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Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) requires that the teacher understands and applies not only knowledge about content, and not only knowledge about teaching strategies, but an intersection of the two. This article provides professional learning considerations for supporting teachers' PCK and skills with gifted and high-potential students. These considerations are presented through the lens of the professional learning literature, the recent global principles of professional learning established by the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, and the talent development paradigm. Two questions are addressed including: What is high-quality professional learning and how does it differ for educators of gifted learners? What needs to be emphasized when planning professional learning for supporting teachers' PCK? The importance of strengthening teachers' understanding of specific content knowledge and how to teach it through differentiated professional learning experiences using preassessments and then evaluating the effectiveness of those experiences are key for improving student results. Ongoing administrative support needs to be provided to teachers applying differentiated curricular and instructional approaches with gifted students.

Background and Aims: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) benefit from word learning procedures that include a mix of immediate retrieval and spaced retrieval trials. In this study, we examine the relative contribution of these two types of retrieval. Methods: We examine data from Haebig et al. (2019) in their study that compared an immediate retrieval condition and a condition of spaced retrieval that also included immediate retrieval trials. Participants were 4- and 5-year old children with DLD and same-age peers with typical language development. Each child learned novel (made-up) words referring to unusual plants and animals in both conditions. We examined the phonetic accuracy of the novel words used during the final learning trial and during recall tests 5 min and 1 week after learning. Results: On the final learning trial, the children were more phonetically accurate in using the novel words learned in the immediate retrieval condition. However, recall tests after the learning trials revealed a decrease in accuracy, especially for the children with DLD. After one week, accuracy was much lower for words in the immediate retrieval condition than for words in the mixed spaced-plus-immediate retrieval condition. For words learned in the mixed spaced-plus-immediate retrieval condition, accuracy was very stable across time for both groups. Conclusions: Immediate retrieval boosts the phonetic accuracy of new words in the short term but spaced retrieval promotes stability and increases the likelihood that short-term gains are maintained. Implications: When novel word learning is assessed at the level of phonetic accuracy, children with DLD can show declines over time not characteristic of children with typical language development. Spaced retrieval procedures augmented by immediate retrieval opportunities during learning appear to prevent such declines, leading to longer-lasting gains.

Purpose: A growing body of research suggests that a deficit in speech perception abilities contributes to the development of speech sound disorder (SSD). However, little work has been done to characterize the neurophysiological processes indexing speech perception deficits in this population. The primary aim of this study was to compare the neural activity underlying speech perception in young children with SSD and with typical development (TD). Method: Twenty-eight children ages 4;1-6;0 (years;months) participated in this study. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while children completed a speech perception task that included phonetic (speech sound) and lexical (meaning) matches and mismatches. Groups were compared on their judgment accuracy for matches and mismatches as well as the mean amplitude of the phonological mapping negativity (PMN) and N400 ERP components. Results: Children with SSD demonstrated lower judgment accuracy across the phonetic and lexical conditions compared to peers with TD. The ERPs elicited by lexical matches and mismatches did not distinguish the groups. However, in the phonetic condition, the SSD group exhibited a more consistent left-lateralized PMN effect and a delayed N400 effect over frontal sites compared to the TD group. Conclusions: These findings provide some of the first evidence of a delay in the neurophysiological processing of phonological information for young children with SSD compared to their peers with TD. This delay was not present for the processing of lexical information, indicating a unique difference between children with SSD and with TD related to speech perception of phonetic errors.

