Umoya05

March 05

5 Web Sites From Intute.Ac.Uk

Infants and children Consciousness Alcohol Brain Trackbacks (0)

Self-efficacy: the exercise of control

http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/effbook1.html

This is a summary of Albert Bandura's book 'Self-efficacy: the exercise of control', which outlines the author's ideas about how self-efficacy affects many aspects of life. The summary is hosted by Emory University in the United States and was produced by Gio Valiante. It should be useful for teachers, students and researchers.

Primer on educational psychology, A

http://www.learnativity.com/edpsych.html

This article, hosted by the US-based website Learnativity.com, provides an overview of educational psychology and the theories that underpin it, including the behaviourist, humanist, cognitive and constructivist viewpoints. The article provides links to further resources. It should be useful for students and teachers.

In Our Time: The infant brain

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r2cn4

This is an episode of the BBC Radio Four series 'In Our Time'. In it, the broadcaster Melvyn Bragg discusses our knowledge of the developing infant brain. The psychologists Usha Goswami, Annette Karmiloff-Smith and Denis Mareschal contribute to the discussion, which includes the theories of Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. The programme is 45 minutes in length and should be useful for students and teachers.

In Our Time: The brain and consciousness

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0054582

This is an episode from the BBC Radio Four series 'In Our Time', hosted by Melvyn Bragg, in which the contribution of twentieth century neuroscience to our conceptions of the mind is considered. Joining the discussion are academics Steven Rose and Dan Robinson. The programme is forty five minutes in length and available as a Real Media audio file. It should be useful for students and teachers.

Alcohol: A sober assessment

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_sober_assessment/

This article is published by the US-based SEED magazine, a science periodical. The article is written by Dave Munger and concerns the difference between actual and perceived risks in the use of alcohol. It contains links to related resources. The article should be useful for students and teachers

June 30

Aesthetic Appearance Of Babies And Adult Motivational Processing

Infants and children Gender and Sexuality Trackbacks (0)

Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness
Source: PLoS ONE

Background
This study sought to determine how esthetic appearance of babies may affect their motivational processing by the adults.

Methodology and Principal Findings
Healthy men and women were administered two laboratory-based tasks: a) key pressing to change the viewing time of normal-looking babies and of those with abnormal facial features (e.g., cleft palate, strabismus, skin disorders, Down’s syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome) and b) attractiveness ratings of these images. Exposure to the babies’ images produced two different response patterns: for normal babies, there was a similar effort by the two groups to extend the visual processing with lower attractiveness ratings by men; for abnormal babies, women exerted greater effort to shorten the viewing time despite attractiveness ratings comparable to the men.

Conclusions
These results indicate that gender differences in the motivational processing of babies include excessive (relative to the esthetic valuation) motivation to extend the viewing time of normal babies by men vs. shortening the exposure to the abnormal babies by women. Such gender-specific incentive sensitization phenomenon may reflect an evolutionary-derived need for diversion of limited resources to the nurturance of healthy offspring.
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February 05

Fathers’ Experiences In The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Infants and children Fathers Trackbacks (0)

Fathers’ Experiences in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Search for Control
Source: Pediatrics

The overarching theme for fathers was a sense of lack of control. Their world view, as a “backdrop” theme, provided context for all of the themes. Four other interrelated subthemes were identified, including information; communication, particularly with the health care team; fathers’ various roles; and external activities. Fathers reported that relationships with friends/family/health care team, receiving information consistently, and receiving short written materials on common conditions were ways of giving them support. The fathers said that speaking to a male physician was a positive and useful experience.

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October 13

Infants: Influence Of Native Language On Interpretation Of Salient Speech Sounds

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Native language governs interpretation of salient speech sound differences at 18 months
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

One of the first steps infants take in learning their native language is to discover its set of speech-sound categories. This early development is shown when infants begin to lose the ability to differentiate some of the speech sounds their language does not use, while retaining or improving discrimination of language-relevant sounds. However, this aspect of early phonological tuning is not sufficient for language learning. Children must also discover which of the phonetic cues that are used in their language serve to signal lexical distinctions. Phonetic variation that is readily discriminable to all children may indicate two different words in one language but only one word in another. Here, we provide evidence that the language background of 1.5-year-olds affects their interpretation of phonetic variation in word learning, and we show that young children interpret salient phonetic variation in language-specific ways. Three experiments with a total of 104 children compared Dutch- and English-learning 18-month-olds’ responses to novel words varying in vowel duration or vowel quality. Dutch learners interpreted vowel duration as lexically contrastive, but English learners did not, in keeping with properties of Dutch and English. Both groups performed equivalently when differentiating words varying in vowel quality. Thus, at one and a half years, children’s phonological knowledge already guides their interpretation of salient phonetic variation. We argue that early phonological learning is not just a matter of maintaining the ability to distinguish language-relevant phonetic cues. Learning also requires phonological interpretation at appropriate levels of linguistic analysis.

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October 02

Toddler Eating Problems

Infants and children Food and eating Trackbacks (0)

How Do Toddler Eating Problems Relate to Their Eating Behavior, Food Preferences, and Growth?
Source: Pediatrics

These results offer reassurance that the majority of children with parent-reported eating problems will suffer no adverse consequences in terms of growth. Parents who worry about the range of foods that their children eat may be worrying more about the difficulty of getting their child to eat “right” rather than getting them to eat enough food. Our results do suggest that milk is a significant suppressor of appetite and that cutting down on milk consumption could be a useful way to promote eating habits that are more acceptable to parents.

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August 28

Child Well-Being & Transition From Cohabitation To Marriage

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Is the Ring the Thing? Child Well-being and the Transition from Cohabitation to Marriage
Source: Urban Institute (More)

August 22

Mother's Time With Children

Infants and children Mothers Trackbacks (0)

Mother's Time with Children: Does Time Matter?
Source: California Center for Population Research, On-Line Working Paper Series

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August 03

Infant And Early CIhildhood Mental Health: A Comprehensive Developmental Approach To Assessment And Intervention

Infants and children Trackbacks (0)

As a PsychiatryOnline.com subscriber, you get access to a free PDF
version of a featured book. August's title is

Infant and Early CIhildhood Mental Health: A Comprehensive Developmental Approach to Assessment and Intervention, by
Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., and Serena Wieder, Ph.D.

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June 27

3 Journals From Intute

Infants and children Trackbacks (0)

Journal of aggression, maltreatment and trauma

Journal of couple and relationship therapy

Journal of FAS international

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April 05

Why Infants Can't Be Hardwired For Success

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Million Dollar Babies: Why Infants Can't be Hardwired for Success
Source: Education Sector

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January 19

Eating Disorders In Children: Two Studies

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New Info on Eating Disorders

Source: Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.

December 2006 news release discusses two studies about childhood eating disorders, one that "confirm(s) that pro-eating disorder Web sites may promote dangerous behaviors in adolescents with eating disorders" and another that "indicates that pre-teens with eating disorders tend to lose weight more quickly than adolescents with the condition and weigh comparatively less at diagnosis." Includes links to fact sheets about eating disorders. From the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.

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January 04