L1 acquisition across Portuguese dialects: modular and interdisciplinary interfaces as sources of explanation

This study investigates the child (L1) acquisition of properties at the interfaces of morpho-syntax, syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics, by focusing on inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP). Three child groups were tested, 6–7-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds, as well as an adult control group. The data demonstrate that children as young as 6 have knowledge of the morpho-syntactic properties of inflected infinitives, although they seem at first glance to show partially insufficient knowledge of their syntax–semantic interface properties (i.e. non-obligatory control properties), differently from children aged 9 and older, who show clearer evidence of knowledge of both types of properties. However, in general, both morpho-syntactic and syntax–semantics interface properties are also accessible to 6–7-year-old children, although these children give preference to a range of interpretations partially different from the adults; in certain cases, they may not appeal to certain pragmatic inferences that permit additional interpretations to adults and older children. Crucially, our data demonstrate that EP children master the two types of properties of inflected infinitives years before Brazilian Portuguese children do (Pires and Rothman, 2009a and Pires and Rothman, 2009b), reasons for and implications of which we discuss in detail.

Longitudinal investigation of the role of temperament and stressful life events in childhood anxiety

The current study investigated the longitudinal relationships between BI, life events, and anxiety in a sample of 102 behaviourally inhibited (BI) and 100 uninhibited (BUI) children aged 3 to 4 years. Children’s parents completed questionnaires on BI, stressful life events, and anxiety symptoms, and were administered a diagnostic interview three times in a 5-year period. In line with our hypotheses, negative life events, and negative behaviour- dependent life events (i.e. life events that are related to the children’s own behaviours) in particular, and the impact of negative life events, were predictive of increases in subsequent anxiety symptoms, the likelihood of having an anxiety disorder, and increased number of anxiety diagnoses over the five year follow-up period. Experiencing more positive, behaviour-independent life events decreased the risk of being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Furthermore, differences were found in life events between BI and BUI children. That is, BI children experienced fewer positive and specifically positive behaviour-dependent life events, and the impact of these positive life events was also lower in BI children than in BUI children. However, BI did not interact with life events in the prediction of anxiety problems as hypothesized. Therefore, this study seems to indicate that BI and life events act as additive risk factors in the development of anxiety problems.

The relationship between parent and child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and child sleep

Cognitive theories emphasise the role of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep in the development and maintenance of sleep-related problems (SRPs). The present research examines how parents' dysfunctional beliefs about children's sleep and child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep are related to each other and to children's subjective and objective sleep. Participants were 45 children aged 11 -12 years and their parents. Self-report measures of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and child sleep were completed by children, mothers and fathers. Objective measures of child sleep were taken using actigraphy. The results showed that child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep were correlated with father (r=.43, p<.05) and mother (r=.43, p<.05) reported child SRPs, and with Sleep Onset Latency (r=.34, p<.05). Maternal dysfunctional beliefs about child sleep were related to child SRPs as reported by mothers (r=.44, p<.05), and to child dysfunctional beliefs about sleep (r=.37, p<.05). Some initial evidence was found for a mediation pathway in which child dyfunctional beliefs mediate the relationship between parent dysfunctional beliefs and child sleep. The results support the cognitive model of SRPs and contribute to the literature by providing the first evidence of familial aggregation of dysfunctional beliefs about sleep.

Lack of association between PCK1 polymorphisms and obesity, physical activity, and fitness in European Youth Heart Study (EYHS)

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase-1 (PCK1) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the hepatic gluconeogenic pathway. Studies have shown that overexpression of Pck1 in mice results in obesity-related traits and higher levels of physical activity (PA). Therefore, our aims were to investigate whether common genetic variation in the PCK1 gene influences obesity-related traits, PA, and fitness, and to examine whether PA and fitness attenuate the influence of the PCK1 polymorphisms on obesity in children. Analyses were undertaken on data from Danish and Estonian children (958 boys and 1,104 girls) from the European Youth Heart Study (EYHS), a school-based, cross-sectional study of children (mean ± s.d. age: 9.6 ± 0.4 years) and adolescents (15.5 ± 0.5 years). We genotyped eight polymorphisms that captured the common genetic variations in the PCK1 gene. The association between the PCK1 polymorphisms and BMI, waist circumference (WC), sum of four skinfolds, PA, and fitness was tested using an additive model adjusted for age, age-group, gender, maturity, and country. Interactions were tested by including interaction terms in the model. None of the polymorphisms were significantly associated with BMI, WC, sum of four skinfolds, PA, and fitness, and also with the risk of being overweight or obese (P > 0.05). The interactions between the polymorphisms and age-group, gender, PA, and fitness were not statistically significant. This is the first study to comprehensively examine the association of PCK1 polymorphisms with obesity, PA, and fitness. Despite strong evidence from animal studies, our study in the EYHS cohort failed to identify an association of PCK1 polymorphisms with obesity, PA, and fitness.

