The identification of early factors related to academic achievement among deaf students

The purpose of this research study was to examine specific factors believed to be related to academic achievement in deaf children. More specifically, this research sought to determine whether there was a significant difference in achievement between those students whose parents use oral communication only and those whose parents use some type of sign language. An additional purpose of this research was to determine if there was a significant difference in academic achievement with those deaf students who used amplification devices early in life. This study also sought to determine whether providing early intervention program which emphasizes and enables parents to develop a language rich environment had a significant impact on the academic achievement of deaf children and whether the age at which initial services are received influence deaf student's subsequent academic achievement. This study examined the relationship, if any, between intellectual ability and academic achievement among deaf children. Finally, this study sought to investigate the relationship between the degree of hearing loss and academic achievement. ^ Purposive sampling was used to select subjects for this study. All 228 eligible Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) students enrolled in a Broward County Public School were included in the original sample. Sixty-one students actually participated in this study. A correlational method of statistical analysis as well as a cross classification (crosstabs) was used to analyze the data. ^ The results show that academic achievement in the areas of reading and mathematics was significantly related to parental mode of communication and the mode of communication used in school. Academic achievement, in the area of reading, was also signficantly related to intellectual ability. The reading achievement was also found to be significantly related to degree of hearing loss. Written language was not significantly related to any factors investigated in this study. ^ Additional research should be conducted to further investigate the low academic achievement among deaf children. The diversity among signing systems at school and between home and school should also be analyzed. Finally, future studies should examine curriculum and instruction methods to increase the academic achievement of deaf children. ^

Early morning in a short-hydroperiod Everglades marsh (south of TS/Ph-1b), Taylor Slough

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

An examination of the effects of a summer book-reading program on the language and early literacy outcomes of toddlers from high risk environments

The current study examined the impact of an early summer literacy program and the mediating effects of the home literacy environment on the language and literacy outcomes of a group of children at-risk for long-term developmental and academic delays. Participating children (n=54) were exposed to an intensive book-reading intervention each summer (June through mid August) over a 3-year period. The current study implemented an ex post facto, quasi-experimental design. This nonequivalent group design involved a pretest and posttest over three time points for a non-randomized treatment group and a matched non-treatment comparison group. Results indicated that literacy scores did improve for the children over the 3-year period; however, language scores did not experience the same rate of change over time. Receptive language was significantly impacted by attendance, and race/ethnicity. Expressive language was impacted significantly by gestational age and attendance. Results also indicated that language outcomes for young children who are exposed to a literacy program were higher than those who did not participate; however, only receptive language yielded significance at the p<.05 level. These study results also found that activities in the home that support literacy and learning do indeed impact language and literacy outcomes for these children, specifically, the age at which a child is read to, the number of books in the home, a child’s enjoyment of reading, and whether a child looks at books on his or her own impact language scores. This study concluded that at-risk young children do benefit from center-based literacy intervention. This literacy experience, however, is also driven by the children's home environment, their attendance to the program, whether they were premature or not and the type of caregiver.

Hypertension, poor glycemic control, and microalbuminuria in Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes

Purpose: To investigate to what degree the presence of hypertension (HTN) and poor glycemic control (GC) influences the likelihood of having microalbuminuria (MAU) among Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes (T2D).Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in Cuban Americans (n = 179) with T2D. Participants were recruited from a randomly generated mailing list purchased from KnowledgeBase Marketing, Inc. Blood pressure (BP) was measured twice and averaged using an adult size cuff. Glycosylated hemoglobin (A1c) levels were measured from whole blood samples with the Roche Tina-quant method. First morning urine samples were collected from each participant to determine MAU by a semiquantitative assay (ImmunoDip).Results: MAU was present in 26% of Cuban Americans with T2D. A significantly higher percentage of subjects with MA had HTN (P = 0.038) and elevated A1C (P = 0.002) than those with normoalbuminuria. Logistic regression analysis showed that after controlling for covariates, subjects with poor GC were 6.76 times more likely to have MAU if they had hypertension compared with those without hypertension (P = 0.004; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.83, 23.05). Conclusion: The clinical significance of these findings emphasizes the early detection of MAU in this Hispanic subgroup combined with BP and good GC, which are fundamentals in preventing and treating diabetes complications and improving individuals’ renal and cardiovascular outcomes.

