Scholastic Skills Research Articles

Dongguk–Royal University

Dongguk–Royal University

Changes in Latino Students’ Perceptions of School Belonging Over Time: Impact of Language Proficiency, Self-Perceptions and Teacher Evaluations

There are many factors associated with academic success at school. In addition to having the requisite cognitive abilities and scholastic skills, students need to feel that school is a place in which they belong. This study examines factors related to perceptions of school belonging for a sample of Latino elementary school students. Participants were 57 Latino youth, 26 of whom were English Language Learners and the rest of whom were English proficient. Students were assessed in fourth and sixth grades in this longitudinal study. Self-perceptions and teacher perceptions of these students were available at the beginning and end of each academic year. The results indicated that in fourth grade English Language Learners had a decrease in school belonging while their English proficient classmates did not. Factors associated with school belonging differed between the fourth and the sixth grades. In addition to the impact of language proficiency, fourth graders’ sense of belonging was associated with teacher evaluations while sixth graders’ perceptions were primarily affected by peer self-concept. Implications for school psychologists and other educational professionals are discussed.

Scholastic difficulties with behavioural problems.

The study aimed at investigating behavioral problems in children with scholastic skill difficulties. A sample of children (n=20) aged 5 to 8 years with scholastic difficulties with those who did not have difficulties was being compared. It has revealed the number of externalizing, internalizing and learning problems in children with scholastic difficulties. Need for management of behavioral problems along with re-mediation of scholastic difficulties is highlighted.

School competence in young adolescence: Links to early attachment relationships beyond concurrent self-perceived competence and representations of relationships

Predictive associations of infant attachment to mothers and fathers with later school functioning, beyond the contribution of contemporaneous representations of relationships and circumstances of caregiving, were examined in 66 young adolescents who were raised in infancy in Israeli kibbutzim with collective sleeping. The Strange Situation Procedure was used to evaluate early attachment to mother and father, the Separation Anxiety Test was used to assess contemporaneous representation of relationships, and teachers’ reports evaluated school functioning. Circumstances of caregiving included parental reports of quality of marital relations and a change from collective sleeping to home sleeping for children. Results showed that infant attachment to mother, but not to father, contributed significant additional variance to the prediction of children’s scholastic skills and emotional maturity beyond the contribution of concurrent representations of relationships and changes in circumstances of caregiving. The results support the secure base construct as an organising concept of longitudinal investigations of attachment.

Self-image and performance in children with nocturnal enuresis.

To study the self-image of children between 8 and 12 years with nocturnal enuresis, and to correlate the findings with age, sex, clinical symptoms, primary versus secondary enuresis and treatment failures. The study-group embraced 50 university hospital, and therefore selected therapy-resistant nocturnal enuresis-children, 27 boys and 23 girls. The mean age was 9.8, which means children aged between 8 and 12 years. Children were classified into two age groups: I=8-9 years and II=9-12 years. A total of 41 out of 50 had primary nocturnal enuresis. The mean number of treatments before intake was 5.6, A=1-4, B=5-8, C=9-12. Seventy-seven children without nocturnal enuresis were included in the control group, 31 boys and 46 girls. The method we used to measure the perceived competence of the children on specific domains of their life was the Dutch translation and also validation of the "Self-Perception Profile for Children" by Harter. The testing was performed before and after therapy. Children with nocturnal enuresis have a significantly lower perceived competence than children without nocturnal enuresis, concerning physical appearance (p<0.05) and global self-esteem (p<0.01). There is a main effect of gender (p<0.01) and age (p<0.05) concerning scholastic skills. There is a correlation with the number of treatment failures. The more treatment failures, the lower the self-esteem. After successful treatment, there is an improvement of 'athletic competence' and 'global self-esteem', but it is not significant. Nocturnal enuresis has important negative effects on the self-image and performance of children. Perceived competence was lower in girls than in boys with enuresis, and it was significantly lower in the higher age than in the lower. Children with day-time and night-time incontinence have a significantly decreased perceived competence on scholastic skills compared to children with nocturnal problems only. Successful treatment tended to increase athletic competence and global self-esteem.