Absence of association between the INSIG2 gene polymorphism (rs7566605) and obesity in the European Youth Heart Study (EYHS)

The first genome-wide association study for BMI identified a polymorphism, rs7566605, 10 kb upstream of the insulin-induced gene 2 (INSIG2) transcription start site, as the most significantly associated variant in children and adults. Subsequent studies, however, showed inconsistent association of this polymorphism with obesity traits. This polymorphism has been hypothesized to alter INSIG2 expression leading to inhibition of fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis. Hence, we investigated the association of the INSIG2 rs7566605 polymorphism with obesity- and lipid-related traits in Danish and Estonian children (930 boys and 1,073 girls) from the European Youth Heart Study (EYHS), a school-based, cross-sectional study of pre- and early pubertal children. The association between the polymorphism and obesity traits was tested using additive and recessive models adjusted for age, age-group, gender, maturity and country. Interactions were tested by including the interaction terms in the model. Despite having sufficient power (98%) to detect the previously reported effect size for association with BMI, we did not find significant effects of rs7566605 on BMI (additive, P = 0.68; recessive, P = 0.24). Accordingly, the polymorphism was not associated with overweight (P = 0.87) or obesity (P = 0.34). We also did not find association with waist circumference (WC), sum of four skinfolds, or with total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein, or high-density lipoprotein. There were no gender-specific (P = 0.55), age-group-specific (P = 0.63) or country-specific (P = 0.56) effects. There was also no evidence of interaction between genotype and physical activity (P = 0.95). Despite an adequately powered study, our findings suggest that rs7566605 is not associated with obesity-related traits and lipids in the EYHS.

Child anxiety and parenting in England and Italy: the moderating role of maternal warmth

BACKGROUND: Parenting factors have been implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of child anxiety. Most research has been correlational with little experimental or longitudinal work. Cross-cultural comparison could be illuminating. A comparison of Italian and British children and their mothers was conducted. METHODS: A sample of 8- to 10-year old children, 60 Italian and 49 English, completed the Spence Child Anxiety Scale. Mothers also completed two questionnaires of parenting: the Skills of Daily Living Checklist (assessing maternal autonomy granting) and the Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire (assessing maternal intrusiveness). Parenting was assessed in two video-recorded blindly rated mother-child interaction tasks, the 'belt-buckling tasks and the 'etch-a-sketch', providing objective indices of overcontrol, warmth, lack of autonomy granting, and overprotection. RESULTS: There were no differences between the children in overall anxiety and specific forms of anxiety. Parenting, however, was markedly different for the two countries. Compared to English mothers, on the two questionnaires, Italian mothers were significantly less autonomy granting and more intrusive; and in terms of the observed indices, a significantly greater proportion of the Italian mothers displayed a high level of both overprotection and overcontrol, and a low level of autonomy granting. Notably, Italian mothers evidenced significantly more warmth than English mothers; and maternal warmth was found to moderate the impact of self-reported maternal intrusiveness on the level of both overall child anxiety and the level of child separation anxiety; and it also moderated the relationship between both observed maternal intrusiveness and overall child anxiety and observed maternal overprotectiveness and child separation anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Although, compared to the British mothers, the Italian mothers were more likely to evidence high levels of parenting behaviours previously found to be anxiogenic, the high levels of warmth displayed by these mothers to their children appears to have neutralised the adverse impact of these behaviours.

