scholarly journals Home-Based Activities in Support of New Zealand Children’s Literacy and Numeracy Skills

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Kylie J. Munro ◽  
Paul E. Jose ◽  
Carol S. Huntsinger

Little is known about the possible benefits of parent-led activities to enable school readiness for New Zealand young children. A two-year longitudinal study of parents and their children (102 4-year-olds and 104 5-year-olds at Time 1) was conducted. Parents completed the Encouragement of Academic Skills in Young Children (EASYC) self-report measure of in-home academic activities, and children’s literacy and mathematics achievement were tested initially and one year later. Several parent-led activities were found to predict improved child academic ability across the sampled age range: 1) teaching basic addition and subtraction; and 2) writing and drawing practice.

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Hoskins ◽  
Sue Smedley

The current early years emphasis on ensuring young children achieve ‘school readiness’ has contributed to a context of academic pressure in early years settings in England. The debated term ‘school readiness’ is vaguely expressed in England’s early years curriculum as ‘Children reaching a good level of development in the prime areas of literacy and mathematics’. Opportunities for play, self-directed and adult initiated, are impacted by the academic pressures created by the English government’s demands for young children to achieve school readiness, which can dominate and determine the activities on offer in early years settings. The possibility to enact Froebelian approaches to learning, through child-initiated play, are further marginalized by the current early years policy agenda. A key issue relates to Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills), who judge settings primarily in relation to the quality of the academic environment provided and successful academic and developmental outcomes achieved by all children. In our recent research project, we sought to understand how much capacity early years practitioners perceived they had to enact Froebelian principles in their daily practice and the importance they attached to Froebel’s notion of learning through play. We interviewed 33 early years practitioners in six settings, working with preschool children aged between 2 and 4 years, about their understanding of Froebel’s concept of learning through play; the space, physical and temporal, they had to encourage and enable play; and the challenges of supporting children to learn through play. We explored the participants’ theoretical understandings of Froebel’s work and ideas in their education and training pathways. Our data highlight that many practitioners followed Froebel’s approach, but did not overtly name and identify their practice as Froebelian.


GeroPsych ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Costello ◽  
Shane J. Sizemore ◽  
Kimberly E. O’Brien ◽  
Lydia K. Manning

Abstract. This study explores the relative value of both subjectively reported cognitive speed and gait speed in association with objectively derived cognitive speed. It also explores how these factors are affected by psychological and physical well-being. A group of 90 cognitively healthy older adults ( M = 73.38, SD = 8.06 years, range = 60–89 years) were tested in a three-task cognitive battery to determine objective cognitive speed as well as measures of gait speed, well-being, and subjective cognitive speed. Analyses indicated that gait speed was associated with objective cognitive speed to a greater degree than was subjective report, the latter being more closely related to well-being than to objective cognitive speed. These results were largely invariant across the 30-year age range of our older adult sample.


Author(s):  
Solène Ambrosi ◽  
Patrick Lemaire ◽  
Agnès Blaye

Abstract. Dynamic, trial-by-trial modulations of inhibitory control are well documented in adults but rarely investigated in children. Here, we examined whether 5-to-7 year-old children, an age range when inhibitory control is still partially immature, achieve such modulations. Fifty three children took flanker, Simon, and Stroop tasks. Above and beyond classic congruency effects, the present results showed two crucial findings. First, we found evidence for sequential modulations of congruency effects in these young children in the three conflict tasks. Second, our results showed both task specificities and task commonalities. These findings in young children have important implications as they suggest that, to be modulated, inhibitory control does not require full maturation and that the precise pattern of trial-by-trial modulations may depend on the nature of conflict.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-67
Author(s):  
Abu Sayeed Mohammad ◽  
Shahadat Hossain ◽  
Zulfiqur Hossain Khan

Background: Crack sole may produce significant morbidity among the physical labourer. Objective: The purpose of this study was to find out the patch test result in crack sole which was due to allergic contactants. Methodology: This test was conducted in the Department at Dermatology and Venereology of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh from July 2001 to June 2002 for a period of one year. Patients with crack sole were selected as study population. All patients were asked about the details clinical history. Patch test was done by individually prepared alminium Finn Chamber mounted on scanpore tape. Result: A total number of 15 patients were recruited for this study after fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The age range was 8 years to 70 years. Among 15 patients 3 patients were patch test positive remaining 12 patients were patch test negative. Two patient were female and one was male. Conclusion: In conclusion patch test is positive among the crack sole patients. Journal of Current and Advance Medical Research 2020;7(2): 64-67


Author(s):  
Jed Z. Buchwald ◽  
Mordechai Feingold

Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt’s by a millennium. This book tells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe’s learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The book reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton’s earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton’s unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, the book reconciles Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.