Purpose: Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval practice enhances learning of word meaning information at the behavioral and neural levels. Method: Twenty typically developing preschool children were taught novel words using an RSR learning schedule for some words and an immediate retrieval (IR) learning schedule for other words. In addition to the label, children were taught two arbitrary semantic features for each item. Following the teaching phase, children's learning was tested using recall tests. In addition, during the 1-week follow-up, children were presented with pictures and an auditory sentence that correctly labeled the item but stated correct or incorrect semantic information. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were time locked to the onset of the words noting the semantic feature. Children provided verbal judgments of whether the semantic feature was correctly paired with the item. Results: Children recalled more labels and semantic features for items that had been taught in the RSR learning schedule relative to the IR learning schedule. ERPs also differentiated the learning schedules. Mismatching label--meaning pairings elicited an N400 and late positive component (LPC) for both learning conditions; however, mismatching RSR pairs elicited an N400 with an earlier onset and an LPC with a longer duration, relative to IR mismatching label--meaning pairings. These ERP timing differences indicated that the children were more efficient in processing words that were taught in the RSR schedule relative to the IR learning schedule. Conclusions: Spaced retrieval practice promotes learning of both word form and meaning information. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for better understanding of processing newly learned semantic information in preschool children.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how epidemiological and clinical factors collectively predict whether a preschooler who is stuttering will persist or recover and to provide guidance on how clinicians can use these factors to evaluate a child's risk for stuttering persistence. Method: We collected epidemiological and clinical measures from 52 preschoolers (M = 54.4 months, SD = 6.7 months; 38 boys and 14 girls) diagnosed as stuttering. We then followed these children longitudinally to document whether they eventually recovered or persisted in stuttering. Risk factors found to be significantly associated with stuttering persistence were used to build single and multiple variable predictive statistical models. Finally, we assessed each model's prediction capabilities by recording how accurate a model was in predicting a child's stuttering outcome--persisting or recovered. Results: We found that a positive family history of stuttering, poorer performance on a standardized articulation/phonological assessment, higher frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies during spontaneous speech, and lower accuracy on a nonword repetition task were all significantly associated with an increased probability of persistence. The interaction between family history of stuttering and nonword repetition performance was also significant. The full multiple regression model incorporating all these risk factors resulted in the best fitting model with the highest predictive accuracy and lowest error rate. Conclusions: For the first time, we show how multiple risk factors collectively predict the probability of stuttering persistence in 3- to 5-year-old preschool children who stutter. Using the full combination of risk factors to assess preschoolers who stutter yielded more accurate predictions of persistence compared to sparser models. A better understanding of the factors that underlie stuttering persistence will yield insight into the underpinnings of chronic stuttering and will help identify etiological targets for novel treatment approaches.

Purpose: Recent findings in preschool children indicated novel adjective recall was enhanced when learned using repeated retrieval with contextual reinstatement (RRCR) compared to repeated study (RS). Recall was similar for learned pictures used during training and new (generalized) pictures with the same adjective features. The current study compared the effects of learning method and learned/generalized pictures on the neural processes mediating the recognition of novel adjectives. Method: Twenty typically developing children aged 4;6-5;11 (years;months) learned four novel adjectives, two using RRCR and two using RS. Five-minute and 1-week tests assessed adjective recall using learned and generalized pictures. Also, at the 1-week visit, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to assess children's processing of learned/generalized pictures, followed by naturally spoken novel adjectives in a match-mismatch paradigm. Results: Naming recall and match-mismatch judgment accuracy were similar for the RS and RRCR conditions and across learned/generalized pictures. However, ERPs revealed more reliable condition effects in the phonological mapping negativity, indexing phonological expectations, and the late positive component, indexing semantic reanalysis, for the adjectives learned in the RRCR relative to the RS condition. Unfamiliar pictures (generalized) elicited larger amplitude N300 and N400 components relative to learned pictures. Conclusions: Although behavioral accuracy measures suggest similar effects of the RS and RRCR learning conditions, subtle differences in the ERPs underlying novel adjective processing indicate advantages of RRCR for phonological processing and semantic reanalysis. While children readily generalized the novel adjectives, ERPs revealed greater cognitive resources for processing unfamiliar compared to learned pictures of the novel adjective characteristics.