Promoting mother–infant book sharing and infant attention and language development in an impoverished South African population: a pilot study

The low rates of child literacy in South Africa are cause for considerable concern. Research from the developed world shows that parental sharing of picture books with infants and young children is beneficial for child language and cognitive development, as well as literacy skills. We conducted a pilot study to examine whether such benefits might extend to an impoverished community in South Africa, by evaluating the impact of training mothers in book sharing with their 14–18 month old infants. Seventeen mothers received book sharing training; and 13 mothers did not, but instead received a comparison training in toy play. We assessed the mothers’ behavior during both book sharing and toy play before and after training, and we also assessed infant attention and language. Mothers receiving book sharing training engaged well with it, and they also benefited from it; thus, compared to the comparison group mothers, they became more sensitive, more facilitating, and more elaborative with their infants during book sharing, and they also became more sensitive to their infants during toy play. In addition, infants whose mothers received the book sharing training showed greater benefits than the comparison group infants in both their attention and language. Training in book sharing for families living in conditions of marked socio-economic adversity in South Africa has the potential to be of considerable benefit to child developmental progress. A large scale controlled trial is required to confirm this.

Cashew cultivation, access to land and food security in Brong-Ahafo Region, Ghana: Preventing the intergenerational transmission of poverty

This research aimed to investigate the implications of changing agricultural land use from food production towards increased cashew cultivation for food security and poverty alleviation in Jaman North District, Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. Based on qualitative, participatory research with a total of 60 participants, the research found that increased cashew production had led to improvements in living standards for many farmers and their children over recent years. Global demand for cashew is projected to continue to grow rapidly in the immediate future and cashew-growing areas of Ghana are well placed to respond to this demand. Cashew farmers however were subject to price fluctuations in the value of Raw Cashew Nuts (RCN) due to unequal power relations with intermediaries and export buyer companies and global markets, in addition to other vulnerabilities that constrained the quality and quantity of cashew and food crops they could produce. The expansion of cashew plantations was leading to pressure on the remaining family lands available for food crop production, which community members feared could potentially compromise the food security of rural communities and the land inheritance of future generations.

Working with legal pluralism: widowhood, property inheritance and poverty alleviation in urban Senegal

This article explores the role of women's inheritance and ownership of property in urban Senegal. It shows how being able to inherit and own property promotes the economic and emotional security of widows and their children in urban areas, and discusses the challenges posed by legal pluralism in working on poverty alleviation and social protection in the city.

Treatment of child anxiety in the context of maternal anxiety disorder: a randomised controlled trial and economic analysis

Background Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) for childhood anxiety disorders is associated with modest outcomes in the context of parental anxiety disorder. Objectives This study evaluated whether or not the outcome of CBT for children with anxiety disorders in the context of maternal anxiety disorders is improved by the addition of (i) treatment of maternal anxiety disorders, or (ii) treatment focused on maternal responses. The incremental cost-effectiveness of the additional treatments was also evaluated. Design Participants were randomised to receive (i) child cognitive–behavioural therapy (CCBT); (ii) CCBT with CBT to target maternal anxiety disorders [CCBT + maternal cognitive–behavioural therapy (MCBT)]; or (iii) CCBT with an intervention to target mother–child interactions (MCIs) (CCBT + MCI). Setting A NHS university clinic in Berkshire, UK. Participants Two hundred and eleven children with a primary anxiety disorder, whose mothers also had an anxiety disorder. Interventions All families received eight sessions of individual CCBT. Mothers in the CCBT + MCBT arm also received eight sessions of CBT targeting their own anxiety disorders. Mothers in the MCI arm received 10 sessions targeting maternal parenting cognitions and behaviours. Non-specific interventions were delivered to balance groups for therapist contact. Main outcome measures Primary clinical outcomes were the child’s primary anxiety disorder status and degree of improvement at the end of treatment. Follow-up assessments were conducted at 6 and 12 months. Outcomes in the economic analyses were identified and measured using estimated quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). QALYS were combined with treatment, health and social care costs and presented within an incremental cost–utility analysis framework with associated uncertainty. Results MCBT was associated with significant short-term improvement in maternal anxiety; however, after children had received CCBT, group differences were no longer apparent. CCBT + MCI was associated with a reduction in maternal overinvolvement and more confident expectations of the child. However, neither CCBT + MCBT nor CCBT + MCI conferred a significant post-treatment benefit over CCBT in terms of child anxiety disorder diagnoses [adjusted risk ratio (RR) 1.18, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.87 to 1.62, p = 0.29; adjusted RR CCBT + MCI vs. control: adjusted RR 1.22, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.67, p = 0.20, respectively] or global improvement ratings (adjusted RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.59, p = 0.05; adjusted RR 1.20, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.53, p = 0.13). CCBT + MCI outperformed CCBT on some secondary outcome measures. Furthermore, primary economic analyses suggested that, at commonly accepted thresholds of cost-effectiveness, the probability that CCBT + MCI will be cost-effective in comparison with CCBT (plus non-specific interventions) is about 75%. Conclusions Good outcomes were achieved for children and their mothers across treatment conditions. There was no evidence of a benefit to child outcome of supplementing CCBT with either intervention focusing on maternal anxiety disorder or maternal cognitions and behaviours. However, supplementing CCBT with treatment that targeted maternal cognitions and behaviours represented a cost-effective use of resources, although the high percentage of missing data on some economic variables is a shortcoming. Future work should consider whether or not effects of the adjunct interventions are enhanced in particular contexts. The economic findings highlight the utility of considering the use of a broad range of services when evaluating interventions with this client group. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN19762288. Funding This trial was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust and managed by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on behalf of the MRC–NIHR partnership (09/800/17) and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 19, No. 38.

