Early intervention: Narratives of learning, discipline and enculturation

Current understandings about literacy have moved away from the belief that literacy is simply a process that individuals do in their heads. These understandings do not negate the importance of the individual aspects of literacy learning, but they emphasize understandings of literacy as a social practice. In many cases, responses to early literacy intervention seem to be grounded in theories that appear out of step with current literacy research and consequent evidence that literacy is socially and culturally constructed. One such response is the Reading Recovery programme based on Clay’s theory of literacy acquisition. Clay (1992) describes the programme as a second chance to learn. However, others have suggested that programmes like Reading Recovery may in fact work toward the marginalization of particular groups, thereby helping to maintain the status quo along class, gender and ethnic lines. This article allows two professionals to bring their insider’s knowledge of Reading Recovery to an analysis of the construction of the programme. The article interweaves this analysis with the personal narratives of the researchers as they negotiated the borders between different understandings and beliefs about literacy and literacy pedagogy.

The Building Partnerships Program: An Approach to Community-based Learning for Medical Students in Australia

The Building Partnerships Program at the University of Queensland, Australia seeks to address the dual challenge of preparing doctors who are responsive to the community while providing a meaningful context for social sciences learning. Through partnerships with a diverse range of community agencies, the program offers students opportunities to gain non-clinical perspectives on health and illness through structured learning activities including: family visits; community agency visits and attachments; and interview training. Students learn first-hand about psychosocial influences on health and how people manage health problems on a day-to-day basis. They also gain insights into the work of community agencies and how they as future doctors might work in partnership with them to enhance patient care. We outline the main components of the program, identify challenges and successes from student and community agency perspectives, and consider areas that invite further development.

Development of preferences for the human body shape in infancy

Two studies investigated the development of infants' visual preferences for the human body shape. In Study 1, infants of 12,15 and 18 months were tested in a standard preferential looking experiment, in which they were shown paired line drawings of typical and scrambled bodies. Results indicated that the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes over typical body shapes, while the younger infants did not show differential responding. In Study 2, 12- and 18-month-olds were tested with the same procedure, except that the typical and scrambled body stimuli were photographic images. The results of Study 2 again indicated that only the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes. This finding contrasts sharply with infants' precocious preferences for human faces, suggesting that infants' learning about human faces and human bodies follow different developmental trajectories. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Lack of association between CYP1A1 polymorphism and Parkinson's disease in a Chinese population

Apart from very few families who have a direct cause from genetic mutation, causes of most Parkinson's disease (PD) remain unclear. Many allelic association studies on polymorphism of different candidate genes have been studied. Although these association studies do not imply a causal relationship, it does warrant further studies to elucidate the pathophysiologic significance. CYP1A1 polymorphisms have been reported to be associated with PD in a Japanese population sample. Since CYP1A1 transforms aromatic hydrocarbons into products that may be neurotoxic and perhaps lead to PD, we therefore undertook a study to look at the possible association of CYP1A1 polymorphism and PD in a Chinese population. Contrary to the Japanese result, we did not find any statistically significant difference between the PD group and the control group in our study with a bigger sample size.

Effect of instructed extinction on verbal and autonomic indices of Pavlovian learning with fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant conditional stimuli

We investigated the effects of conditional stimulus fear-relevance and of instructed extinction on human Pavlovian conditioning as indexed by electrodermal responses and verbal ratings of conditional stimulus unpleasantness. Half of the participants (n = 64) were trained with pictures of snakes and spiders (fear-relevant) as conditional stimuli, whereas the others were trained with pictures of flowers and mushrooms (fear-irrelevant) in a differential aversive Pavlovian conditioning procedure. Half of the participants in each group were instructed after the completion of acquisition that no more unconditional stimuli were to be presented. Extinction of differential electrodermal responses required more trials after training with fear-relevant pictures. Moreover, there was some evidence that verbal instructions did not affect extinction of second interval electrodermal responses to fear-relevant pictures. However, neither fear-relevance nor instructions affected the changes in rated conditional stimulus pleasantness. This dissociation across measures is interpreted as reflecting renewal of Pavlovian learning.

Nonverbal narratives: Listening to people with severe intellectual disability

This article describes an exploratory study that examined the perspectives of practitioners who spend much of their working day listening to and in some ways interpreting for people with severe intellectual disabilities. On the basis of focus group interviews with 23 professional disability-sector workers, including speech therapists, psychologists, and human service workers, the article reports on the importance of a practitioner's values and experience in successful interactions with individuals who rely on self-developed nonsymbolic communication repertoires. The article includes a discussion of the likelihood of including individuals with severe intellectual disabilities in narrative research.

