Syntactic processing in individuals with dyslexia: Using ERP to address the debate

Behavioural and ERP data were collected from university and college students with and without dyslexia to determine if a deficit in syntactic processing in post-secondary students with dyslexia can be explained by the degree of phonological processing deficits. Participants read and listened to sentences of differing syntactic complexity and working memory load, particularly object relative and subject relative sentences. Slow cortical waves showed greater negativity for the objective relative sentences as the sentence progressed for the control participants regardless of presentation format. The same result was seen for the participants with dyslexia when presented with sentences in an auditory format. Analyses revealed that control participants had greater left anterior negativity between 300 and 500 ms for the main verb of the object relative sentences, regardless of presentation format. Participants with dyslexia showed difficulty in processing the written versions of the syntactically complex sentences but they were able to differentiate these syntactic structures when they were presented in an auditory format. An N400 effect was seen by participants with dyslexia for the second article in the object relative structure. The bottleneck for control participants appears to exist at the level of working memory while participants with dyslexia were limited by their phonological processing skills in general and specifically their reading skills for the written syntactic processing tasks. The results support the phonological processing deficit hypothesis in explaining the processing weaknesses of participants with dyslexia

Neonatal and Developmental Outcomes of Late Preterm and Early Term Birth

Research suggests increased risk for adverse outcomes associated with late preterm (34-36 weeks) and early term (37-38 weeks) birth versus full term (39-41 weeks). However, it remains unclear to what extent these outcomes are associated with physiological immaturity or factors leading to or associated with early birth. The first objective was to elucidate the role of gestational age in determining risk of poor neonatal outcomes in the context of biological determinants of preterm birth. A retrospective cohort study of singletons delivered at 34-41 weeks to London-Middlesex (Canada) mothers was conducted using perinatal and discharge abstract databases (N=38,807, 2002-2011). Modified Poisson regression showed increased risk for NICU triage/admission and respiratory morbidity among infants born late preterm and early term. The effect of gestational age was partially explained by biological determinants (infection and inflammation, placental ischemia and other hypoxia, other [diabetes/hydramnios]) acting through gestational age. Placental ischemia and other hypoxia exacerbated the effect of gestational age on poor outcomes. The second objective was to elucidate the role of gestational age in determining risk of poor developmental outcomes in the context of proximal social processes. A secondary analysis of singletons delivered at 34-41 weeks was conducted using the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (N=15,099, 2-3 years; N=12,203, 4-5 years). Modified Poisson regression did not show increased risk for developmental delay or receptive vocabulary delay among children born late preterm or early term. Proximal social processes (parenting interactions, effectiveness, consistency) did not modify the effect of gestational age but were strong predictors of poor outcomes. The third objective, secondary to central analyses, was to examine associations between biological determinants of preterm birth and gestational age among spontaneous singleton births (perinatal database; N=17,678). Multinomial logistic regression showed associations between these pathological processes and both late preterm and early term birth. Poor neonatal outcomes among infants born late preterm and early term are due to physiological immaturity and also to biological determinants of preterm birth acting through and with gestational age to produce poor outcomes. Beyond the neonatal period, social factors are the most important influences on development in births close to full term

From Learning Comes Meaning: Informal Comentorship and the Second-Career Academic in Education

Informal mentoring relationships develop out of mutual identification and the fulfillment of career needs. As new faculty, we struggled to balance and decipher all the various facets inherent in the research, service, and teaching responsibilities in our new roles. This paper chronicles an informal comentorship collaboration we struck up to support our efforts as second-career academics in the field of education, seeking to navigate our way through institutional resocialization at a mid-sized Canadian university. Using a collaborative autoethnographic approach, we collected data comprising handwritten notes, tape-recorded coversations, e-mail reflections, and metareflections crafted after scheduled meetings over the course of a single academic school year. We sought to link theory with practice while using our own stories, narratives, and lived experiences as a basis for understanding our respective journeys toward social health and well-being in the academy, as well as our proficiency and competence as new scholars. From our analysis, we were able to interpret more clearly our roles, responsibilities, and needs, as well as institutional and departmental culture and norms. We offer practical implications and five lessons we have learned regarding the use of informal comentorships as an approach to managing the institutional resocialization of second-career academics

Changes in Smoking During Pregnancy in Ontario, 1995 to 2010: Results From the Canadian Community Health Survey

Objective: The objectives of this study were (1) to examine changes in smoking behaviour across time in pregnant women in Ontario (relative to non-pregnant women and men) and (2) to assess whether, among pregnant women, changes across time vary as a function of sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: This study used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey. The study sample included 15- to 49-year-old residents of Ontario. Multivariable logistic regression, with interactions between time period and the characteristic of interest, was used to examine whether changes varied across time according to (1) group (pregnant women, non-pregnant women, men; two-year intervals, 2001 to 2010) and (2) pregnant subgroup (maternal age, maternal marital status, maternal education; 1995 to 2000 [n = 3745], 2001 to 2005 [n = 5084], and 2006 to 2010 [n = 2900]). Results: A decrease in the prevalence of smoking across time was seen in all groups but was smaller in pregnant women than in non-pregnant women (23.5% vs. 30.8%). Among pregnant women, interactions between time period and maternal age, maternal marital status, and maternal education were statistically significant. The prevalence of smoking during pregnancy decreased in older, married, and more highly educated women, but increased in younger women (by 8.2%) and less educated women (by 12.8%). Although the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy decreased in unmarried women, the change was smaller than in married women. Conclusion: Although the prevalence of smoking in pregnant women is decreasing over time, the decrease is smaller than that in non-pregnant women. Pregnant subgroups particularly resistant to change include younger, unmarried, and less educated mothers. These findings suggest there are subgroups that should be targeted more deliberately by public health interventions