A library of degradable poly(2-alkyl-2-oxazoline) analogues (dPOx) with different length of the alkyl substituents was characterized in detail by gradient elution liquid chromatography. The hydrophobicity increased with increased side chain length as confirmed by a hydrophobicity row, established by reversed-phase liquid chromatography. Those dPOx were cytocompatible and formed colloidally stable nanoparticle (NP) formulations with positive zeta potential. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) revealed that dPOx with increased hydrophobicity tended to form NPs with increased sizes. NPs created from the most hydrophobic polymer, degradable poly(2-nonyl-2-oxazoline) (dPNonOx), showed tendency for aggregation at pH 5.0, and in the presence of protease in solution, in particular for NPs formulated without surfactant. Liquid chromatography revealed enzymatic degradation of dPNonOx NPs, clearly demonstrating the disappearance of polymer signals and the appearance of hydrophilic degradation products eluting close to the chromatographic void time. The degradation process was confirmed by 1H NMR spectroscopy. dPNonOx NPs containing the anti-inflammatory drug BRP-201 as payload reduced 5-lipoxygenase activity in human neutrophils. Thereby, composition analysis of the resultant NPs, including drug quantification, was also enabled by liquid chromatography. The results indicate the importance of a detailed analysis of the final polymer-based NP formulations by a multimethod approach, including, next to standard applied techniques such as DLS/ELS, the underexplored potential of liquid chromatography. The latter is demonstrated to resolve a fine structure of solution composition, together with an assessment of possible degradation pathways and is versatile in determining hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of polymer materials. Our study underscores the power of liquid chromatography for characterization of soft matter drug carriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carefully crafted professional learning has the potential to positively impact teacher perceptions of culturally diverse gifted learners. Case studies provide an opportunity to objectively examine scenarios that teachers of gifted students may encounter in the classroom. Embedding the seven guiding principles of equity-driven professional learning in the discussion of a case study fosters change in teacher perceptions and beliefs. This article presents the benefits of using case studies in multicultural professional learning for gifted teachers overlaid with the seven principles of equity-driven professional learning; offers an example of a case study, a boy named Raul; and shares two examples of the case study in practice.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to document disfluency behaviors expressed by 4- and 5-year-old children who stutter and to identify whether stuttering characteristics at this age are predictive of later stuttering recovery or persistence. Method: We analyzed spontaneous speech samples from 47 children diagnosed with developmental stuttering when they were 4-5 years old. Based on their eventual diagnosis made the final year of participation in the longitudinal study when the children were 6-9 years old, the children were divided into two groups: children who eventually recovered from stuttering (n = 29) and children who were persisting (n = 18). We calculated a composite weighted stuttering-like disfluency (SLD) index of overall severity that considers the frequency, type, and number of repetition units of SLDs. The frequency and type of typical disfluencies were also examined. Results: Higher weighted SLD scores at ages 4--5 years were associated with a higher probability of persistent stuttering. The weighted SLD also significantly discriminated between children who would eventually be diagnosed as persisting or recovered from stuttering. The frequency and type of typical disfluency did not distinguish the two groups of children; however, children who were persisting had significantly higher frequencies of part-word repetitions and dysrhythmic phonations (i.e., blocks, prolongations, and broken words) and maximum number of part-word repetitions compared to children who eventually recovered from stuttering. Conclusions: Previous findings in younger, 2- to 3-year-old children who stutter did not suggest a relationship between the severity and type of children's SLDs and their eventual stuttering outcome. Yet, by the age of 4-5 years, we found that the weighted SLD, a clinically applicable tool, may be used to help identify children at greater risk for stuttering persistence. We propose that the weighted SLD be considered, along with other predictive factors, when assessing risk of stuttering persistence in 4- and 5-year-old children who are stuttering.

Gifted education in the United States has a long history of underrepresentation of culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse (CLED) gifted students. Despite the many years of attention toward this pervasive problem, the gap in equity and access to gifted services for CLED students has not closed due to a variety of practices related to assessments, teacher referrals, and support structures. The authors contend that many issues stem from a common underlying cause: a lack of cultural knowledge and competency pertaining to gifted youth. This article presents guiding principles based in professional learning, equity, and gifted pedagogy for use in crafting training experiences: pulse-taking, establishing safe zones, individualizing professional learning plans, cultural training beyond surface-level, school/home connections, identifying grows and glows, and engaging in courageous conversations.

