Children choose their own stories: the impact of choice on children's learning of new narrative skills

ABSTRACTDespite evidence that early narrative abilities are predictive of literacy skills and academic achievement, only limited progress has been made in understanding how the development of these narrative skills can be facilitated. The current study measured the effectiveness of a new narrative intervention conducted with 26 preschoolers. Children were assigned to one of two intervention conditions: an active-choice condition (able to choose story components) or a no-choice condition (story components were preselected). Both groups otherwise received the same explicit and engaging teaching of story grammar. As predicted, greater narrative skill gains were evident for the active-choice intervention; including larger gains on both central story grammar components and story information overall. Future implications for how stories might be presented to young children in order to more richly facilitate narrative skill acquisition are discussed.

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A new perspective on referentiality in elicited narratives: Introduction to the Special Issue

First Language ◽

10.1177/01427237211062300 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 014272372110623

Author(s):

Natalia Gagarina ◽

Ute Bohnacker

Keyword(s):

Language Disorders ◽

Comparative Investigation ◽

Assessment Instrument ◽

Special Issue ◽

Story Grammar ◽

Developmental Language Disorders ◽

Narrative Skills ◽

Referential Expressions ◽

New Perspective ◽

The Impact

This special issue investigates the use of referential expressions in elicited picture-based narratives by children with and without developmental language disorders, across a range of languages and language combinations. All contributions use the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN, Gagarina et al. 2012, 2019). The studies featured in this issue cover monolingual and bilingual children aged 4–11 years, but focus mainly on age 4–7, a period in a child’s life where great strides are made in the development of narrative skills. This collection of papers offers a new perspective on referentiality for several reasons: all studies use the same stimuli and by and large the same procedure for the elicitation of narratives. The stimuli, four picture-based stories, are controlled for comparability of protagonists, plot and story structure. They were designed as a ‘visual’ representation of a multidimensional model of story grammar. This methodological and theoretical base allows for a comparative investigation of referentiality (including reference introduction, maintenance and reintroduction) in narratives, across languages and populations. This introduction addresses theoretical aspects of referentiality in decontextualised discourse and reviews the literature regarding the impact of language-specific referential systems and the age and path of acquisition in typically developing children and children with developmental language disorders. We also discuss methodological aspects of eliciting referentiality in narratives in detail. This introduction thus seeks explanations for the diverse and sometimes contradictory empirical results regarding children’s mastery of referentiality. Finally, an overview of the contributions in the special issue is given.

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The Impact of E-Book Reading on Young Children’s Emergent Literacy Skills: An Analytical Review

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18126510 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (12) ◽

pp. 6510

Author(s):

Carmen López-Escribano ◽

Susana Valverde-Montesino ◽

Verónica García-Ortega

Keyword(s):

Emergent Literacy ◽

Skill Acquisition ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

Literacy Skill ◽

Book Reading ◽

Regular School ◽

Print Books ◽

Analytical Review ◽

The Impact

Young children’s use of digital devices is increasing as we progress through the 21st century and handheld and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, have become increasingly available. While older children using tablets to read has been more broadly investigated, less is known about the impacts of digital reading on children at the stage of literacy acquisition. An analytical review was conducted on the effects of interactive e-book interventions for young children’s literacy development when compared to (a) listening to print books, (b) regular school programs, and (c) reading non-enhanced and non-interactive e-books. A significant additional beneficial effect of e-book interventions was found for phonological awareness and vocabulary learning based on data from 1138 children in 14 randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies. When e-books are properly selected and used, children develop literacy skills equally well and sometimes better than with print books. Additionally, e-book interventions outperformed the regular school program in the development of literacy skills. Similarly, enhanced e-book conditions revealed benefits over the non-enhanced e-book interventions in literacy skill acquisition. The impact of these findings related to health issues, e-book design, disadvantaged populations, and adult-led e-book sharing is discussed.

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Narrative Analysis in Adolescents With Fragile X Syndrome

American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities ◽

10.1352/1944-7558-127.1.11 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 127 (1) ◽

pp. 11-28

Author(s):

Corinne N. Neal ◽

Nancy C. Brady ◽

Kandace K. Fleming

Keyword(s):

Fragile X Syndrome ◽

Narrative Analysis ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Rating Scale ◽

Fragile X ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

Narrative Skills ◽

Autism Symptomatology ◽

Literacy Scores ◽

The Impact

Abstract This study analyzed narratives of male and female adolescents with fragile X syndrome (FXS). The impact of structural language, cognition and autism symptomatology on narrative skills and the association between narratives and literacy were examined. Narratives from 32 adolescents with FXS (24 males, 8 females) were analyzed for macrostructure. Relationships between narrative macrostructure, language scores, cognitive scores, Childhood Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition scores and literacy skills were examined. Males produced more simplistic narratives, whereas the females' narratives were more complex. Language scores predicted narrative scores above and beyond nonverbal cognitive skills and autism symptomatology. Narrative scores correlated with literacy scores. Narrative skills in FXS are predicted by language skills and are correlated with literacy skills. Investigation into narrative interventions in FXS is needed.