Designing whole-systems commissioning: lessons from the English experience

The paucity of formal evidence, allied to the requirement for strategies that are sensitive to local history and context, means that a ‘blueprint’ for successful strategic commissioning is not currently available for adoption. We are therefore confined to proposing ‘design principles’ for those seeking to embark upon a transition towards a whole systems approach to strategic commissioning. People and relationships are of critical importance all the way through the chain from strategic commissioning to micro-commissioning. Most crucially, experience suggests that structural solutions alone cannot deliver effective relationships and will not be effective when relationships are neglected. The need to ensure staff, partner and political buy-in suggests that relationship management and consensus-building are an integral component of the leadership role in moving toward strategic commissioning. As with any major re-organisation, the move to strategic commissioning is essentially a change management initiative and therefore will stand or fall according to whether it adheres to good practice in the change management process. Central to this, and to achieving commissioning outcomes, is the requirement for meaningful service user and public engagement. Effective commissioning emphasizes individual capabilities as well as needs, and community assets as well as deficits and problems. Adoption of strategic commissioning approaches is still at the developmental and learning stage and arguably all structural arrangements should be regarded as transitional

Challenging the Status Quo: The Evolution of the Supervisor-Student Relationship in the Process of Potentially Stigmatizing and Emotionally Complex Autoethnographic Research

Writing and reliving autoethnographic research is a complex process, both emotionally and intellectually. This is especially true when the focus of the autoethnographer’s research involves experiences with stigma, discrimination, and marginalization in the presence of mental illness. Supervising this process, where students may find themselves feeling vulnerable and confused, presents a unique academic and ethical challenge. How far can a supervisor “push” the student to unearth personal experiences that draw meaning to the larger socio-cultural context to which those experiences took place? How do students confront emotionally painful issues to describe and systematically analyze as part of the academic process? By engaging in a duoethnographic process that pushed beyond surface learning to exploring depths of unconscious biases and hidden assumptions, this paper unveils how the academic relationship between a supervisor and student evolved in terms of understanding, influence, and inspiration, as part of the student’s autoethnographic research. It serves to guide others in the academic supervisor-student relationship when students find themselves confronting emotionally painful issues in their learning. Specifically, the dialogic process of duoethnographic research, where sensitive lived experiences are brought to light and examined, has the potential for students and supervisors to reconceptualize their ways of knowing and being in relation to one another. If successful, this pedagogical framework may be used to support students in their scholarly growth

The Purpose, Function, and Performance of Streetcar Transit in the Modern U.S. City: A Multiple-Case-Study Investigation, MTI Report 12-39

The streetcar has made a remarkable resurgence in the United States in recent years. However, despite the proliferation of streetcar projects, there is remarkably little work on the streetcar’s role as a transportation service. This study examines the experiences of the modern-era streetcars operated in Little Rock, Memphis, Portland, Seattle, and Tampa. The authors discovered that in these cities, the primary purpose of the streetcar was to serve as a development tool (all cities), a second objective was to serve as a tourism-promoting amenity (Little Rock, Tampa), and transportation objectives were largely afterthoughts with the notable exception of Portland, and to a lesser degree, Seattle. Key informant interviews revealed that in most cities, private sector actors from the local development and downtown business communities as well as streetcar advocacy groups were the key forces behind streetcar implementation and that these actors did so in order to use the streetcar primarily to achieve development goals. These informants viewed the streetcar as a catalyst for development that stood as a symbol of a permanent public commitment to an area. Despite the lack of serious assessments of the streetcar’s development effects, most informants believed the streetcar to be an important contributor to any development effects that had occurred. Many informants also regarded the streetcar as an icon or symbol of the community and an important way of denoting the city’s identity in efforts to attract visitors to the community. When assessed as transportation, Portland’s streetcar emerged as the clear standout performer with the highest ridership and service productivity and the second-most cost effective service. Portland was also the only city in which streetcar performance (service productivity and cost effectiveness) measures surpass that of the average local bus. Planners’ decisions to locate the streetcar lines in an area with strong ridership potential combined with decisions to provide frequent service that is well integrated with other transit services help to explain Portland’s strong performance. These decisions reflected a view that the streetcar was not just a development tool, but that it also needed to function effectively as a transit service that catered to a broader ridership. Based on this study, the authors suggest that planners and policymakers in other cities think carefully about the fundamental purpose of any proposed streetcar in their communities and to proceed in all their decision making with that fundamental purpose clearly in mind. The authors also urge planners and policymakers in other cities to regard the example of Portland with much more caution. Many streetcar advocates point to Portland’s experience and proceed as if it could be easily replicated elsewhere. But the authors suggest that Portland’s experience is the result of a unique combination of external factors (local population and employment patterns, the health of the real estate market) and local decisions (land development policy decisions, financial decisions, other public investments, streetcar alignment location and length, streetcar operations decisions, streetcar fare policy decisions) that may or may not be applicable elsewhere