Purpose: Previous studies of neural processing of rhyme discrimination in 7- to 8-year-old children who stutter (CWS) distinguished children who had recovered, children who had persisted, and children who did not stutter (CWNS; Mohan & Weber, 2015). Here, we investigate neural processing mediating rhyme discrimination for early acquired real words in younger CWS and CWNS (4;1-6;0 years;months), when rhyming abilities are newly emerging, to examine possible relationships to "eventual" recovery (CWS-eRec) and persistence in stuttering (CWS-ePer). Method: Children performed a rhyme discrimination task while their event-related brain potentials were recorded. CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer had similar speech and language abilities. Inclusionary criteria incorporated at least 70% accuracy for rhyme discrimination. Analyses focused on the mean amplitude of the N400 component elicited by rhyming and nonrhyming words in anterior and posterior regions of interest. Results: CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer displayed a classic event-related potential rhyme effect for rhyme discrimination characterized by larger amplitude, posteriorly distributed N400s elicited by nonrhyming targets compared to rhyming targets. CWNS displayed a more robust anterior rhyme effect compared to the CWS groups with a larger amplitude N400 anteriorly for the rhyming targets. This effect was more consistent across individual CWNS than CWS. Conclusions: The groups of CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer, who had all developed rhyming discrimination abilities, exhibited similar underlying neural processes mediating phonological processing of early acquired words for the classic central-parietal rhyme effect. However, individual variability of the anterior rhyme effect suggested differences in specific aspects of phonological processing for some CWS-eRec and CWS-ePer compared to CWNS.

Purpose: There are strong retention benefits when learners frequently test themselves during the learning period. This practice of repeated retrieval has recently been applied successfully to children's word learning. In this study, we apply a repeated retrieval procedure to the learning of novel adjectives by preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typically developing (TD) peers. We ask whether the benefits of retrieval extend to children's ability to apply the novel adjectives to newly introduced objects sharing the same characteristics as the objects used during the learning period. Method: Fourteen children with DLD (M[subscript age] = 62.64 months) and 13 TD children (M = 62.54 months) learned novel adjectives in 2 sessions. For each child, half of the adjectives were learned in a repeated spaced retrieval condition, and half were learned in a repeated study-only condition. Recall was assessed immediately after the second learning session and 1 week later. A recognition test was also administered at the 1-week mark. Results: On the recall tests, for both groups of children, recall was better for adjectives learned in the repeated spaced retrieval condition. Adjectives learned by the 2nd day were retained 1 week later. Every adjective correctly applied to an object used during the learning period was also extended accurately to new objects with the same characteristics. On these recall tests, the children with DLD did not differ from the TD group in the number of items recalled, though their phonetic accuracy was lower. On the recognition test, the DLD group showed greater accuracy for adjectives that had been learned in the repeated spaced retrieval condition than for those learned in the repeated study condition, whereas the TD group performed at high levels in both conditions. Conclusion: Repeated spaced retrieval appears to provide an effective boost to word learning. Because its benefits are seen even when a word must be extended to new objects, the application of this procedure seems well suited for learning new language material rather than being limited to item-specific memorization.

Purpose: The primary aim of the current study was to examine the developing phonological awareness of 4- to 5-year-old children who stutter (CWS) in relation to eventual recovery (CWS-eRec) or persistance (CWS-ePer) in stuttering, accounting for the presence of typical speech (TS) production or speech sound disorder (SSD). Method: In the 1st year of a 5-year longitudinal study, 37 children who do not stutter (CWNS) and 48 CWS completed a rhyme discrimination and a rhyme production task from the Phonological Awareness Test--Second Edition (Robertson & Salter, 2007). Using data from their last year of participation, CWS were classified into CWS-ePer and CWS-eRec. Each CWS group was further divided into TS and SSD groups based on speech production abilities at the time of the rhyme tasks. Accuracy on the rhyme tasks was compared. Groups were also compared on strategies used to generate correct and incorrect responses for the rhyme production task (e.g., real-word correct, nonword correct, semantic association, repeated cues). Results: All groups performed similarly on the rhyme discrimination task. On the rhyme production task, CWS-ePer-SSD and CWS-eRec-SSD performed with less accuracy than CWNS, but CWS-ePer-TS, CWS-eRec-TS, and CWNS achieved similar task accuracy. On correct rhyme production trials, CWS-ePer-TS created more nonword rhymes than real-word rhymes. CWS-ePer-TS used the nonword strategy at 1.88 times the CWNS rate. CWS-eRec-TS fell between CWS-ePer-TS and CWNS in use of the nonword strategy. Conclusions: Reliance on a nonword strategy for rhyme production in CWS-ePer-TS may reflect differences in underlying phonological representations and ease of phonological access to the lexicon compared to CWNS.