Behaviour Problems In Children and Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD 1987) defines learning disabilities as follows: Learning Disabilities is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities. These disorders are intrinsic to the individual, presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction and may occur across the life span. Problems in self regulatory behaviours, social perception and social interaction may exist with learning disabilities but do not by themselves constitute a learning disability. The DSM IV (APA 1994) introduced the term learning disorders. Learning disorders are of four types: reading disorder, mathematics disorder, disorder of written expression and learning disorder not otherwise specified. But only a few scientific publications have used this terminology. Learning disorder has been addressed by various labels in research literature such as learning disabilities, reading disabilities, specific developmental disorders of scholastic skills, dyslexia, dyscalculia etc. Literature reviewed here includes all of these, as they are conceptually similar.

Epidemiology and prognosis of specific disorders of language and scholastic skills.

Data from a prospective longitudinal study on the development of children born at biological and psychosocial risk were utilised to examine language and learning abilities of 320 children at ages 4.5 and 8 years. Following the research criteria of the ICD-10, specific developmental disorders of speech and language and specific developmental disorders of scholastic skills were diagnosed. Data were also provided for a clinical and general low achievement group according to less stringent criteria. Frequencies in the risk population were low for specific disorders (ICD-10) (0.6%-3.7% depending on age and type of disorder). Higher frequencies were found when a clinical definition (0.6%-13.6%) or overall low achievement score (0.6%-18.6%) was chosen. The impact of well-documented organic and psychosocial risks was analysed. Organic risk affected language abilities at 4.5 years of age but neither language nor learning abilities at 8 years of age. Psychosocial aspects of a child's environment proved to be associated with both specific language and learning abilities. Stability of language disorders, association between language and reading/spelling disorders as well as gender effects were investigated.

EEG, cognitive and psychopathological abnormalities in children irradiated in utero

Computerised EEG, a clinical neuropsychiatric examination, and IQ tests were examined in 50 randomly selected prenatally irradiated 9–10-year-old children and compared with 50 randomly selected non-exposed control children of the same age. In the prenatally irradiated children a disorganised EEG-pattern with slow and paroxysmal activity (acute and high-voltage δ-waves, sometimes: spike-waves) in the left fronto-temporal region was disclosed. There was also a significant predominance of δ- and β (dominant frequency: 20 Hz)-power in the frontal lobe, particularly, in the left fronto-temporal region, together with depressed spectral θ-power. The more disorganised EEG-patterns were observed in those children exposed at 8–15 weeks of prenatal development, while left-hemisphere abnormalities were more typical for those exposed later at 16–25 weeks of gestation. There was also a significant increase of borderline and low range (70–90) IQ scores and a significant decrease of high verbal (>110) IQ scores. Disorders of psychological development, particularly specific developmental disorders of speech, language, and scholastic skills were more common and correlated with left-sided slow- and fast-wave activity. Behavioural and emotional disorders (social estrangement, exhaustion, emotional lability, tearfulness, apathy) were also more common and associated with a L>R imbalance in arousal. We hypothesise that the cerebral basis of mental disorders in the prenatally irradiated children is the malfunction of the left hemisphere limbic-reticular structures, particularly in those exposed at the most critical period of cerebrogenesis (16–25 weeks of gestation). We propose that the left hemisphere is more vulnerable to prenatal irradiation than the right.

