar interests in a variety of cases. Thus, even if the Court has abandoned the balancing involved in the compelling state interest test, the way in which the Court has interpreted other constitutional provisions to afford rights to minorities not protected by the political process should serve as a guide for the Court when it addresses the conflict between free exercise and child abuse reporting statutes. The First Amendment should protect those farthest from the political process in their religious practices in the same fashion that it protects anti-majoritarian political views. Finally, this Article proposes that the interests of the state served by the clergy-communicant privilege outweigh the interest in protecting children through mandated reporting. In an effort to evoke protection of these confidential communications through the political process, this Article examines the constructive role of clergy-communicant confidentiality in the prevention of child abuse. What appears to be a conflict between mandatory reporting statutes and the assertion of confidentiality is actually two different means to the same end of protecting children. No legal analysis concerning the possibility of litigation over the enforceability of child abuse reporting statutes should ever lose sight of the fact that protecting children from abuse is paramount to both the clergy and the state

The Pending Gauntlet to Free Exercise: Mandating That Clergy Report Child Abuse

This Article analyzes the conflict between statutory child abuse reporting requirements for clergy and the clergy-communicant privilege for confidential communications made within specific religious practices. The constitutional conflict arises between the state\u27s interest in the protection of children by requiring that suspected cases of abuse be reported and the clergy\u27s interest in the free exercise of their religious tenets by maintaining confidentiality. This analysis recognizes that state legislators have broadened reporting requirements to include more and more classes of people in an effort to arrest the tremendous increase in child abuse in the past decade. As a result, the shield of privileged communi cations between clergy and communicant, attorney and client, doctor and patient, and counselor and client, has become more narrowly defined. The legislative reevaluation of the clergy-communicant privilege involves a greater constitutional issue: whether the religious liberty interest protected by the Free Exercise Clause can withstand one of the most egregious situations within society, the abuse of children. This Article evaluates the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion, specifically the right to maintain privileged communications as an exercise of religious practice, in light of the United States Supreme Court\u27s treatment of other rights guaranteed by the Constitution. For example, if a priest is to assert the privilege to maintain the confidentiality of information received within the Sacrament of Penance, the interest in doing so must equal or outweigh the state\u27s interest in protecting children. A number of United States Supreme Court decisions have balanced similar interests in a variety of cases. Thus, even if the Court has abandoned the balancing involved in the compelling state interest test, the way in which the Court has interpreted other constitutional provisions to afford rights to minorities not protected by the political process should serve as a guide for the Court when it addresses the conflict between free exercise and child abuse reporting statutes. The First Amendment should protect those farthest from the political process in their religious practices in the same fashion that it protects anti-majoritarian political views. Finally, this Article proposes that the interests of the state served by the clergy-communicant privilege outweigh the interest in protecting children through mandated reporting. In an effort to evoke protection of these confidential communications through the political process, this Article examines the constructive role of clergy-communicant confidentiality in the prevention of child abuse. What appears to be a conflict between mandatory reporting statutes and the assertion of confidentiality is actually two different means to the same end of protecting children. No legal analysis concerning the possibility of litigation over the enforceability of child abuse reporting statutes should ever lose sight of the fact that protecting children from abuse is paramount to both the clergy and the state

The late stages of evolution of helium star-neutron star binaries and the formation of double neutron star systems

With a view to understanding the formation of double neutron-stars (DNS), we investigate the late stages of evolution of helium stars with masses of 2.8 - 6.4 Msun in binary systems with a 1.4 Msun neutron-star companion. We found that mass transfer from 2.8 - 3.3 Msun helium stars and from 3.3 - 3.8 Msun in very close orbits (P_orb > 0.25d) will end up in a common-envelope (CE) and spiral-in phase due to the development of a convective helium envelope. If the neutron star has sufficient time to complete the spiraling-in process before the core collapses, the system will produce very tight DNSs (P_orb ~ 0.01d) with a merger timescale of the order of 1 Myr or less. These systems would have important consequences for the detection rate of GWR and for the understanding of GRB progenitors. On the other hand, if the time left until the explosion is shorter than the orbital-decay timescale, the system will undergo a SN explosion during the CE phase. Helium stars with masses 3.3 - 3.8 Msun in wider orbits (P_orb > 0.25d) and those more massive than 3.8 Msun do not go through CE evolution. The remnants of these massive helium stars are DNSs with periods in the range of 0.1 - 1 d. This suggests that this range of mass includes the progenitors of the galactic DNSs with close orbits (B1913+16 and B1534+12). A minimum kick velocity of 70 km/s and 0 km/s (for B1913+16 and B1534+12, respectively) must have been imparted at the birth of the pulsar's companion. The DNSs with wider orbits (J1518+4904 and probably J1811-1736) are produced from helium star-neutron star binaries which avoid RLOF, with the helium star more massive than 2.5 Msun. For these systems the minimum kick velocities are 50 km/s and 10 km/s (for J1518+4904 and J1811-1736, respectively).Comment: 16 pages, latex, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA