Search

Guided play activities were developed so that coding clubs could promote computational thinking skills in preschool children. The clubs involved fifteen children aged between 2 and 4 years, including a group of children with communication difficulties. The children took part in an action-research scoping study over three coding clubs involving six 45–60-min sessions. The activities were developed to teach computational skills and, ultimately, concepts of programming and coding. The findings suggested that the children began to develop many of the skills necessary for programming and coding as well as computational thinking skills such as collaboration, logical thinking and debugging algorithms. However, they found programming specific algorithms into Bee-Bots complicated and they needed support from adults to direct the robots along routes on simple maps. Overall, the guided play activities could be used in nurseries and preschool establishments to teach early computational thinking skills.

Increased fruit and vegetable consumption is important for children’s healthy eating. Although repeated taste exposures are effective in supporting children’s acceptance of healthy foods, more enjoyable interventions that increase children’s familiarity with foods through other sensory modalities can also be helpful. Picture book interventions, which draw on the principles of visual familiarity and social reinforcement, are effective in increasing pre-schoolers’ acceptance of vegetables. With the rise of digital technologies, e-books present a new tool for offering picture book interventions on a large scale and offer additional features that might potentially boost their effects. In this paper, we propose two specific mechanisms, interactive learning and personalisation, that could make e-book eating interventions especially effective with young children and we outline new directions for research to elucidate their effects. We then briefly describe an ongoing study that explores the effectiveness of a vegetable e-book intervention that incorporates the mechanisms described in this paper.

[About the encyclopaedia] he Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development presents the major theories, key concepts, disorders, and evidence-based practices of the field. Covering infancy through adolescence and emerging adulthood, this important work outlines major areas of research and examines specific topics, ongoing controversies, and current work being done by leaders in the field. The first work on the topic of its scale, the Encyclopedia offers scholarly, authoritative information from an international team of experts that spans ten volumes. The content of the encyclopedia is organized in two main parts—Child and Adolescent—and ten subparts. The first six volumes focus on topics of growth, behavior, cognition, emotion, family, and community in child development. The final four volumes explore the history, theory, and culture of adolescent development, biology and cognition, social contexts, and of the development of the self in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Each entry contains an accessible introduction to basic concepts as well as sophisticated debates in contentious areas and ongoing research on each topic.

Story telling has probably existed in some form since we started as humans to use language. In contrast, digital storytelling has only been possible in the last decade, a very recent innovation in human history even when compared to writing and print. Even so it is clear\ud that digital technology can be harnessed to open up different forms and contents when storytelling (Kucirkova, Messer, Critten & Harwood, 2014).\ud \ud By describing the Our Story app, which we have been involved in developing and using in schools, we can outline and what we mean by creative digital story telling, and its possibilities. This free app for smartphones, tablets and iPads (to download search for Our Story 2 in App Store or Google Play) can be used with many different formats of digital storytelling (Kucirkova et al., 2014). In this way, the app does not narrow the choices made by anybody using the app. What they choose to do can be their own ideas and a means of self-expression, especially important for people with communication difficulties. Because of this approach we are less concerned with focusing on a particular type of story (fictional, traditional, descriptive, etc.); instead, we emphasise the flexibility in what is told and how it is told. The aim is for children and adults to express their own voice in a story format that has a ‘professional’ look.

Once cancer patients complete treatment, experiences with stress-related sequelae that impede recovery often persist. This study examined whether Internet-delivered mindfulness treatment alleviated symptoms associated with this stress. Cancer survivors were randomly assigned to either 6-week Internet-delivered mindfulness training or a usual care control and were compared on the following outcome battery: The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Profile of Mood States, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Fatigue Symptom Inventory. Assessments were conducted before and after treatment and intervention compliance was monitored. Mindfulness treatments were delivered at a time and on a computer of the participants’ choosing. Multivariate and univariate follow-up analyses indicated that mindfulness training produced significant benefits on all measures. Effect sizes were all medium to large as well. Online mindfulness instruction represents a widely accessible intervention for reducing psychological distress and its behavioral manifestations in cancer survivors, especially those who are unable to participate in in-person training.

Background This article reports the results from a feasibility study of an intervention (‘E-PLAYS’) aimed at supporting children who experience difficulties with social communication. E-PLAYS is based around a dyadic computer game, which aims to develop collaborative and communication skills. A pilot study found that when E-PLAYS was delivered by researchers, improvements on communication test scores and on collaborative behaviours were observed. The aim of this study was to ascertain the feasibility of running a full-scale trial to test the effectiveness of E-PLAYS in a National Health Service (NHS) setting with delivery by speech and language therapists and teaching assistants. Methods The study was a two-arm feasibility cluster-randomised controlled trial of the E-PLAYS intervention with a treatment as usual control arm. Data relating to recruitment and retention, treatment fidelity, acceptability to participants, suitability of outcomes and feasibility of collecting health economic measures and of determining cost-effectiveness were collected. Speech and language therapists selected suitable children (ages 4–7 years old) from their caseload. E-PLAYS intervention (experimental group) was then delivered by teaching assistants overseen by speech and language therapists. The control group received usual care. Assessments included blinded language measures and observations, non-blinded teacher-reported measures of peer relations and classroom behaviour and non-blinded parent-reported use of health and education resources and quality of life. Results Planned recruitment was for 70 children, in the event, 50 children were recruited which was sufficient for feasibility purposes. E-PLAYS was very highly rated by children, teaching assistants and speech and language therapists and treatment fidelity did not pose any issues. We were able to collect health economic data which suggests that E-PLAYS would be a low-cost intervention. Conclusion Based on recruitment, retention and adherence rates and our outcome measures, a full-scale randomised controlled trial estimated appears feasible and warranted to assess the effectiveness of E-PLAYS for use by the NHS and schools. Trial registration ISRCTN 14818949 (retrospectively registered).

Reading comprehension difficulties are common in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), but the influences of underlying abilities related to reading comprehension in this group have rarely been investigated. One aim of this study was to investigate the Simple View of Reading as a theoretical framework to describe cognitive and linguistic abilities predicting individual differences in reading comprehension in adolescents with non-specific ID. A second aim was to investigate whether predictors of listening comprehension and reading comprehension suggest that individuals with ID have a delayed pattern of development (copying early grade variance in reading comprehension) or a different pattern of development involving a new or an unusual pattern of cognitive and linguistic predictors. A sample of 136 adolescents with non-specific ID was assessed on reading comprehension, decoding, linguistic, and cognitive measures. The hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation models. The results showed that the Simple View of Reading was not applicable in explaining reading comprehension in this group, however, the concurrent predictors of comprehension (vocabulary and phonological executive-loaded working memory) followed a delayed profile.

Sustainability science has focused predominantly on external/technological solutions to environmental degradation while giving insufficient attention to the role of spiritual well-being for holistic sustainability. While it is important for students to learn about solutions in a time where environmental problems have been identified as prevalent, that alone is not enough. We propose that sustainability may start as a deep individual internal process manifested as a change of values stemming from enhanced spiritual well-being. The current study examined whether a novel sustainability classroom curriculum, including contemplative practices (CPs), increased traits indicative of spiritual development and well-being and happiness, which are theorized to increase sustainable behavior (SB). Students attended a 15-week university course promoting SB through CPs in a space intended to be safe and supportive. Participants were compared to unenrolled peers and completed pre- and post-intervention quantitative measures of (1) happiness, (2) self-compassion, and (3) SB, and qualitative questions investigating spiritual development and well-being. Multivariate and univariate follow-up analyses indicated that course participation increased student self-compassion and happiness, while SB was unaffected. Qualitative reports indicated that CPs led students to develop spiritual traits, a systems&rsquo, thinking mentality and an awareness of their interconnectedness. Students, also, assigned greater importance to spiritual well-being as a prerequisite for SB.

Given the developmental inter-relationship between motor ability and spatial skills, we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (n=34) and those with independent locomotion ability (n=19). This division additionally enabled us to determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration (i.e., required wheelchair use) on spatial competence. We compared the spatial performance of children in these two PD groups to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a Bee-bot route task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. Levels of impairment of the PD groups were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in approach to the Bee-Bot task were evident in that both PD groups showed a different error pattern from the TD group. These findings suggested that for children with both learning difficulties and PD, the unique developmental impact on spatial ability of having physical disabilities, over and above the impact of any learning difficulties, is minimal.

Background Neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NAST) can be used to treat breast cancer. Pathologic complete response (pCR) is a surrogate marker for improved survival. This study examined response in the breast and axilla to NAST and identified features associated with pCR. Methods Patients undergoing NAST and surgery between January 2012 and June 2016 by surgeons at Westmead Breast Cancer Institute were identified. Patients with inflammatory or metastatic disease were excluded. Data were analysed to identify factors predictive of pCR. Results Ninety-one patients were identified. Mean age was 49 years. Forty-one patients had axillary metastases identified prior to NAST. Eighty-three patients received chemotherapy alone, six endocrine therapy alone and two had both. Thirty-seven patients had mastectomy and 54 had breast-conserving surgery. The overall breast pCR rate was 29% higher in patients with triple-negative (50%) or HER2-positive (39%) disease and lower in luminal disease (11.6%, P = 0.001). Forty percent of node-positive patients became node negative. The only variable associated with pCR was tumour biology. Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer were more likely to have axillary pCR than those with luminal cancer (odds ratio: 28, P = 0.00005). Conclusion pCR in either the breast or axilla was most likely to be achieved in patients with HER2-positive or triple-negative breast cancers. In patients with luminal cancers, the goal of NAST is best considered to facilitate surgical options rather than obtaining a pCR.

Interventions for helping young adults cope with the stress produced by their parents’ divorce are rarely described or evaluated. Transitions, derived from a stress inoculation framework, was designed to foster stress-coping and parent–young adult relationship skills via the Internet. Participants (95 young adult college students who had experienced parental separation or divorce within the past year) were randomly assigned to experimental and delayed-treatment control conditions. Intervention modules included psychoeducation, relaxation, mindfulness meditation, cognitive restructuring, and communication skills. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded a significant treatment-by-repeated-measures interaction; univariate follow-up analyses of variance showed improvement on stress but not on relationship variables measuring quality of relationship with mother or father. Neither moderator nor intent-to-treat analyses altered this outcome pattern.

The executive function of fluency describes the ability to generate items according to specific rules. Production of words beginning with a certain letter (phonemic fluency) is impaired in dyslexia, whilst generation of words belonging to a certain semantic category (semantic fluency) is typically unimpaired. However, in dyslexia, verbal fluency has generally been studied only in terms of overall words produced. Furthermore, performance of adults with dyslexia on non-verbal design fluency tasks has not been explored but would indicate whether deficits could be explained by executive control, rather than phonological processing, difficulties. Phonemic, semantic, and design fluency tasks were presented to adults with dyslexia and without dyslexia, using fine-grained performance measures and controlling for IQ. Hierarchical regressions indicated that dyslexia predicted lower phonemic fluency, but not semantic or design fluency. At the fine-grained level, dyslexia predicted a smaller number of switches between subcategories on phonemic fluency, whilst dyslexia did not predict the size of phonemically-related clusters of items. Overall, the results suggested that phonological processing problems were at the root of dyslexia-related fluency deficits; however, executive control difficulties could not be completely ruled out as an alternative explanation. Developments in research methodology, equating executive demands across fluency tasks, may resolve this issue.

Background. A cost-effective method to address reading delays is to use computer-assisted learning, but these are not always effective. Methods. We evaluated a commercially available computer system which uses visual mnemonics, in a randomised controlled trial with 78 English speaking children (mean age 7;7 years) who their schools identified as needing reading support. School based individual tutorials usually took place 2-3 times/week. Only the experimental group received the intervention in the first 10 months, thereafter both the experimental and control groups received the intervention for 6 months. Results. After 10 months the experimental group had significantly higher standardised scores than the waiting list control group of decoding, phonological awareness, naming speed, phonological short-term memory and executive loaded working memory. Conclusions. The computer-assisted intervention was effective and this suggests that this medium can be used for reading interventions with English speaking children.

A number of children experience difficulties with social communication and this has long-term deleterious effects on their mental health, social development and education. The proposal presented in this article describes a feasibility study for a trial to test an intervention (‘E-PLAYS’) aimed at supporting children with social communication impairments. E-PLAYS harnesses technology in the form of a novel computer game in order to develop collaborative and communication skills. Preliminary studies by the authors show that when E-PLAYS was administered by the research team, children with social communication impairments showed improvements on communication test scores and on observed collaborative behaviours. The study described here is a pragmatic trial to test the application of E-PLAYS delivered by NHS speech and language therapists together with schools. This protocol outlines a two-arm feasibility cluster-randomised controlled trial of the E-PLAYS intervention with treatment as usual control arm, with randomisation at the level of the speech and language therapist. The aim of this study is to ascertain whether it will be feasible to progress to running a full-scale definitive trial to test the effectiveness of E-PLAYS in an NHS setting. Data relating to recruitment and retention, the appropriateness of outcomes and the acceptability of E-PLAYS to participants will be collected. Speech and language therapists will select suitable children (ages 4–7 years old) from their caseloads and deliver either the E-PLAYS intervention (experimental group) or treatment as usual (control group). Assessments will include blinded language measures and observations, non-blinded teacher-reported measures of peer relations and classroom behaviour and parent-reported use of resources and quality of life. There will also be a qualitative process evaluation. The findings of this study will inform the decision as to whether to progress to a full-scale definitive randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of E-PLAYS when delivered by speech and language therapists and teaching assistants within schools. The use of technology in game form is a novel approach in an area where there are currently few available interventions. ISRCTN 14818949 (retrospectively registered).

Over the last twenty years there has been considerable interest in teaching children and young people to become social science researchers to empower their voices and give them an opportunity to develop new skills. However, there is a dearth of systematic and detailed enquiry into young people’s perspectives on their feelings and experiences as they learn how to be social science researchers. We asked seven young researchers aged 12 years (1 male and 6 females), who attended an after-school research club, to complete a questionnaire about the feelings they experienced as they learned about and undertook a range of activities during the various stages of their research (e.g. the creation of a research question, the design of a questionnaire, analysis of data, and public dissemination). The young researchers also participated in follow-up, individual, semi-structured interviews when they explained their questionnaire responses in detail. Our thematic analysis, and plots of how feelings changed across research stages, suggest that in the short term the young researchers’ engagement in self-directed research was at times problematic: it produced a range of negative feelings involving worry, uncertainty, tiredness and disenchantment. However, these negative feelings were experienced alongside a range of positive feelings associated with motivation, mastery and achievement. Feelings were, therefore, not simply positive or negative, but were always mixed and diverse. Findings from group interviews conducted eight months later suggest that overall the young researchers greatly valued their experience particularly in terms of the opportunity to engage in “proper thinking” which was not always possible in the classroom. Broader implications of these findings are discussed, including the value of informal learning in after-school clubs which are outside the constraints of the English classroom curriculum.

The internet holds considerable potential to improve the world's health. Noncommunicable, or so-called lifestyle, diseases are responsible for more than three-fifths of all deaths worldwide. With over half of the world's population now online, public health officials and entrepreneurs have developed a growing array of digitally mediated interventions to encourage healthy lifestyle choices. In this chapter, the authors discuss online and digitally mediated interventions, provide examples of their use, and summarize recommendations for future research and development. Particular attention is paid to online education, social media support groups, adaptive and gamified interventions, and emerging technologies such as ambient and wearable sensors and artificial intelligence.

This study examined the development of phonological recoding in short-term memory (STM) span tasks among two clinical groups with contrasting STM and language profiles: those with Down syndrome (DS) and Williams syndrome (WS). Phonological recoding was assessed by comparing: (1) performance on phonologically similar and dissimilar items (phonological similarity effects, PSE); and (2) items with short and long names (word length effects, WLE). Participant groups included children and adolescents with DS (n = 29), WS (n = 25) and typical development (n = 51), all with average mental ages around 6 years. The group with WS, contrary to predictions based on their relatively strong verbal STM and language abilities, showed no evidence for phonological recoding. Those in the group with DS, with weaker verbal STM and language abilities, showed positive evidence for phonological recoding (PSE), but to a lesser degree than the typical group (who showed PSE and WLE). These findings provide new information about the memory systems of these groups of children and adolescents, and suggest that STM processes involving phonological recoding do not fit with the usual expectations of the abilities of children and adolescents with WS and DS. (c) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare [FAS 2010-0739]

There are indications that different types of maltreatment can lead to different cognitive and behavioural outcomes. This study investigated whether maltreatment type was related to executive functioning (EF) abilities and the use of inner speech. Forty maltreated adolescents and a comparison group of 40 non-maltreated typically developing (TD) adolescents completed a battery of tasks designed to assess both their EF abilities and their vulnerability to disruptions to inner speech. They also completed an IQ test. MANCOVA and ANCOVA analyses were carried out to examine potential effects of maltreatment type (abuse alone; neglect alone; abuse/neglect combined and no maltreatment) on EF and use of inner speech. Maltreatment type was related to EF abilities. In particular, abuse only and abuse/neglect combined had a greater negative impact on EF than neglect only. However, the neglect alone group were more vulnerable to disruptions to inner speech than the other two maltreatment groups, suggesting that they may be more reliant on the use of inner speech. These findings provide new insights into the differential impact of maltreatment type on EF and the use of inner speech in adolescence, and could be used to improve the educational outcomes of these vulnerable young people.

This investigation concerns two questions: i). is simple educational programming with children, compared to working on mathematical tasks, more effective in increasing scores in mathematical abilities, spatial awareness and working memory? ii), is educational programming on a digital device, compared to similar paper and pencil programming activities, more effective in increasing mathematical abilities, spatial awareness and working memory? Forty-one 5 to 6 year olds from a UK infant school were randomly allocated to one of three groups: programming+iPad technology, programming using paper and pencils, and a comparison condition involving pencil and paper mathematical addition and subtraction tasks. Two 10-min intervention sessions took place each week, over a period of six weeks, with pre-intervention and post-intervention tests administered to assess children’s mathematical abilities, spatial awareness and working memory. A series of mixed analyses of variance revealed that all three groups increased their mathematical abilities and spatial awareness. However, there were no significant increases in working memory, and there were no significant differences between any of the groups. These findings suggest that even a relatively short period of experience with programming can benefit other abilities and that the effects are similar to more directly targeted interventions. It was not found that programming using iPads resulted in higher scores than programming with paper and pencils.

There is a growing prevalence of silicone breast implant rupture and need for removal. This article identifies a novel method of removing silicone gel breast implants which addresses issues identified with the current methods. Our technique is an efficient and effective method but most importantly complies to strict Therapeutic Goods Administration guidelines for equipment used in surgery.

There has been considerable debate and interest in the factor structure of Executive Functioning. For children and young people, there is evidence for a progression from a single factor to a more differentiated structure, although the precise nature of these factors differs between investigations. The purpose of the current study was to look at this issue again with another sample, and try to understand possible reasons for previous differences between investigations. In addition, we examined the relationship between less central EF tasks, such as fluency and planning, to the more common tasks of updating/executive working memory, inhibition and switching/shifting. A final aim was to carry out analyses which are relevant to the debate about whether EF is influenced by language ability, or language ability is influenced by EF. We reasoned that if language ability affects EF, a factor analysis of verbal and non-verbal EF tasks might result in the identification of a factor which predominantly contains verbal tasks and a factor that predominately contains non-verbal tasks. \ud Our investigation involved 128 typically developing participants (mean age 10:4) who were given EF assessments that included verbal and non-verbal versions of each task: executive working memory; switching; inhibition; fluency; and planning. Exploratory factor analyses on executive working memory, switching and inhibition produced a structure consisting of inhibition in one factor and the remaining tasks in another. It was decided to exclude verbal planning from the next analyses of all the ten tasks because of statistical considerations. Analysis of the remaining nine EF tasks produced two factors, one factor containing the two inhibition tasks, and another factor that contained all the other tasks (switching, executive working memory, fluency and non-verbal planning). There was little evidence that the verbal or non-verbal elements in these tasks affected the factor structure. Both these issues are considered in the discussion, where there is a general evaluation of findings about the factor structure of EF.\ud Data availability. The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

Background This investigation addresses the question of whether there exists a significant discrepancy in the cognitive abilities of children with cerebral palsy (CP) who, despite the presence of age appropriate communication and language, have reading and spelling delays. Aims We wanted to discover whether there was a relationship between the phonological and visual perceptual abilities of children with CP and their progress in reading and spelling. Methods and procedures Fifteen children with CP (aged between 6:9 years and 11:6 years) were assessed on reading and spelling; communication and language; non-verbal reasoning; phonological processing; and visual perception. Outcomes and results Ten of the children had very weak reading and spelling skills. Five children had (mostly) age appropriate scores of reading and spelling. No differences were found between these two groups in non-verbal reasoning or communication and language. However, phonological abilities, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships were found to be related to reading and spelling. Conclusions and implications The findings suggest that children with CP are at risk for reading and spelling delays when they have poor phonological processing, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships. The implications of the findings for classroom practice are discussed.

Intellectual disability (ID) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood, characterised by intellectual and adaptive functioning deficits in conceptual (language, reading, maths, reasoning, knowledge, memory), social (empathy, friendships, interpersonal communication skills, social judgement), and practical (personal care, money management, organising school tasks) domains (DSM-5: American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ID has been described as ‘the most common developmental disorder and the most handicapping of the disorders beginning in childhood’ (Harris, 2006, p. 79), and DSM-5 requires three criteria to be met for a diagnosis of ID: Deficits in intellectual functioning (reasoning, problem solving, Working Memory, planning, abstract thinking, judgement, academic learning, learning from experience, practical understanding) in one or more skill domains (conceptual, social, practical) that are confirmed by clinical evaluation and individualised, standardised intelligence testing. This is defined as per formance levels that are two or more standard deviations below the general population (i.e. scores of less than 70) on psychometrically sound and valid, comprehensive and culturally appropriate tests. Deficits in adaptive functioning that significantly hamper the ability to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for personal independence and social responsibility. In practice, the adaptive deficits limit functioning in one or more activities of daily life, such as communication, social participation and independent living, and across multiple environments, such as home, school, work and recreation. Adaptive functioning deficits are assessed using clinical evaluation and individualised, culturally appropriate, psychometrically sound measures. Standardised measures can be used with knowledgeable informants (e.g., parent or other family member, teacher, care provider) and the individual if possible. The onset of these difficulties is during the childhood period.

Several arguments have been put forward about the benefits of young people carrying out their own social science research in terms of empowering their voices and their participation. Much less attention has been paid to investigating the understandings young people develop about the research process itself. Seven twelve-year-olds carried out self-directed social science research into a topic of their choice. Towards the end of their six months experience we used a questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews to investigate, from a socio-cultural perspective, what the young people thought about being a researcher. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified three themes and eight subthemes suggesting that they were aware of: the need to demonstrate researcher/research integrity (be thorough, truthful, orderly, and have a good understanding of research process); the need for good interpersonal skills and standards; and good self-management skills (be resilient, agentic, committed, and good at time management). We discuss how first-hand social science research experience might: be relevant to several areas of schooling; give young people experience of the personal characteristics important for success; help young people to realise that they can be social science researchers, and offer advanced and novel learning experiences outside the constraints of the school curriculum.

This study provided a detailed analysis of verbal fluency in children with language difficulties, and examined the relative contributions of executive functioning (executive-loaded working memory, switching, inhibition) and language ability to verbal fluency performance. Semantic and phonemic fluency, language, and executive functioning tasks were completed by 41 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 88 children with typical development. Children with SLI showed difficulties with most aspects of verbal fluency (rates of output, errors, switching) relative to typical children. Language ability predicted nearly every aspect of phonemic fluency performance and some aspects of semantic fluency performance. The relationships between verbal fluency and executive functioning were modest: inhibition was related to error scores on the phonemic fluency task, but relationships with executive-loaded working memory and switching were absent. Educationally, these results emphasise the underlying importance of language abilities in generation tasks like verbal fluency, but point to the importance of inhibition skills for error monitoring. Interventions to improve search and generation abilities have the potential to offer broader benefits in the classroom for children with language difficulties.

Background and aims\ud There are few investigations of the relationship between cognitive abilities (memory, language, and attention) and children’s eyewitness performance in typically developing children, and even fewer in children on the autism spectrum. Such investigations are important to identify key cognitive processes underlying eyewitness recall, and assess how predictive such measures are compared to intelligence, diagnostic group status (autism or typically developing) and age.\ud \ud Methods\ud A total of 272 children (162 boys, 110 girls) of age 76 months to 142 months (M = 105 months) took part in this investigation: 71 children with autism and 201 children with typical development. The children saw a staged event involving a minor mock crime and were asked about what they had witnessed in an immediate Brief Interview. This focused on free recall, included a small number of open-ended questions, and was designed to resemble an initial evidence gathering statement taken by police officers arriving at a crime scene. Children were also given standardised tests of intelligence, memory, language, and attention.\ud \ud Results & conclusions Despite the autism group recalling significantly fewer items of correct information than the typically developing group at Brief Interview, both groups were equally accurate in their recall: 89% of details recalled by the typically developing group and 87% of the details recalled by the autism group were correct. To explore the relationship between Brief Interview performance and the cognitive variables, alongside age, diagnostic group status and non-verbal intelligence quotient, multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted, with Brief Interview performance as the dependant variable. Age and diagnostic group status were significant predictors of correct recall, whereas non-verbal intelligence was less important. After age, non-verbal intelligence, and diagnostic group status had been accounted for, the only cognitive variables that were significant predictors of Brief Interview performance were measures of memory (specifically, memory for faces and memory for stories). There was little evidence of there being differences between the autism and typically developing groups in the way the cognitive variables predicted the Brief Interview.\ud \ud Implications\ud The findings provide reassurance that age – the most straightforward information to which all relevant criminal justice professionals have access – provides a helpful indication of eyewitness performance. The accuracy of prediction can be improved by knowing the child’s diagnostic status (i.e. whether the child is on the autism spectrum), and further still by using more specific assessments (namely memory for faces and memory for stories), possibly via the input of a trained professional. Importantly, the findings also confirm that whilst children with autism may recall less information than typically developing children, the information they do recall is just as accurate.

Previous research suggests that children with cerebral palsy (CP) have impairments in visual-spatial and mathematics abilities, although we know very little about the association between these two domains.To investigate the extent of visual-spatial and mathematical impairments in children with CP and the associations between these two domains.Thirty-two children with predominantly quadriplegic spastic and/or athetoid (dyskinetic) CP (13 years 7 months) and a group of typically developing (TD) children (8 years 6 months) matched by receptive vocabulary were given a battery of visual-spatial and mathematics tasks. Visual-spatial assessments ranged from simple tests of perception to complex reasoning about these stimuli. A standardised test of mathematics ability was administered to both groups.The children with CP had significantly poorer mathematical and visual-spatial abilities than the TD group. For the TD group age was the best predictor of mathematical ability, in the CP group receptive vocabulary and visual perception abilities were the best predictors of mathematical ability.The CP group had extensive difficulties with visual perception; visual short-term memory; visual reasoning; and mental rotation all of which were associated with their mathematical abilities. These findings have implications for the teaching of visual perception and visual memory skills in young children with CP as these may help the development of mathematical abilities.

This paper is concerned with a so far little explored situational context: sharing books which have been personalised for individual children in a pre-school. Thirty-five children (mean age 36.94 months) were read a book with a personalised and non-personalised part. Their spontaneous verbal responses were video recorded and later transcribed. The analysis focused on the difference between the personalised and non-personalised context in terms of the amount of children's utterances and the pragmatic intent of their speech, which included self-referencing, use of questions and corrections. The findings are interpreted from both developmental and socio-cultural Vygotskian perspectives, and evaluated in light of their implications for the understanding of pragmatic aspects of sharing personalised books with children.

This study explores the themes in the talk of two mothers and daughters as they share a self-created story with an iPad app. Vygotsky's theory of learning is applied to inform a thematic analysis and help interpret the learning potential within the observed parent–child exchanges. A deductive–inductive thematic analysis identified three recurring themes in the parent–child talk: realistic fiction, scaffolding variations, and engaged players and objects of ‘play’. The themes suggested that Vygotsky's theory has particular relevance in exploring the learning processes facilitated by the iPad app. In addition, however, post-Vygotskian theoretical frameworks were helpful in capturing the dynamic co-construction of the authentic and multimedia stories parents and children shared.

This study examines whether books that contain personalized content are better facilitators of young children’s word acquisition than books which are not personalized for a child. In a repeated-measures experimental design, 18 children (mean age 3;10) were read a picture book which contained both personalized and non-personalized sections, with unknown, real, target words embedded in each section. The book was read to the children on two occasions, with a one-week gap between each session. There were three testing points and these took place after the first reading session, just before the second reading session and immediately after the second reading session. At each testing point the children’s knowledge of the new words was assessed with picture comprehension, definition and emotional valence tests. The findings revealed that, at the second and third testing points, the children showed significantly better knowledge about the words that were in the personalized sections of the books than the words in the non-personalized sections. The implications of these findings for future book reading research and practice are discussed.