2011 ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  

Objectives: To evualate the effects of early intervention program after one year for 33 disabled children in Hue city in 2010. Objects and Methods: Conduct with practical work and assessment on developing levels at different skills of the children with developmental delay under 6 years old who are the objects of the program. Results: With the Portage checklist used as a tool for implementing the intervention at the community and assessing developing skills on Social, Cognition, Motor, Self-help and Language skills for children with developmental delay, there still exists significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) at developing level of all areas in the first assessment (January, 2010) and the second assessment (December, 2010) after 12 months. In comparison among skills of different types of disabilities, there is significant difference of p ≤ 0.05 of social, cognition and language skills in the first assessment and of social, cognition, motor and language skills in the second assessment. Conclusion: Home-based Early Intervention Program for children with developmental delay has achieved lots of progress in improving development skills of the children and enhancing the parents’ abilities in supporting their children at home.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026101832098398
Author(s):  
Marjorie Murray ◽  
Daniela Tapia

Nadie es Perfecto (Nobody’s Perfect, or NEP) is a parenting skills workshop aimed at ‘sharing experiences and receiving guidance on everyday problems to strengthen child development’. This article explores this workshop in terms of its relationship with the daily lives of participants, based on one year of fieldwork focused on families with young children in a low-income neighbourhood in Santiago. While caregivers frame their parenting efforts as aiming to ‘hacer lo mejor posible’ (do their best) under difficult circumstances, our study found that facilitators take an anachronistic and homogenizing view of participants. Embracing a universalistic perspective of child development, they discourage participation and debate, focusing instead on providing concrete advice that limits the potential of the workshops. This article argues that by ignoring the different living situations of families in this socioeconomic context, NEP reproduces a prejudiced view of poor subjects that sees them as deficient and incapable of change.


Author(s):  
Ascensión Fumero ◽  
Rosario J. Marrero ◽  
Alicia Pérez-Albéniz ◽  
Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero

Bipolar disorder is usually accompanied by a high suicide risk. The main aim was to identify the risk and protective factors involved in suicide risk in adolescents with bipolar experiences. Of a total of 1506 adolescents, 467 (31%) were included in the group reporting bipolar experiences or symptoms, 214 males (45.8%) and 253 (54.2%) females. The mean age was 16.22 (SD = 1.36), with the age range between 14 and 19. Suicide risk, behavioral and emotional difficulties, prosocial capacities, well-being, and bipolar experiences were assessed through self-report. Mediation analyses, taking gender as a moderator and controlling age as a covariate, were applied to estimate suicide risk. The results indicated that the effect of bipolar experiences on suicide risk is mediated by behavioral and emotional difficulties rather than by prosocial behavior and subjective well-being. Specifically, emotional problems, problems with peers, behavior problems, and difficulties associated with hyperactivity were the most important variables. This relationship was not modulated by gender. However, the indirect effects of some mediators varied according to gender. These results support the development of suicide risk prevention strategies focused on reducing emotional difficulties, behavioral problems, and difficulties in relationships with others.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 1083-1092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Duran ◽  
Kyriakos Martakis ◽  
Christina Stark ◽  
Leonie Schafmeyer ◽  
Mirko Rehberg ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectivesIn children with cerebral palsy (CP), the most common cause of physical impairment in childhood, less muscle and bone growth has been reported, when compared with typically developing children. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an intensive rehabilitation program including physiotherapy in combination with 6 months of home-based, vibration-assisted training on muscle and bone growth in children with CP.MethodsWe included children with CP, who participated in a rehabilitation program utilizing whole-body vibration (WBV). Muscle mass was quantified by appendicular lean mass index (App-LMI) and bone mass by total-body-less-head bone mineral content (TBLH-BMC) assessed by Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) at the beginning of rehabilitation and one year later. To assess the functional muscle-bone unit, the relation of TBLH-BMC to TBLH lean body mass (TBLH-LBM) was used.ResultsThe study population included 128 children (52 females, mean age 11.9 ± 2.7). App-LMI assessed in kg/m2 increased significantly after rehabilitation. The age-adjusted Z-score for App-LMI showed no significant change. TBLH-BMC assessed in gram increased significantly. The Z-scores for TBLH-BMC decreased lesser than expected by the evaluation of the cross-sectional data at the beginning of rehabilitation. The parameter $\frac{TBLH-BMC}{TBLH-LBM}$ did not change relevantly after 12 months.ConclusionsMuscle growth and to a lesser extent bone growth could be increased in children with CP. The intensive rehabilitation program including WBV seemed to have no direct effect on the bone, but the observed anabolic effect on the bone, may only been mediated through the muscle.


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