Using workflow technology to manage flexible e-learning services

Workflow technology provides a suitable platform to define and manage the coordination of business process activities. We introduce a flexible e-learning environment – called Flex-eL – that has been built upon workflow technology. The workflow functionality of Flex-eL manages the coordination of learning and assessment activities of the course process between students and teaching staff. It provides a unique environment for teachers to design and develop process-centric courses and to monitor student progress. It allows students to learn at their own pace while observing the learning guidelines and checkpoints modeled into the course process by teaching staff. We also report on the successful deployment of the concept and system for university courses and our experiences from the implementation.

The Phox Homology (PX) domain-dependent, 3-phosphoinositide-mediated association of sorting nexin-1 with an early sorting endosomal compartment is required for its ability to regulate epidermal growth factor receptor degradation

Recent studies have shown that phox homology (PX) domains act as phosphoinositide-binding motifs. The majority of PX domains studied show binding to phosphatidylinositol 3-monophosphate (Ptdlns(3)P), an association that allows the host protein to localize to membranes of the endocytic pathway. One issue, however, is whether PX domains may have alternative phosphoinositide binding specificities that could target their host protein to distinct subcellular compartments or allow their allosteric regulation by phosphoinositides other than PtdIns(3)P. It has been reported that the PX domain of sorting nexin 1 (SNX1) specifically binds phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PtdIns(3,4,5)P-3) (Zhong, Q., Lazar, C. S., Tronchere, H., Sato, T., Meerloo, T., Yeo, M., Songyang, Z., Emr, S. D., and Gill, G. N. (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 99,6767-6772). In the present study, we have shown that whereas SNX1 binds PtdIns(3,4,5)P-3 in protein:lipid overlay assays, in liposomes-based assays, binding is observed to PtdIns(3)P and phosphatidylinositol 3,5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(3,5)P-2) but not to PtdIns(3,4,5)P-3. To address the significance of PtdIns(3,4,5)P-3 binding, we examined the subcellular localization of SNX1 under conditions in which plasma membrane PtdIns(3,4,5)P-3 levels were significantly elevated. Under these conditions, we failed to observe association of SNX1 with this membrane. However, consistent with the binding to PtdIns(3)P and PtdIns(3,5)P-2 being of more physiological significance was the observation that the association of SNX1 with an early endosomal compartment was dependent on a 3-phosphoinositide-binding PX domain and the presence of PtdIns(3)P on this compartment. Finally, we somal association of SNX1 is important for its ability to regulate the targeting of internalized epidermal growth factor receptor for lysosomal degradation.

Exploring the learning potential of an artificial life simulation

CULTURE is an Artificial Life simulation that aims to provide primary school children with opportunities to become actively engaged in the high-order thinking processes of problem solving and critical thinking. A preliminary evaluation of CULTURE has found that it offers the freedom for children to take part in process-oriented learning experiences. Through providing children with opportunities to make inferences, validate results, explain discoveries and analyse situations, CULTURE encourages the development of high-order thinking skills. The evaluation found that CULTURE allows users to autonomously explore the important scientific concepts of life and living, and energy and change within a software environment that children find enjoyable and easy to use.

Engaging with theories of dialogue and voice: Using Bakhtin as a framework to understand teaching and learning Indigenous Australian women's performance

In this paper I explore the Indigenous Australian women's performance classroom (hereafter ANTH2120) as a dialectic and discursive space where the location of possibility is opened for female Indigenous performers to enter into a dialogue from and between both non-Indigenous and Indigenous voices. The work of Bakhtin on dialogue serves as a useful standpoint for understanding the multiple speaking positions and texts in the ANTH2120 context. Bakhtin emphasizes performance, history, actuality and the openness of dialogue to provide an important framework for analysing multiple speaking positions and ways of making meaning through dialogue between shifting and differing subjectivities. I begin by briefly critiquing Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination" and consider the application and usefulness of concepts such as dialogism, heteroglossia and the utterance to understanding the ANTH2120 classroom as a polyphonic and discursive space. I then turn to an analysis of dialogue in the ANTH2120 classroom and primarily situate my gaze on an examination of the interactions that took place between the voices of myself as family/teacher/student and senior Yanyuwa women from the r e m o t e N o r t h e r n T e r r i t o r y A b o r i g i n a l c o m m u n i t y o f B o r r o l o o l a as family/performers/teachers. The 2000 and 2001 Yanyuwa women's performance workshops will be used as examples of the way power is constantly shifting in this dialogue to allow particular voices to speak with authority, and for others to remain silent as roles and relationships between myself and the Yanyuwa women change. Conclusions will be drawn regarding how my subject positions and white race privilege affect who speaks, who listens and on whose terms, and further, the efficacy of this pedagogical platform for opening up the location of possibility for Indigenous Australian women to play a powerful part in the construction of knowledges about women's performance traditions.