Effect of delay of first interview and repetition of interview on accuracy and confidence of recall of a flashbulb -type memory

Hearing of the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a traffic accident, is taken as an analogue for being a percipient but uninvolved witness to a crime, or a witness to another person's sudden confession to some illegal act. This event (known in the literature as a “reception event”) has previously been hypothesized to cause one to form a special type of memory commonly known as a “flashbulb memory” (FB) (Brown and Kulik, 1977). FB's are hypothesized to be especially resilient against forgetting, highly detailed including peripheral details, clear, and inspiring great confidence in the individual for their accuracy. FB's are dependent for their formation upon surprise, emotional valence, and impact, or consequentiality to the witness of the initiating event. FB's are thought to be enhanced by frequent rehearsal. FB's are very important in the context of criminal investigation and litigation in that investigators and jurors usually place great store in witnesses, regardless of their actual accuracy, who claim to have a clear and complete recollection of an event, and who express this confidently. Therefore, the lives, or at least the freedom, of criminal defendants, and the fortunes of civil litigants hang on the testimony of witnesses professing to have FB's. ^ In this study, which includes a large and diverse sample (N = 305), participants were surveyed within 2–4 days after hearing of the fatal accident, and again at intervals of 2 and 4 weeks, 6, 12, and 18 months. Contrary to the FB hypothesis, I found that participants' FB's degraded over time beginning at least as early as two weeks post event. At about 12 months the memory trace stabilized, resisting further degradation. Repeated interviewing did not have any negative affect upon accuracy, contrary to concerns in the literature. Analysis by correlation and regression indicated no effect or predictive power for participant age, emotionality, confidence, or student status, as related to accuracy of recall; nor was participant confidence in accuracy predicted by emotional impact as hypothesized. Results also indicate that, contrary to the notions of investigators and jurors, witnesses become more inaccurate over time regardless of their confidence in their memories, even for highly emotional events. ^

Effects of Prenatal and Early Postnatal Exposure to Aversive Stimuli on Fearfulness and Exploratory Behavior in Bobwhite Qauil Neonates (Colinus virginianus)

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is a behavioral trait found across a number of animal species, including humans. Neophobic individuals perceive novel environments and stimuli to have aversive properties, and exhibit fearful behaviors when presented with non-familiar situations. The present study examined how early life exposure to aversive novel stimuli could reduce neophobia in bobwhite quail chicks. Experiment 1 exposed chicks to a novel auditory tone previously shown to be aversive to naïve chicks (Suarez, 2012) for 24 hours immediately after hatching, then subsequently tested them in the presence of the tone within a novel maze task. Postnatally exposed chicks demonstrated decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, and behaved more similarly to chicks tested in the presence of a known attractive auditory stimulus (a bobwhite maternal assembly call vocalization). Experiment 2 exposed chicks to the novel auditory tone for 24 hours prenatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel maze task. Prenatally exposed chicks showed decreased fearfulness to a similar degree as those postnatally exposed, revealing that both prenatal and postnatal exposure methods are capable of decreasing fear of auditory stimuli. Experiment 3 exposed chicks to a novel visual stimulus for 24 hours postnatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel emergence box / T-maze apparatus. Chicks exposed to the visual stimulus showed decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, thereby demonstrating the utility of this method across sense modalities. Experiment 4 assessed whether early postnatal exposure to one novel stimulus could generalize and serve to decrease fear of novelty when chicks were tested in the presence of markedly different stimuli. By combining the methods of Experiments 1 and 3, this experiment revealed that chicks exposed to one type of stimulus (auditory or visual) demonstrated decreased fear when subsequently tested in the presence of the opposite type of novel stimulus. These results suggest that experience with novel stimuli can moderate the extent to which neophobia will develop during early development.