The Psychological Development of Children from Belarus Exposed in the Prenatal Period to Radiation from the Chernobyl Atomic Power Plant

This study examined psychological development in 138 children at the age of 6-7 and 10-11 years, who had suffered prenatal radiation exposure at the time of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. These children were compared to a control group of 122 children of the same age from noncontaminated areas of Belarus. The examination included neurological and psychiatric examination, intellectual assessment, and clinical psychological investigation of parents as well as the estimation of thyroid exposure in utero. The exposed group manifested a relative increase in psychological impairment compared with the control group, with increased prevalence in cases of specific developmental speech-language disorders (18.1% vs. 8.2% at 6-7 years; 10.1% vs. 3.3% at 10-11 years) and emotional disorders (20.3% vs. 7.4% at 6-7 years; 18.1 vs. 7.4% at 10-11 years). The mean IQ of the exposed group was lower than that of the control group, and there were more cases of borderline IQ (IQ = 70-79) (15.9% vs. 5.7% at 6-7 years; and 10.1% vs. 3.3% at 10-11 years). The mean value of thyroid doses from 131I 0.4 Gy was estimated for children exposed in utero. No correlation was found between individual thyroid doses and IQ at age 6-7 years or 10-11 years. We notice a positive moderate correlation between IQ of children and the educational level of their parents. There was a moderate correlation between high personal anxiety in parents and emotional disorders in children. We conclude that a significant role in the genesis of borderline intellectual functioning, specific developmental disorders of speech, language and scholastic skills, as well as emotional disorders in the exposed group of children was played by unfavourable social-psychological and social-cultural factors such as a low educational level of parents, the break of microsocial contacts, and adaptational difficulties, which appear following the evacuation and relocation from the contaminated areas.

The classification of specific motor coordination disorders in children: some problems to be solved

The general term “specific developmental disorder” is used to refer to a range of developmental delays which cannot be explained in terms of intellectual retardation, a known medical condition or adverse environmental conditions. Two classification schemes produced by the World Health Organisation and the American Psychiatric Association contain descriptions of various sub-categories of specific developmental disorder, covering the domains of language, scholastic skills and motor coordination. In this paper, we focus exclusively on the classification schemes proposed for the motor domain. Following a consideration of the terminology adopted by the two schemes we proceed to a detailed analysis of the diagnostic criteria proposed. PsycINFO classification: 3250

How specific are "specific developmental disorders"? The relevance of the concept of specific developmental disorders for the classification of childhood developmental disorders.

The concept of "specific developmental disorder" (SDD) refers to delays in developmental domains such as language and speech development, motor coordination or the development of scholastic skills, in the absence of sensory deficits, subnormal intelligence or poor educational conditions. The key element in this concept is the notion of a discrepancy between observed and expected level of development. In DSM-III-R and ICD-10, SDD serves as a conceptual umbrella, suggesting that the subsumed disorders are of the same type. In DSM-IV, the SDD umbrella is not used explicitly, but the notion of a discrepancy is present in the categories of Learning Disorders, Motor Skill Disorder and Communication Disorders, suggesting a close relationship between these disorders. One of the advantages of the use of SDD as a unifying concept is that it contributes to the standardisation of the description of the various disorders. However, based on reviews of research regarding the reliability and validity of the SDD categories, we argue that the application of a unifying SDD concept has been premature. For each of the categories for disorders in scholastic skills, language, speech and motor coordination, the notion of a discrepancy between observed and expected level of development should be elaborated and tested more thoroughly, before SDD can be used as a unifying concept in classification.

A General Theory of (Australian) Industrial Relations

Industrial relations is not a discipline which has a strong tradition of developing its own theoretical insights or indulging in the scholastic skill of abstract thought. The major reason for this is that industrial relations scholarship is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in nature. While scholars regularly bemoan the theoretical tun dra in which industrial relations finds itself, they seem unprepared to do anything about it. Differences are examined between micro, macro and general models. The distinctive contribution of this article is to develop a general theory of (Australian) industrial relations, based on the analytical concept of an orbit of interaction. Various propositions of the general theory are formally stated and presented.

