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Explore the impact technology has on mathematical identity and agency when students use mathematical action technology to engage in cycles of proof and support case-based reasoning. This article showcases a mathematics task used in a fourth-grade class that allowed students to develop their conceptual understanding of division. The authors designed this mathematical challenge to address the content standard and create a learning experience during which all students meet the following objectives: (a) make conjectures about relationships among the divisor, dividend, and quotient; and (b) explain and justify their conjectures.

Purpose: Interprofessional practice within early intervention is underscored by policy, research, and recommended practices. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a brief interprofessional training on preservice speech-language pathology, early intervention/early childhood special education, physical therapy, and occupational therapy students' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about teaming and collaboration. Students' satisfaction with and perspectives of the training were also examined. Method: A one-group, pretest-posttest design was used to examine differences in 36 students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs around interprofessional practice after the training. Descriptive approaches were used to analyze student satisfaction data and focus group data in order to evaluate student perceptions of the interprofessional training. Results: A paired-samples t test showed preservice students demonstrated increased scores in self-perceived ability, value, and comfort in working with others after the training institute. Descriptive analyses illustrated students gained a richer knowledge and appreciation for other disciplines and perceived the practice of interprofessional collaboration as a valuable learning experience. Conclusion: The interprofessional training procedures, evaluation of impacts, and future directions are discussed.

Young children's communication is dependent upon caregivers' responsiveness to their behaviors; however, little is known about the responsiveness of toddler teachers to children in their classrooms. To increase teachers' responsiveness to children's behavior, a peer-coaching model was implemented in three Early Head Start classrooms. The peer-coaching model was developed to (a) increase frequency of appropriate infant/toddler teacher responses to children in their classroom, (b) increase engagement of children, and (c) support early communication of infants and toddlers. This study documented toddlers' communication with their teachers to examine trends in toddler communication and teacher responsiveness. Results of this descriptive study suggest a pattern whereby child communication acts were higher when teachers' responsiveness was higher. This finding supports the need for future research regarding best practices in increasing quality interactions between toddlers and caregivers to support communication development in early care and education settings.

Background: It is highly recommended that professionals promote caregivers' capacity-building to use intervention strategies to support children with developmental delays or disabilities in natural learning environments, particularly in the earliest years of life. There is a gap, however, in understanding the extent to which these professionals may feel supported in tailoring outreach to support parents with Intellectual Disability and/or mental health conditions (MHCs). Methods: We surveyed providers (n = 55) who work with families of infants and toddlers in Early Intervention programs across the United States. Results: Most had at least one family with intellectual disability (87%) or a MHC (92%). At least half felt parents with intellectual disability or MHCs warranted more time/resources (64% or 50%, respectively) and half were "extremely interested" in trainings to support parents with intellectual disability (48%) or MHCs (56%). Conclusions: Findings and implications are discussed.

An early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can improve outcomes for children and assist families in accessing services. Part C providers are often tasked with screening for ASD. The purpose of this study was to survey Part C providers nationwide to understand their ASD screening practices and training needs and extend a survey conducted by Tomlin and colleagues. A total of 327 providers participated. Results indicated a majority of respondents (75.8%) screen for ASD using a variety of different measures, while only 26.9% are required by their program to conduct universal screenings. Most participants reported feeling confident in screening for ASD, discussing a child's red flags with a family, referring a child for further evaluation, and discussing recent evidence surrounding ASD. An area where providers were less confident was working with interpreters to screen for ASD or discuss screening results and ASD with families with cultural or linguistic diversity. Despite high confidence levels in screening for ASD, a vast majority of participants reported they would be interested in attending a training on screening for ASD. Professional development surrounding screening for ASD and discussing ASD with families from diverse backgrounds may assist in improving Part C provider screening practices.

In 2017, more than one million children became identity theft victims. Many perpetrators of child identity theft are parents, but there are limited data on these perpetrators. The purpose of this study was to understand parental perpetrators of child identity theft through the experiences of victims. Using a phenomenological approach, six adult victims of child identity theft engaged in in-depth interviews. Findings revealed perpetrators were perceived to lack guilt, be manipulative of their victim, and concerned about their public image. Victims often utilized a credit report to understand the scope of the identity theft and begin recovery. Federal agencies and creditors were contacted by victims as part of the recovery process, but were perceived as unhelpful. Implications for financial counseling and education are discussed, including the ethical boundaries of financial counselors and educators when working with victims who experience significant mental and/or physical health challenges as a result of the victimization.