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Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Development of an Early Literacy App in Dhuwaya

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6020106 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 106

Author(s):

Gillian Wigglesworth ◽

Melanie Wilkinson ◽

Yalmay Yunupingu ◽

Robyn Beecham ◽

Jake Stockley

Keyword(s):

Phonological Awareness ◽

Early Literacy ◽

First Language ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

Intercultural Development ◽

Educational Challenges ◽

English Speaking ◽

Surrounding Areas ◽

Bilingual School ◽

The Impact

Phonological awareness is a skill which is crucial in learning to read. In this paper, we report on the challenges encountered while developing a digital application (app) for teaching phonological awareness and early literacy skills in Dhuwaya. Dhuwaya is a Yolŋu language variety spoken in Yirrkala and surrounding areas in East Arnhem Land. Dhuwaya is the first language of the children who attend a bilingual school in which Dhuwaya and English are the languages of instruction. Dhuwaya and English have different phonemic inventories and different alphabets. The Dhuwaya alphabet is based on Roman alphabet symbols and has 31 graphemes (compared to 26 in English). The app was designed to teach children how to segment and blend syllables and phonemes and to identify common words as well as suffixes used in the language. However, the development was not straightforward, and the impact of the linguistic, cultural and educational challenges could not have been predicted. Amongst these was the inherent variation in the language, including glottal stops, the pronunciation of stops, the focus on syllables as a decoding strategy for literacy development and challenges of finding one-syllable words such as those initially used with English-speaking children. Another challenge was identifying culturally appropriate images which the children could relate to and which were not copyrighted. In this paper, we discuss these plus a range of other issues that emerged, identifying how these problems were addressed and resolved by the interdisciplinary and intercultural team.

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Handshake antimicrobial stewardship as a model to recognize and prevent diagnostic errors

Diagnosis ◽

10.1515/dx-2020-0032 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Justin B. Searns ◽

Manon C. Williams ◽

Christine E. MacBrayne ◽

Ann L. Wirtz ◽

Jan E. Leonard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Antimicrobial Stewardship ◽

Interrater Reliability ◽

Diagnostic Errors ◽

Diagnostic Error ◽

Primary Treatment ◽

Treatment Team ◽

Children's Hospital ◽

Children’S Hospital ◽

The Impact ◽

Made In

AbstractObjectivesFew studies describe the impact of antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) on recognizing and preventing diagnostic errors. Handshake stewardship (HS-ASP) is a novel ASP model that prospectively reviews hospital-wide antimicrobial usage with recommendations made in person to treatment teams. The purpose of this study was to determine if HS-ASP could identify and intervene on potential diagnostic errors for children hospitalized at a quaternary care children’s hospital.MethodsPreviously self-identified “Great Catch” (GC) interventions by the Children’s Hospital Colorado HS-ASP team from 10/2014 through 5/2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Each GC was categorized based on the types of recommendations from HS-ASP, including if any diagnostic recommendations were made to the treatment team. Each GC was independently scored using the “Safer Dx Instrument” to determine presence of diagnostic error based on a previously determined cut-off score of ≤1.50. Interrater reliability for the instrument was measured using a randomized subset of one third of GCs.ResultsDuring the study period, there were 162 GC interventions. Of these, 65 (40%) included diagnostic recommendations by HS-ASP and 19 (12%) had a Safer Dx Score of ≤1.50, (Κ=0.44; moderate agreement). Of those GCs associated with diagnostic errors, the HS-ASP team made a diagnostic recommendation to the primary treatment team 95% of the time.ConclusionsHandshake stewardship has the potential to identify and intervene on diagnostic errors for hospitalized children.

