‘Safe’ playgrounds could be stunting emotional development

Jungle gyms have evolved over the years.

Once ten-foot-tall, bare-bones metal contraptions set in bare grass or dirt have given way to colourful, shorter, purportedly safer (and less lawsuit-prone) wonderlands padded underfoot by materials such as rubber or wood chips.

But psychologists are raising concerns about the negative psychological impacts of these “safer” models even as studies about their physical safety benefits remain inconclusive.
Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway says:

Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground. I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.

She and other psychologists believe that protective playgrounds have the opposite of their intended effect: instead of making children feel safer, and therefore braver, they actually make them more anxious and fearful.

Read more here: ‘Safe’ playgrounds could be stunting emotional development

12 Most Effective Phrases Parents Can Use

If you are a fellow parent, borrow the phrases that professors use with their students, many of whom are the same age as our high school or college-age children, to expand those positive communication opportunities:

1. “I am concerned about…”

“I” versus “you” statements are a fundamental part of my interpersonal communication teaching. I use it daily with students to “own” my feelings about their happenings, rather than place blame. So, instead of saying, “You’re grade is really tanking in this class”, I will say, “I’m concerned about where your grade stands right now. Let’s take a closer look.”

2. “This is as difficult to say as I’m sure it will be to hear…”

Sometimes, I have to deliver bad news. Example? A plagiarized speech outline means harsh consequences for the student. I tell him/her, with sincerity, that confronting this issue isn’t easy on my end either. I may also say “This is uncomfortable for me to discuss…” It’s my way of showing empathy in light of a negative situation.

3. “What is the result you’re looking for?”

I ask this primarily when a student is stuck with research for a paper or flow of speech content. Encouraging students to think through the end result can often reconnect them with the path they need to follow.

4. “It’s my job to see the bigger picture.”

Students have as many life crises as there are days in school. Often, their first response is to sink under and give up. However, I know that we can employ Plan A-F before moving to the worst case scenario of dropping the class or failing. I tell students outright that I need to look beyond their crisis to help them not let one more thing go downhill.

5. “Instead of excuses, let’s focus on solving the problem.”

Dead grandmothers, broken printers, Ebola virus… profs have heard every excuse known to man, woman, caveman, etc. I tell students that I care about their lives, I care about their problems, but pondering “the reasons why” simply don’t matter in time-sensitive situations, such as a finite college term. I’m focused on solutions.

6. “Own your excellence.”

Public speaking is such a feared activity that students almost don’t know what to do with themselves when they overcome their apprehension and find their voice. They fret over subsequent speeches like it was the first one. Saying, “You’re a wonderful speaker!” is great; encouraging students to embody greatness for themselves is self-empowerment.

7. “The way that you _____________________ was impressive.”

I’ve learned that meaningful praise isn’t personal—the student should never feel as if they are seeking my approval or trying to get me to like something. I attempt to focus on mastery of the task i.e., “The way that you used that quote in your introduction was impressive and engaged your audience” as opposed to “I liked that quote you used.”

8. “I am mortified/frustrated/angry that you…”

Back to owning my feelings: Two students passed notes while seated right next to me during a night of student speeches. Anger sailed through my entire body; I wanted to hurl many “you” statements: “You were so disrespectful, not only to me, but to that speaker.” But “you” puts others on immediate mental defense.

On our break, I knelt down next to them, made direct eye contact, and said, “I’m mortified that you would pass notes during speeches with me sitting right next to you. Not only was it disrespectful to me, but to the speaker. Please stop immediately.” Both were taken aback by my directness and e-mailed apologies to me after class.

9. “Tell me more about…”

Students often run their presentation/project topics by me: “I want to do my speech on education.” I probe further with leading questions: “Tell me more about what you want your audience to know about education.

What aspect of education are you thinking about? What interests you about this topic?” When the student “talks out” his/her ideas, we can hone in on a focused solution and better grasp the next steps.

10. “I would have loved to know about this earlier…”

I am horrible at being reactive, but I have to flex those muscles all the time in my job. Students “needed” a certain grade to transfer to another program or they miss class for weeks due to a family emergency that they never disclosed.

I try to train students that telling me about their needs and situations early means we have time and room to craft proactive solutions.

11. “Here are the reasons why I can/can’t…”

My students are adults. Alterations to assignments or the classroom impact all of us; I strive for open discussion and mutual agreement of potential solutions. Sometimes, students have “interesting” ideas (“Let’s just trash the final altogether!” or “Can you give us extra credit for that?”). I owe it to students to not just say “No” or “Yes”, but to give rationale about my decision and background on my thought process.

12. “Bravo!”

I use this phrase more than any other because the Italian etiology is the word “brave”, and it has more teeth than “awesome.” Communicating well, either in writing, and especially in speaking, requires such bravery.

When I write it at the end of papers/outlines, sometimes I use it twice, “Bravo, bravo to you!” When students complete a speech, I emphasize the word by clapping over my head.

Our history with our kids, personal triggers, and just sheer “you’ve hit my last nerve” impatience can make our best communication aspirations cannonball out the window. I know that as a parent, there are times that “No!” simply means “no” (no further explanation required) and, on occasion, we do want our kids to seek our approval. However, kids may tune out just because we are the parent.

Try putting on your slightly less personal and slightly more business “Professor Mom/Dad” communication “regalia”, which may take your child off-guard . . . just enough to open up and respond in a way that will make your relationship that much more connected and rich. Until the next tantrum or whine.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

An Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a disruption in the auditory nervous system that interferes with the rapid and efficient awareness, recognition, decoding and integration of acoustic signals, especially speech.

An auditory processing disorder may be considered a breakdown in a child's fine resolution abilities. By fine resolution I imply the hearing system's ability to discretely resolve the fine differences that we use to locate, separate, and distinguish sounds in the environment.

In terms of speech perception, there are many fine grained distinctions needed to successfully distinguish the many sounds that are embedded in the ongoing stream of running speech.

For instance, recognising the differences between the sounds in the words [bat] and [mommy] is not too demanding. However, distinguishing the sounds in the words [ran] and [ram] or [lift] and [list] is a more difficult task.

The latter tasks require a more efficient auditory system to rapidly identify and distinguish each pair's sounds than it does to distinguish between the sounds in the first pair. This relates to rapidly resolving the small and fine grained speech sound distinctions.

Children with APD also have problems resolving other acoustic properties, such as time variations in speech.

The two words [dime] and [time] are distinguished, predominantly, by the initiation of vocal fold vibration. The vocal folds begin to vibrate earlier when producing the [d] in dime then when producing the [t] in time.

A child who does not resolve fine time differences may have difficulty distinguishing these two words.

Timing is also important in 'juncture'. Juncture relates to the way we separate words with spaces (or time) when speaking.

Examples of varying junction include: 1) "Are you a light housekeeper?" vs. "Are you a lighthouse keeper?" 2) "Look at the snow, drift by the window." vs. "Look at the snowdrift, by the window." 3) "Look at the cargo." vs. "Look at the car go."

How do you Recognise APD?
Children who present with APD have difficulty with some or all listening activities. They have particular problems when the activities occur in less than ideal listening environments.

Hence, they may exhibit only mild problems with sound discrimination and they may make occasional errors when speaking on a one to one basis in a good (relatively quiet) environment.

They will perform worse, however, when there is competing background noise or speech, when speakers talk rapidly, when they are not devoting their complete attention to the listening task, when the discussion topic is unfamiliar to them, or when they have to perform or remember several verbal tasks in a row.

In addition, they often have weak phonemic systems (speech sound memories used in phonics, reading, and spelling). They also often appear as though they do not hear well. It is common for children with APD to say, "what?" or "huh?". They are not always intimately in touch with the sounds in the environment, hence they do not always grasp exactly what has been said.

Study of Twins suggests Genetic component of autism spectrum disorders may be more environmental

After evaluating twin pairs in which at least one child has autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers suggest that the shared environment may play a more substantial role in development of the condition than shared genes do, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Current estimates suggest that 40 of every 10,000 children have autism, and prevalence rates for ASDs are about 1 percent, according to background information in the article. Studies of siblings have found a concordance rate (the likelihood that if one child has the disorder, others will as well) of up to 14 percent.

The authors note that in previous studies of twins, concordance rates for autism were relatively high for identical (monozygotic) twins, but nonexistent for fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Further, studies that depended on differing methods of diagnosis have resulted in a broad range of estimates of autism's heritability.

"However," the authors state, "none of these more recent studies included structured clinical assessments by both parental interview and direct child observation, which is the contemporary standard for establishing the diagnosis of autism or ASD."

In the California Autism Twins Study, Joachim Hallmayer, M.D., from Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif., and colleagues used data from the California Department of Developmental Services to identify potential participants.

The researchers assessed twin pairs in which at least one child had an ASD diagnosis, using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, a structured parent interview and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, as well as other tests to determine verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities.

Two diagnoses were utilized: strict autism and ASD. Children with autism or ASD that was included in the initial data and confirmed by the researchers were considered "probands."

The final analysis included 54 pairs of identical twins and 138 pairs of fraternal twins (of which 80 were composed of a boy and a girl). Researchers found the likelihood of both children having autism or ASD was higher among identical twins than among fraternal twins.

They also used modeling to estimate how much of the risk could be attributed to genetic factors. This analysis demonstrated that more than half of the variance in risk was probably explained by shared environmental factors, versus less than 40 percent of the risk owing to genetic heritability.

"The results suggest that environmental factors common to twins explain about 55 percent of the liability to autism," the authors write. "Although genetic factors also play an important role, they are of substantially lower magnitude than estimates from prior twin studies of autism. …

The finding of significant influence of the shared environment, experiences that are common to both twin individuals, may be important for future research paradigms."

Read more here

Cognitive subtypes of dyslexia

Different theories conceptualise dyslexia as either a phonological, attentional, auditory, magnocellular, or automatisation deficit. Such heterogeneity suggests the existence of yet unrecognised subtypes of dyslexics suffering from distinguishable deficits.

The purpose of the study was to identify cognitive subtypes of dyslexia. Out of 642 children screened for reading ability 49 dyslexics and 48 controls were tested for phonological awareness, auditory discrimination, motion detection, visual attention, and rhythm imitation.

A combined cluster and discriminant analysis approach revealed three clusters of dyslexics with different cognitive deficits. Compared to reading-unimpaired children cluster no. 1 had worse phonological awareness; cluster no. 2 had higher attentional costs; cluster no. 3 performed worse in the phonological, auditory, and magnocellular tasks.

These results indicate that dyslexia may result from distinct cognitive impairments. As a consequence, prevention and remediation programmes should be specifically targeted for the individual child's deficit pattern.

Cognitive subtypes of dyslexia. [Acta Neurobiol Exp (Wars). 2008] - PubMed result

Infants learn to transfer knowledge by 16 months

Researchers have identified when an important milestone in infants’ development occurs: the ability to transfer knowledge to new situations.

In a series of studies, the researchers found that 8-month-olds had trouble using newly acquired knowledge in a different circumstance, but 16-month-olds could do so.

“Some time between 8 and 16 months, infants begin learning how to learn,” said Julie Hupp, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Newark campus.

“They begin to transfer their new knowledge and use it in a totally different situation, which is a very important step in development.”

While many scientists had assumed that the ability to transfer knowledge was a product of infant development, no research had tested when that might occur, except for the case of word learning, Hupp said.

Hupp conducted the study with Vladimir Sloutsky, professor of psychology and human development and the director of the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State.

Their work appears online in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.

Read more of this article here Infants learn to transfer knowledge by 16 months | Science Blog

Good communication in early years key to success at school

Although social background has a noticeable effect on a child's readiness for school, what parents do with their children, even before they begin to talk, is actually much more important.

Children who were taken to the library more often and owned more books at two-years-old achieved higher scores on the school assessment tests when they began primary school.

Parents who foster a love of reading in a child's early years are ensuring they get off to a flying start at school, according to new research.

Researchers discovered that although social background has a noticeable effect on a child's readiness for school, what parents do with their children, even before they begin to talk, is actually much more important.

They also showed that attending pre-school and having parents who taught them a wide range of activities had a positive effect -- whereas extended exposure to television lowered their scores.

The Role of Language in Children's Early Educational Outcomes report (published 30 June 2011) looks at how a child's very early environment -- before their second birthday -- influences their language and school performance.

"One message coming through loud and clear is that how a child learns in their very early years is critical for smooth transition into the educational system," said Professor James Law, Newcastle University, who was one of the researchers in the University of the West of England-led study.

"Although we recognise that traditional indicators of social risk such as material wealth remain influential later on, what you do with your child and how you communicate with them when they're under two is far more important than having a flash car or a detached house in the country.

"This is a very positive message as it gets us away from the belief that a child's educational future is pre-determined by standard measures of socio-economic disadvantage such as income, housing or the mother's education."

Good communication in early years key to success at school, UK study shows

Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese language class

After her 12-year-old son spent two years at a specialized school for children with learning disabilities, Lisa Lunday decided he was ready for a more challenging, mainstream environment.

The school she chose, however, required all students to study Japanese as part of its academically rigorous curriculum. Ms. Lunday was unsure how her son, who is dyslexic, would cope.

The result surprised her. The boy, now 13, excelled in his Japanese studies. His lettering of Japanese characters was sharp and distinct.

That was in stark contrast to his writing in English, which appeared to be the work of a kindergartner. Sometimes his English letters were so poorly composed that they were hard to read, a common problem among dyslexics.

"I looked at his Japanese binder and was amazed at how perfectly formed everything was," says Ms. Lunday, of San Mateo, Calif. "Just comparing two pieces of paper tells the story."

Experiences like that of the Lundays are providing scientists and educators with clues about how people with dyslexia learn and how best to teach them.

Researchers have long observed that some dyslexics have an easier time with languages like Japanese and Chinese, in which characters represent complete words or ideas, than they do with languages like English, which use separate letters and sounds to form words.

Now, recent brain-imaging studies are identifying possible reasons for the differences, and education experts say such research could point the way to improved teaching techniques.

"There are very real differences in the brain's reading circuit for an alphabet as opposed to a language like Chinese," says Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development and director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Dyslexics "think visually. They analyze patterns," she says.

Character-based languages are mastered through memorization, a skill that dyslexics tend to rely on more than do typical language learners, says Sally Shaywitz, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity in New Haven, Conn. And language characters are more like pictures than letters, which can be easier for many dyslexics to reproduce, she says.

Read More of this article here: Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese - WSJ.com

World of Dyslexia July Newsletter - Dyslexia Success

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School bus uses abundant resource: kid energy

There is one renewable resource that shocks and awes people the world over, is abundant at all times and of which one company in the Netherlands plans to take full advantage: The energy of children.

This kid-powered school bus can accommodate up to ten children and one adult, plus might even burn off enough energy to make them sit still for all of ten minutes once they get to school.

Now there’s the perfect way to nip that obesity epidemic in the bud and save a bundle on transportation costs!