Background: Modern engineering culture is rooted in assumptions of intellectual superiority. Scholars have demonstrated that smartness functions as an oppressive cultural practice in educational settings. However, the shared ways in which undergraduate engineering students understand what it means to be smart remain largely implicit and unexamined. Purpose/Hypothesis: We investigated the beliefs held by students about what it means to be smart and the role of smartness in their undergraduate education. Design/Method: We conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with 20 students at a predominately White institution. Our team utilized open, descriptive coding to iteratively condense our data into categories, codes, and subcodes, followed by analysis to identify and characterize the participants' commonly held beliefs. Results: Students believed that being smart is working efficiently or maximizing outcomes while minimizing effort. Determining smartness as efficiency included social comparison and assumptions about effort, which introduced ambiguity into students' judgments of smartness. The resulting social hierarchy (relative positioning as smart) was commonly believed to enable or restrict access to necessary resources. Conclusions: Students' belief that smartness is an individual capacity to work more efficiently than others obfuscates the reality of smartness as a cultural practice that is baked into our systems and perpetuates inequity. Without action to reveal and disrupt smartness as a structural and oppressive practice, the status quo of inequitable participation in engineering will persist.

The family and consumer sciences (FCS) discipline focuses on developing knowledge and skills that help individuals make informed decisions about their well-being and relationships (American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences, n.d.). FCS content areas include consumer affairs (e.g., personal and family finance), nutrition, hospitality management, and child development among others. These content areas are the focus of many undergraduate degree programs. This article describes students' relationships with instructors and peers in hybrid undergraduate consumer affairs courses in Fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic at South Dakota State University.

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often at greater risk of experiencing stress and lower quality of life, in comparison to parents of typically developing (TD) children and other developmental disabilities. Despite vast literature on parental experiences in Western countries, little is known about this topic in Eastern Europe. Thus, we aimed to map studies that addressed parental experiences of children with ASD in Eastern Europe using the Double ABCX theoretical framework. The Double ABCX Model of family adaptation describes how families responds to stressors over time, based on the intercorrelation of available resources, coping mechanisms and appraisal of stressors. Following a scoping review methodological framework, we conducted a comprehensive search of three databases. We ultimately included 15 peer-reviewed studies in the review. Within each study, we examined Double ABCX Model factors. The studies were conducted in nine Eastern European countries and included parents of children and adults with ASD. Consistent with studies conducted in Western countries, parents of children with ASD expressed more personal and family challenges and greater maladaptation compared to parents of TD children. Moreover, families reported lower satisfaction with quality of life and more health problems. The small number of included papers from nine countries suggests that parental experiences of children with ASD in Eastern Europe are overlooked in the literature. Future research should explore findings from this review that differed from the Western literature, including contributing factors to parental adaption in families in Eastern Europe.

Objective: Assess physical activity (PA) and nutrition recommendation knowledge in college students. Participants: 71 students (n = 41 females; 18 to 22 years) measured in May of 2014. METHODS: Knowledge of existence and accuracy of PA and nutrition recommendations were assessed via a verbal survey. Results: Most (67.6%) were aware PA recommendations exist, but only 26.8% could accurately report them. Almost all (91.5%) were aware nutrition guidelines exist, but no higher than 23.9% answered any specific recommendation correctly. There were no significant associations between sex or body mass index (BMI) and either awareness or accuracy of PA or nutrition recommendations. Non-Kinesiology majors were 3.3 times more likely to answer that they were not aware of the existence of PA recommendations, compared to Kinesiology majors. Conclusions: Accurate knowledge of the PA and nutrition recommendations are very low and given that the majority of participants were categorized as overweight or obese, teaching these guidelines needs to be the priority.

The number of Asian American children with autism is steadily increasing. Previous research reports that parents of children with autism experience higher stress compared with parents of typically developing children. Immigrant families of children with autism are particularly vulnerable to poor access to healthcare, social services, information, and other supports. This scoping review examined the current literature focused on East Asian American families raising children with autism, with an emphasis on study characteristics and overall findings. We identified nine articles that reported on the caregiving experiences of this population. Our review revealed that extant studies focused on East Asian families used limited research methods and small samples. The studies we reviewed found variations in the ways in which East Asian parents understand autism, navigate services, access available community and family supports, and experience stress.