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Optimal Solutions for the Use of Sewage Sludge on Agricultural Lands

Water ◽

10.3390/w13050585 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 585

Author(s):

Catalina Iticescu ◽

Puiu-Lucian Georgescu ◽

Maxim Arseni ◽

Adrian Rosu ◽

Mihaela Timofti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heavy Metals ◽

Sewage Sludge ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Chemical Characteristics ◽

Optimal Solutions ◽

Physico Chemical ◽

Agricultural Areas ◽

The Impact ◽

Made In

The use of sewage sludge in agriculture decreases the pressure on landfills. In Romania, massive investments have been made in wastewater treatment stations, which have resulted in the accumulation of important quantities of sewage sludge. The presence of these sewage sludges coincides with large areas of degraded agricultural land. The aim of the present article is to identify the best technological combinations meant to solve these problems simultaneously. Adapting the quality and parameters of the sludge to the specificity of the land solves the possible compatibility problems, thus reducing the impact on the environment. The physico-chemical characteristics of the fermented sludge were monitored and optimal solutions for their treatment were suggested so as to allow that the sludge could be used in agriculture according to the characteristics of the soils. The content of heavy metals in the sewage sludge was closely monitored because the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer does not allow for any increases in the concentrations of these in soils. The article identifies those agricultural areas which are suitable for the use of sludge, as well as ways of correcting some parameters (e.g., pH), which allow the improvement of soil quality and obtained higher agricultural production.

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An assessment of the interplay between literacy and digital Technology in Higher Education

Education and Information Technologies ◽

10.1007/s10639-021-10451-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shahrokh Nikou ◽

Milla Aavakare

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Digital Literacy ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Digital Technologies ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

Intention To Use ◽

University Staff ◽

Willingness To Use ◽

The Impact

AbstractDigital technologies fundamentally transform teaching and learning in higher education environments, with the pace of technological change exacerbating the challenge. Due to the current pandemic situation, higher education environments are all now forced to move away from traditional teaching and learning structures that are simply no longer adaptable to the challenges of rapidly changing educational environments. This research develops a conceptual model and employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial least Squares (PLS) to examine the impact of information and digital literacy on 249 Finnish university staff and students’ intention to use digital technologies. The findings show the complex interrelationship between literacy skills and digital technologies among university staff and students. The results illustrate that information literacy has a direct and significant impact on intention to use; while, unlike our expectation, digital literacy does not have a direct impact on the intention to use. However, its effect is mediated through performance expectancy and effort expectancy. The authors suggest that to understand the changes that are taking place in higher education environment, more attention needs to be paid to redefining policies and strategies in order to enhance individuals’ willingness to use digital technologies within higher education environments.

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Monitoring the Impact of the Large Building Investments on the Neighborhood

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11146537 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (14) ◽

pp. 6537

Author(s):

Marian Łupieżowiec

Keyword(s):

Groundwater Level ◽

Soil Improvement ◽

Deep Excavation ◽

Large Area ◽

Safety Measures ◽

High Rise ◽

The Impact ◽

Large Building ◽

Additional Safety ◽

Made In

The article presents the concept of monitoring buildings and infrastructure elements located near large construction investments (the construction of high-rise buildings of the Oak Terraces housing estate in Katowice and the construction of a tunnel under the roundabout in Katowice along the intercity express road DTŚ). The impacts include deep excavation, lowering of the groundwater level over a large area, and dynamic influences related to the use of impact methods of soil improvement. The presented monitoring includes observation of the groundwater level with the use of piezometers, geodetic measurements of settlement and inclinations, as well as the measurement of vibration amplitudes generated during the works involving shocks and vibrations. It was also important to observe the development of cracks on the basis of a previously made inventory of damage. The results of the monitoring allow corrections to be made in the technology of works (e.g., reduction of vibration amplitudes, application of additional protections at excavations, etc.) or the use additional safety measures. Currently, there are also monitoring systems used during the operation of completed facilities.

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Platform Capitalism ‘Made in China’? Intelligent Manufacturing, Taobao Villages and the Restructuring of Work

Science Technology and Society ◽

10.1177/0971721819841985 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 199-217 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Boy Lüthje

Keyword(s):

Intelligent Manufacturing ◽

Value Chains ◽

Policy Recommendations ◽

Employment Policy ◽

Social Shaping Of Technology ◽

Social Shaping ◽

Made In China ◽

The Impact ◽

Conditions Of Employment ◽

Made In

The article examines the development of advanced digital manufacturing (as outlined in the ‘Made-in-China 2025’ government plan) from the perspective of the changing socio-technical paradigms of production. The analysis focuses on the transformations of value chains and work, based on theories of social shaping of technology, regulation theory and regimes of production. Analytically, the author proposes to distinguish between ‘production-driven’ and ‘distribution-driven’ pathways of manufacturing digitalisation. The transformation of semi-rural industrial areas (‘Taobao villages’, named after China’s largest e-commerce platform Taobao) into mass production clusters for e-commerce is depicted as a paradigmatic model of distribution-driven transformation and as a characteristic Chinese strategy in this field. The article examines the impact on industry supply chains and work, leading to ever-more precarious conditions of employment. Policy recommendations focus on local strategies to stabilise supply chain structures and working conditions, as an alternative to the present top-down approaches to manufacturing modernisation in China.

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