Psychological effects of subclinical epileptiform EEG discharges. I. Scholastic skills

The possible effects of subclinical epileptiform EEG discharges on educational skills have been studied. Twenty children with proven or suspected epilepsy and known subclinical EEG discharges underwent telemetric EEG and video monitoring during standard tasks of reading, mental arithmetic and manual dexterity, and at rest. The discharge rate was significantly lower at rest than during execution of a task. For both reading and arithmetic, the discharge rate was higher when the child was presented with material appropriate to his own level of ability than when easier or more difficult material was given. High discharge rates were associated with low test performance particularly for arithmetic. Reading speed was significantly increased during the discharges, but overall reading efficiency was significantly reduced with respect to the non-discharge condition. The decrement of reading efficiency was greater for longer than for shorter discharges. The findings confirm that otherwise subclinical EEG discharges may be accompanied by momentary impairment of scholastic skills. The interaction between discharges and cognitive function is, however, complex and the nature and level of difficulty of the task in turn affects the rate of EEG discharge.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Computers in Today's World: by Gary G. BitterHolt General Science New York: by Holt, Rinehart and WinstonNo Sense in Mathematics: by Donald P. SkowProblem Solving in Mathematics: A Scholastic Skills Book; Vol. C‐H by Linda JensenWhy I Cough, Sneeze, Shiver, Hiccup, &amp; Yawn: by Melvin Berger

Effectiveness of students and parents in a psycho-educational intervention programme for children with learning problems

Abstract This study investigated the effects of involving two sources of ‘non-traditional manpower’ — namely, university students and parents — in a programme of psycho-educational intervention. It was predicted that, while intervention for children with learning problems would produce significant changes in their perceptions in relation to their families, in their scholastic skills and in their adjustment, the additional involvement of their parents would lead to even greater changes. To test this prediction, 36 children referred to a university Education Clinic were randomly divided into three equal-sized groups: youth counselling plus parent counselling (E1), youth counselling (E2), and a control group (C). While the hypothesised changes following intervention were not statistically demonstrated, clinical data did yield support for the effectiveness and potential value of the intervention programmes.

Conductive Hearing Loss Effects on Children's Language and Scholastic Skills

A review of available studies investigating the consequences of conductive hearing loss for language acquisition and scholastic performance was carried out. It uncovered no study that met the standards of rigor needed to provide a definitive answer to this question, although the burden of the evidence is that a persistent mild hearing loss, especially if present since infancy, probably has a measurably deleterious effect on the language of most but not all children. Diagnostic criteria documenting the severity, age of occurrence and duration of middle ear effusions were lacking. Measures of the detrimental effects of conductive losses on linguistic skills frequently were limited to the number of grades children were retained in school, their reading or vocabulary level on achievement tests, or a comparison of their scores on the verbal and performance scales of intelligence tests. Very few studies followed the acquisition of language in affected children or examined its structure. Very few considered the interaction between the socioeconomic and cultural environment of the child and the consequences of his hearing loss. The review underscored the need for prospective multidisciplinary studies in order to evaluate the actual impact of this common pediatric problem.

Medical Research Council Developmental Psychology Unit

In 1967 a proposal was made by the Medical Research Council that a unit be set up to consider the scholastic and behavioural skills of handicapped children and adolescents. In the beginning, three groups of studies were envisaged—those concerned with visual displays and orientation, those concerned with verbal ability and its development, and those concerned with immediate memory and the organization of perception.

Visuoperceptual, Visuomotor, and Scholastic Skills of Alternating and Uniocular Squinting Children

Visuoperceptual, Visuomotor, and Scholastic Skills of Alternating and Uniocular Squinting Children

DISTRACTIBILITY AND SOME SCHOLASTIC SKILLS.

Journal of Child Psychology and PsychiatryVolume 6, Issue 1 p. 55-62 DISTRACTIBILITY AND SOME SCHOLASTIC SKILLS* Roy I. Brown, Roy I. Brown Institute of Education, Bristol, EnglandSearch for more papers by this author Roy I. Brown, Roy I. Brown Institute of Education, Bristol, EnglandSearch for more papers by this author First published: January 1965 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1965.tb02154.xCitations: 2 * The article is based on material which is to be presented in Ph. D. thesis, University of London. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume6, Issue1January 1965Pages 55-62 RelatedInformation