Token economies are an effective behavior-management tool used across multiple populations and settings. However, researchers have shown that several variables may impact its effectiveness (Hackenberg 2009, 2018). One variable within a token economy that has not been thoroughly studied is token manipulation or the extent to which the learner physically manipulates a tangible token. Thus, the current study compared the effectiveness of a token economy when participants physically manipulated tokens (token manipulation) to when the experimenter manipulated the tokens (no manipulation). In addition, we evaluated participant preference between the two conditions (i.e., token manipulation and no manipulation). The results showed higher rates of the target response during the no token manipulation condition for one participant, while no differences were observed for the other two participants. Two participants preferred the token manipulation condition, whereas the other participant showed no preference.

The current review identified 11 single-case design (SCD) and 14 group-design evaluations of naturalistic behavioral interventions targeting prelinguistic social communication in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Three SCD studies and eight group design studies utilized methodologically rigorous designs and demonstrated a functional relation between the intervention and child prelinguistic social communication. Results of this systematic review provide information about efficacy of specific naturalistic behavioral interventions, details about the intervention, and characteristics of the implementation agent and setting. Such information may be useful to support implementation of evidence-based practices and increase the quality of future research.

Much research exists supporting the efficacy of naturalistic behavioral interventions on increasing social communication skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, these evidence-based interventions are not consistently utilized in preschool classrooms. Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching was used to teach early intentional communication (i.e., purposeful and coordinated use of vocalizations, gestures, and eye contact) to three preschool students with or at risk for ASD. The present study extends prior research demonstrating the effects of PMT in increasing intentional communication through implementation in a preschool special education classroom, measurement of collateral gains related to PMT targets, and measurement of maintenance and generalization of gains. Results indicate students increased their rates of intentional communication upon introduction of PMT. These gains maintained over time for two students. Present study results have implications for future research and practice regarding the efficacy and feasibility of implementing PMT in preschool classrooms.

Researchers have identified patterns of intuitive thinking that are commonly used to understand and reason about the biological world. These "cognitive construals" (anthropic, teleological, and essentialist thinking), while useful in everyday life, have also been associated with misconceptions about biological science. Although construal-based thinking is pervasive among students, we know little about the prevalence of construal-consistent language in the university science classroom. In the current research, we characterized the degree to which construal-consistent language is present in biology students' learning environments. To do so, we coded transcripts of instructor's speech in 90 undergraduate biology classes for the presence of construal-consistent language. Classes were drawn from two universities with very different student demographic profiles and represented 18 different courses aimed at nonmajors and lower- and upper-division biology majors. Results revealed construal-consistent language in all 90 sampled classes. Anthropic language was more frequent than teleological or essentialist language, and frequency of construal-consistent language was surprisingly consistent across instructor and course level. Moreover, results were surprisingly consistent across the two universities. These findings suggest that construal-consistent language is pervasive in the undergraduate classroom and highlight the need to understand how such language may facilitate and/or interfere with students learning biological science.

This study examined variables that are within and beyond the control of students in explaining variations in performance in an introductory finance course. Regression models were utilized to consider whether the variables within the student's control have a greater impact on course performance relative to the variables beyond the student's control. Among the particular variables within the student's control were the student's inclination to procrastinate as evidenced by the relative delay the students exhibited in commencing online homework assignments. Also, separate measures were constructed to examine the effect of the accuracy of the homework submitted and the student's actual completion of those assignments. Class attendance was also considered. The variables largely beyond the control of the student examined in this study were a measure of how far along in the undergraduate program the student had progressed when he/she enrolled in the introductory finance course, a measure of the credit load of the student in the semester when the student took the course, the student's gender, the student's overall academic ability and the relative strength of the student in comprehending quantitative versus verbal concepts. For the three measures of student performance studied, average homework grade, the mid-term exam grade and the final exam grade, all of the relevant variables within the student's control demonstrated some impact on the various measures of performance. There was persuasive evidence that the variables within the student's control were more influential in explaining differences in student performance than the variables beyond the student's control.

Co-teaching during the student teaching experience has been given increased attention among researchers and teacher educators. Co-teaching facilitates an apprenticeship arrangement that encourages modeling of classroom practice for the candidate and provides a chance to implement directly what is being learned. This qualitative study explored teacher candidates' learning gains using the co-teaching model for student teaching. Teacher candidates were able to see more clearly the dynamics of how a classroom works and the process by which teachers plan lessons, implement curriculum, and manage the many duties of a classroom teacher.