Multiple schools, languages, experiences and affiliations: ideological becomings and positionings

This article focuses on the identity accounts of a group of Chinese children who attend a heritage language school. Bakhtin’s concepts of ideological becoming, and authoritative and internally persuasive discourse, frame our exploration. Taking a dialogic view of language and learning raises questions about schools as socializing spaces and ideological environments. The children in this inquiry articulate their own ideological patterns of alignment. Those patterns, and the children's code switching, seem mostly determined by their socialization, language affiliations, friendship patterns, family situations, and legal access to particular schools. Five patterns of ideological becoming are presented. The children’s articulated preferences indicate that they assert their own ideological stances towards prevailing authoritative discourses, give voice to their own sense of agency and internally persuasive discourses, and respond to the ideological resources that mediate their linguistic repertoires.

Adaptive social protection: mapping the evidence and policy context in the agriculture sector in south Asia

An aim of government and the international community is to respond to global processes and crises through a range of policy and practical approaches that help limit damage from shocks and stresses. Three approaches to vulnerability reduction that have become particularly prominent in recent years are social protection (SP), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA). Although these approaches have much in common, they have developed separately over the last two decades. However, given the increasingly complex and interlinked array of risks that poor and vulnerable people face, it is likely that they will not be sufficient in the long run if they continue to be applied in isolation from one another. In recognition of this challenge, the concept of Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) has been developed. ASP refers to a series of measures which aims to build resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable people to climate change by combining elements of SP, DRR and CCA in programmes and projects. The aim of this paper is to provide an initial assessment of the ways in which these elements are being brought together in development policy and practice. It does this by conducting a meta-analysis of 124 agricultural programmes implemented in five countries in south Asia. These are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The findings show that full integration of SP, DRR and CCA is relatively limited in south Asia, although there has been significant progress in combining SP and DRR in the last ten years. Projects that combine elements of SP, DRR and CCA tend to emphasise broad poverty and vulnerability reduction goals relative to those that do not. Such approaches can provide valuable lessons and insights for the promotion of climate resilient livelihoods amongst policymakers and practitioners.

L1 Acquisition of interface properties across Portuguese dialects: modular and interdisciplinary interfaces as sources of explanation

This study investigates the child (L1) acquisition of properties at the interfaces of morphosyntax, syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics, by focusing on inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP). Three child groups were tested, 6–7-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds, as well as an adult control group. The data demonstrate that children as young as 6 have knowledge of the morpho-syntactic properties of inflected infinitives, although they seem at first glance to show partially insufficient knowledge of their syntax–semantic interface properties (i.e. non-obligatory control properties), differently from children aged 9 and older, who show clearer evidence of knowledge of both types of properties. However, in general, both morpho-syntactic and syntax–semantics interface properties are also accessible to 6–7-year-old children, although these children give preference to a range of interpretations partially different from the adults; in certain cases, they may not appeal to certain pragmatic inferences that permit additional interpretations to adults and older children. Crucially, our data demonstrate that EP children master the two types of properties of inflected infinitives years before Brazilian Portuguese children do (Pires and Rothman, 2009a,b), reasons for and implications of which we discuss in detail.