Purpose: Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different retrieval schedules on word learning at both the behavioral and neural levels. Method: Participants included 16 typically developing children (M[subscript TD] = 61.58 months) and 16 children with developmental language disorder (M[subscript DLD] = 59.60 months). Children participated in novel word learning sessions in which the spacing of retrieval practice was manipulated: Some words were retrieved only after other words had been presented (i.e., repeated retrieval that required contextual reinstatement [RRCR]); others were taught using an immediate retrieval schedule. In Experiment 1, children's recall of the novel word labels and their meanings was tested after a 5-min delay and a 1-week delay. In Experiment 2, event-related brain potentials were obtained from a match-mismatch task utilizing the novel word stimuli. Results: Experiment 1 findings revealed that children were able to label referents and to retain the novel words more successfully if the words were taught in the RRCR learning condition. Experiment 2 findings revealed that mismatching picture-word pairings elicited a robust N400 event-related brain potential only for words that were taught in the RRCR condition. In addition, children were more accurate in identifying picture-word matches and mismatches for words taught in the RRCR condition, relative to the immediate retrieval condition. Conclusions: Retrieval practice that requires contextual reinstatement through spacing results in enhanced word learning and long-term retention of words. Both typically developing children and children with developmental language disorder benefit from this type of retrieval procedure.

Purpose: Scholars have long noted that retention improves significantly when learners frequently test themselves on the new material rather than engage in continuous study with no intermittent testing. In this study, we apply the notion of repeated testing or retrieval to the process of word learning in preschool-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Novel words and their meanings were taught to 10 children with DLD and 10 typically developing (TD) children matched on age (DLD, M = 63.4 months; TD, M = 63.2 months). Recall was assessed immediately after the 2nd learning session and then again 1 week later. Results: Both groups showed better retention when they had attempted to retrieve the words during the learning period than when they had simply listened to and studied the words paired with their referents. Relative to their TD peers, the children with DLD seemed to be weaker in their encoding, but these children's retention over a 1-week period was indistinguishable from that of their age mates. Conclusion: Word learning activities that include opportunities for repeated retrieval appear to significantly benefit retention relative to more traditional word learning activities.

The legacy of historic anthropogenic disturbance can significantly affect the structure and function of contemporary freshwater ecosystems. Environmental research and management that neglect anthropogenic legacy are likely to lead to a biased interpretation of present and future ecosystem dynamics. Yet, anthropogenic legacy remains poorly considered, mainly because of the challenges associated with its identification. Synthesizing past progress in legacy research, we present a conceptual framework for the systematic identification of anthropogenic legacy. We focus on the dynamic processes occurring during legacy formation (e.g., disturbance regime, ecosystem trajectories). Based on the review of relevant case studies, we discuss the historical and contemporary sources of information (e.g., communication, cartographic, paleoenvironmental sources) that can be employed for legacy identification. Finally, we provide practical examples of anthropogenic legacy identification in real‐world freshwater ecosystems. Produced in multidisciplinary collaboration, this review presents a comprehensive approach to anthropogenic legacy to foster its informed and systematic consideration in freshwater research and management. This article is categorized under:Science of Water > Water and Environmental ChangeWater and Life > Stresses and Pressures on Ecosystems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]