This study examined associations between positive financial behaviors and positive health behaviors. Participants (n 8,128) completed an online survey about their frequency of performance of recommended practices.A multiple regression analysis was used to predict participants' health behavior score based on their emergency fund, saving, and investing behaviors, as well as their gender, age, and income. Results of this study suggest that those who are female and of a higher age and income are more likely to engage regularly in health promoting behaviors. Moreover, results suggest having a positive cash flow has more influence on engaging in health promoting behaviors, relative to maintaining an emergency fund, saving, and investing

The goal of this paper is to enhance the quality of language teaching and improve language teacher training by making spoken interaction research accessible to practitioners. Research on teacher cognition has shown that basic beliefs and assumptions about language affect language teacher training programs and language teachers' priorities in the classroom. Such beliefs tend to reflect teachers' own socialization and orient to current administrative guidelines in L2 teaching, often resulting in a focus on language production of individual speakers. In contrast, a social-interactionist perspective emphasizes the co-constructed nature of language and interaction. Unpacking teachers' beliefs and their consequences for what is taught is necessary for implementing interactional competence-based instruction. This paper suggests concrete steps to facilitate teacher training, preparing language teachers for Conversation Analysis-based Interactional Competence instruction. Such training includes, (1) sustained critical reflection of teachers' conceptions of what language is, (2) basic training of pre- and in-service teachers in micro-analytic procedures that enable the analysis of actual talk-in-interaction, and (3) models for translating and transferring research on spoken communication and interaction into pedagogical practice. These teacher training elements: advance an empirically informed, state-of-the art view on interactional competence (IC); provide teachers with the necessary tools for meaningful, reflexive work with IC materials; and can supplement current methodology textbooks.

We used a contingent acoustical feedback procedure to increase appropriate walking and decrease toe walking exhibited by a young boy with autism. After a pre-treatment screening assessment suggested that toe walking was maintained by automatic reinforcement, we paired an auditory stimulus (i.e., a clicking sound) with access to a preferred item to establish the sound as a conditioned reinforcer. Next, we delivered acoustical feedback contingent upon appropriate walking on a continuous schedule. We then thinned the delivery of acoustical feedback to a fixed ratio 8 schedule and eventually discontinued delivery altogether. Finally, we conducted two generalization probes (one pre-treatment and one post-treatment) in another setting. The results suggest that the contingent acoustical feedback procedure was effective to increase appropriate walking and decrease toe walking.

This paper examines student-faculty communication by email and the lack of clear guidelines that leads to misuse of email in student-faculty interaction, whereby status-incongruent pragmatic markers are employed, resulting in impoliteness and inappropriateness. The main objective is to bridge the gap in research on other than requestive speech acts in this particular type of e-interaction, taking into account various pragmatic markers and cultural determinants of the subjects' email communication styles. The main purpose of the study was to determine whether and to what degree the use of pragmatic markers by students is congruent with the English netiquette in this specific domain. Moreover, the aim was to investigate the relation of the usage of speech acts and pragmatic markers by students to politeness, as well as to cross-culturally compare the data obtained. The research questions were as follows: Which pragmatic markers distinguish students of different nationalities and in different university settings? What are other than requestive purposes for which students deploy email communication? Which pragmatic markers, in general, are associated with student-faculty email? Is there a correlation between the three countries represented in the corpus and (im)politeness based on the data found in all the emails? What are the implications of the study for computer-mediated language learning? The corpus consisted of 1,200 student-faculty emails written in an academic domain by university students from a German university, a Saudi Arabian university, and two Japanese universities (400 emails per country). The research method employed was of mixed qualitative-quantitative nature, with the focus on pragmatic analysis of speech acts with their illocutionary force and functions, as well as on their impact on the receiver (perlocution). It was determined that the impolite acts occurred most frequently in the corpus. This shows that students appear not to be aware of the role their email messages play in creating an impression on faculty and that structured instruction in email writing is required to improve the situation. The lack of pragmatic competence was found in all three groups of students, independent of the proficiency level and seniority; whereby explicit course guidance in email writing and its netiquette had a clear positive effect on the student-faculty interaction in terms of appropriateness and the level of politeness.

This article seeks to theorize the pedagogical work disabled instructors navigate to create accessible writing classrooms. Through retroactive analysis, I introduce the concept of Access Negotiation Moments (ANMs) as limited, low-stakes contexts where disabled instructors define the limits of their own access needs. Ultimately, I theorize a framework for planned access negotiation, so instructors can build this necessary labor into the course-planning process. Disabled instructors are already doing this work on a daily basis, but we are only beginning to give it the meta-analytical space it deserves.

Children with autism often demonstrate less variable behavior than their typically developing peers and those with other cognitive disabilities. A possible reason for lack of response variability emitted by children with autism is that they do not have a variety of response forms in their repertoire. Multiple-exemplar training through the use of scripts is one strategy that has been used to build verbal repertoires of children with autism. Extinction also has been shown to increase response variability. Given the effectiveness of script training in increasing verbal repertoires and the effectiveness of extinction for increasing response variability, the authors attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of these procedures, in isolation and in combination, on the response variability of young children with autism as they requested preferred items during snack time. Results demonstrated that extinction following script training was effective for increasing variability for 2 of the 3 participants. (Contains 1 figure.)

Purpose: Although Fuchs corneal dystrophy (FCD) is considered an eye disease, a small number of studies have identified genes related to both FCD and hearing loss. Whether FCD is related to hearing loss is unknown. Method: This is a case-control study comparing pure-tone audiometry hearing thresholds in 180 patients with FCD from a hospital-based ophthalmology clinic with 2,575 population-based controls from a nationally representative survey, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (from cycles 2005-06 and 2009-10). Generalized estimating equations were used to compare mean better-hearing ear thresholds in the 2 groups adjusted for age, sex, race, and noise exposure. Results: Patients with FCD had higher hearing thresholds (worse hearing) in lower frequencies (mean difference at 0.5 kHz = 3.49 dB HL) and lower hearing thresholds (better hearing) in higher frequencies (difference at 4 kHz = -4.25 dB HL) compared with population-based controls. Conclusion: In the first study to use objectively measured hearing, FCD was associated with poorer low-frequency and better high-frequency audiometric thresholds than population controls. Further studies are needed to characterize this relationship.

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of Part C programs and how funding has impacted the quality of services for children and families given ongoing budgetary concerns. Perceptions of State Early Intervention Coordinators (EICs) regarding their state Part C systems were obtained through an online survey. Using survey research methods to collect and analyze data, two primary questions were addressed in the current study: (a) What are the general characteristics of Part C programs that may be related to fiscal issues? and (b) What is the perceived impact of funding on the quality of services for children and families? A majority of respondents indicated their state program implements a primary service provider model, relies heavily on medical funding streams such as Medicaid, and is experiencing provider shortages. In addition, respondents commented on quality, trends, and funding of their state Part C programs. The findings of this study provide insight about the general characteristics of Part C programs, along with the perceived impact of funding on Part C services at the national level for policy makers, administrators, professionals, and families.

We assessed the use of a joint activity schedule to increase peer engagement for preschoolers with autism. We taught 3 dyads of preschoolers with autism to follow joint activity schedules that cued both members of the pair to play a sequence of interactive games together. Results indicated that joint activity schedules increased peer engagement and the number of games completed for all dyads. Schedule following was maintained without additional prompting when activities were resequenced and when new games were introduced for 2 of the 3 dyads. (Contains 1 figure.)

This study explored infield prekindergarten teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward teaching science to young children. In addition, prekindergarten teachers' previous and future interests in science-related professional development were assessed. Data were collected through a self-report measure, the preschool teacher attitudes and beliefs toward science. The sample consisted of 112 prekindergarten teachers. Findings suggest prekindergarten teachers may be more comfortable with conducting and integrating science activities and understanding the benefits of science for young children's global development than previously thought. However, teachers continue to indicate feelings of inadequacy and anxiety toward their own science knowledge and ability to support children's scientific learning. Future research should examine additional methods of assessing science teaching in prekindergarten classrooms, such as direct observation, as well as the impact of professional development on attitudes, beliefs, and practices of prekindergarten teachers when teaching science.

As Extension faculty and staff work to meet the requirements for increased scholarship activities through multiple outlets, a collaborative writing activity can be an important instrument in one's academic toolbox. Writing collaboratively allows colleagues to support one another's individual strengths and work through concerns together. This shared endeavor can help Extension professionals translate and disseminate the impacts of and findings from Extension programming for academic and practitioner audiences.

A "virtual farm" website with science-based information about dairy sustainability topics was created for a variety of audiences. A key structure of the website is layering of information. At the most frequently used entry level, a site visitor explores by looking and learning. As interest evolves, the visitor finds links to technical levels, and those with a deep interest in a topic will find peer-reviewed documents at the research resource level. Process-based model scenarios include climate change mitigation practices targeted at dairies. Anecdotally, users have appreciated the professional looking access to technical information and depiction of modern dairy farming practices. Extension educators can use the site to inform themselves, for referral of clients, and as a model.

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often demonstrate delays in expressive communication, impacting their ability to independently function in typical environments. Individuals with ASD who develop expressive language during early childhood experience better outcomes later in life; therefore, examination of naturalistic language interventions (NLIs) remain an important area of investigation. The current study used a multiple probe design across participants to examine the effects of a classroom-based NLI on various expressive language targets in three preschool-aged children demonstrating characteristics of ASD. Findings suggest the intervention had positive and maintained effects on trial-based use of language targets, as well as concomitant changes in commenting, requesting, and phrase complexity. Implications regarding implementation of NLIs within typical classroom play activities are discussed.

The purpose of this review was to identify naturalistic language interventions for increasing spontaneous expressive language (defined in this review as absence of verbal prompt or other verbalization from adults or peers) in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Also, the methodological rigor and effectiveness of each study were evaluated to determine which interventions confidently led to increases in the target behavior. A total of 24 studies that included 45 participants, 2 to 9 years of age, used a naturalistic language intervention. When using What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) guidelines to evaluate design standards, 50% of studies had adequate rigor and 33% of those studies demonstrated positive effects in the target behavior. In addition, the components of each intervention were coded and grouped by function. Implications for teachers, practitioners, and researchers are provided.

Previous research has demonstrated the utility of using lag schedules of reinforcement to increase response variability of children with autism. However, little research has evaluated whether the lag schedule promotes variability from within an already-established repertoire or expands the current repertoire by promoting the use of new responses (i.e., those not previously demonstrated). Thus, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate the extent to which lag schedules of reinforcement produced already-established intraverbal responses or novel responses for 3 children with autism. Results showed that lag schedules alone were sufficient to increase the number of different responses emitted for 2 participants, whereas brief variability training was needed for 1 participant. Further, some participants emitted novel responses throughout the experiment, suggesting that lag schedules may be an effective method for expanding a response class.

Challenging behavior can be defined as any repeated pattern of behavior, or perception of behavior, that interferes with or is at risk of interfering with optimal learning or engagement in prosocial interactions with peers and adults. It is generally accepted in young children that challenging behaviors serve some sort of communicative purpose--to gain access to something desired (e.g., a toy, adult attention) or to escape from something aversive (e.g., a difficult task; a structured activity.) An evidence-based, systemic approach to promoting positive behavior change is positive behavior support, which focuses on prevention of challenging behavior, teaching functional skills to replace the challenging behavior, removing the maintaining consequences of the challenging behavior, and reinforcing the newly acquired, desirable behavior. Successful implementation of positive behavior support requires collaboration with team members, including parents and professionals. In this article, Zhen Chai and Rebecca Lieberman-Betz present strategies that can help both professionals and parents implement behavior support plans for young children that keep track of the child's behavior, provides feedback, reviews the data regularly to examine the child's progress, and discusses with the parents how they can modify the plan when progress is not seen in a predetermined time period.

Researchers have observed that in spoken German, the conjunctions "weil" and "obwohl" commonly occur with verb-second (V2) instead of verb-final (V[subscript f]) word order (Gaumann, 1983; Gänthner, 1993, 1996; Uhmann, 1998). Current findings document that this syntactic variant of "weil/obwohl-structures" has an alternative interactional meaning and function, namely expressing different causalities (Vandergriff, 2005). Based on the results of interactional linguistic research, we will outline why it is important for foreign language learners of German to be aware of the "weil/obwohl"+V2 structure. This background provides the basis for step-by-step teaching units on variant "weil/obwohl"-clauses in the beginning and intermediate German language classroom. The suggested teaching units employ the five phases for teaching and learning pragmatics suggested by Barraja-Rohan (1997). The aim is to raise learners' awareness and understanding for this syntactic phenomenon and its interactional use in spoken German.

As youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to experience anxiety than youth in the general population, investigation of associated factors is important for diagnosis and treatment. The present study extended prior research by examining factors associated with caregiver-reported anxiety in 2662 youth (mean age = 8.82 years) with ASD. Logistic regression analyses indicated increases in age, social problems, and cognitive functioning predicted high anxiety group membership. Cognitive functioning moderated the relation of adaptive social behaviors and anxiety. Results from the present study provide support for previously identified factors associated with anxiety; however, further investigation is necessary to uncover additional factors and to explore their relation to anxiety across individuals with ASD with varying levels of cognitive functioning.

Objective: To evaluate the short-term outcome of the social marketing approach used in Project FIT, we developed a school- and community-based programme for promoting healthful eating and physical activity in kindergarten to 5th-grade children and their parents. Design: A 2-year quasi-experiment for children and two cross-sectional surveys for parents. Setting: We included low-income, urban and ethnically diverse elementary schools and neighbourhoods in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. Method: Students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades were surveyed in four intervention schools (four time points, N with at least one time point measurement = 664) and two control schools (N = 195). Parents of intervention students were surveyed at baseline (N = 286) and follow-up (N = 215). Key dependent variables included self-reported healthful eating and physical activity. Key independent variables included awareness, knowledge, motivation and attitudes towards Project FIT. Analysis: We analysed generalised linear mixed models and generalised estimation equation (GEE) models for the student surveys and mean difference tests and logistic regressions for the parent surveys. Results: The proportion of students who were aware of Project FIT increased over time. GEE models showed that selected key dependent variables were significantly associated with self-reported healthful eating and physical activity. Parents were more aware of Project FIT at follow-up compared to the baseline survey, and their attitudes were significantly associated with increased healthful eating (vegetables, fruits and whole grains). Conclusion: The social marketing approach utilised in Project FIT contributed to increasing awareness and achieving behavioural goals of healthful eating and physical activity.

This article examined the reporting of four elements of fidelity of implementation (FOI) in parent-mediated early communication treatment studies. Thirty-five studies were reviewed to extract information regarding reporting of dosage, adherence, quality, and participant responsiveness for both practitioners and parents involved in parent-delivered communication treatment for children birth to 6 years of age. Results indicate relatively low reporting practices across the four elements of FOI for both practitioners and parents. Most studies (71%) reported dosage at the practitioner level (e.g., number and length of parent-training sessions), while few studies (14%) reported dosage at the parent level (i.e., amount of intervention implemented by parents outside of treatment sessions). Results also found 60% of studies reported adherence for parent implementation, but only 34% of studies reported adherence for practitioners. Implications for low reporting in the research literature, as well as recommendations for future reporting and research on FOI, are provided.

The authors of this study evaluated the acquisition of instructive feedback information presented to four kindergarten children with mild delays taught in dyads using a constant time delay (CTD) procedure. They also assessed the learning of observational (dyadic partner) information within this instructional arrangement. A multiple probe design across word sets, replicated across the four participants, was used to evaluate the efficacy of the CTD procedure and instructive feedback on the students' expressive English sight word identification, the corresponding Spanish translations, and other students' target words. Results showed that all participants acquired high percentages of their targeted English sight words, as well as targeted Spanish translations taught through an instructive feedback procedure. Lower percentages of non-targeted English and Spanish words were acquired through observational learning.

In recent years, early childhood education and care have gained increasing public attention. This has led to an expansion of education and care programmes. Yet, little is known about how parents use different options of education and care. Take, for example, kin care, paid caregivers and out-of-kindergarten activities. Drawing on social reproduction theory, we argue that parents organise their children's lives depending on their social class. In addition, we hypothesise that immigrant status plays a role in how parents set up their children's education and care. We use logit regression models to analyse the education and care arrangements of n?=?2400 parents with 3-5?year-olds in Germany. The findings show that parents from the middle and upper classes make more use of "enrichment activities" than lower and working class parents. When it comes to the influence of immigrant status and to informal care arrangements, the findings add to a more complex picture.

We evaluated the effects of instructive feedback (IF) on the emergence of spoken category names with 2 children who had been diagnosed with autism. IF stimuli were presented during listener discrimination training and consisted of presenting the category name associated with each target stimulus. Results suggest that participants acquired the speaker relations in the absence of prompting and reinforcement. Clinical implications and future research on the use of IF as a teaching procedure for children with autism are discussed.