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Background: Centile curves and standard scores are common in epidemiological research. However, standardised norms and centile growth curves for language disorder that reflect the entire UK local school population do not exist. Methods: Scores on six language indices assessing receptive and expressive functioning of children were obtained from the SCALES population survey. Monolingual English speaking participants were aged between five and nine years. Children who attended special schools at study intake, or who were learning English as an additional language were excluded. We constructed language norms using the LMS method of standardisation which allows for skewed measurements. We made use of probability weights that were produced from a two-step logistic model. Distributions of estimated standard scores from an intensively assessed sub-population and from the full population were contrasted to demonstrate the role of weights. Results: Non-overlapping centile curves and standardised scores at each age were obtained for the six language indices. The use of weights was essential at retrieving the target distribution of the scores. An online calculator that estimates standardised scores for the measures was constructed and made freely available. Conclusions: The findings highlight the usefulness and flexibility of the LMS method at dealing with the standardisation of linguistic and educational measures that are sufficiently continuous. The paper adds to the existing literature by providing population norms for a number of language tests that were calculated from the same group of individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the social heuristics hypothesis, people intuitively cooperate or defect depending on which behavior is beneficial in their interactions. If cooperation is beneficial, people intuitively cooperate, but if defection is beneficial, they intuitively defect. However, deliberation promotes defection. Here, we tested two novel predictions regarding the role of trust in the social heuristics hypothesis. First, whether trust promotes intuitive cooperation. Second, whether preferring to think intuitively or deliberatively moderates the effect of trust on cooperation. In addition, we examined whether deciding intuitively promotes cooperation, compared to deciding deliberatively. To evaluate these predictions, we conducted a lab study in Colombia and an online study in the United Kingdom (N = 1,066; one study was pre-registered). Unexpectedly, higher trust failed to promote intuitive cooperation, though higher trust promoted cooperation. In addition, preferring to think intuitively or deliberatively failed to moderate the effect of trust on cooperation, although preferring to think intuitively increased cooperation. Moreover, deciding intuitively failed to promote cooperation, and equivalence testing confirmed that this null result was explained by the absence of an effect, rather than a lack of statistical power (equivalence bounds: d = -0.26 and 0.26). An intuitive cooperation effect emerged when non-compliant participants were excluded, but this effect could be due to selection biases. Taken together, most results failed to support the social heuristics hypothesis. We conclude by discussing implications, future directions, and limitations. The materials, data, and code are available on the Open Science Framework (). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many disciplines of scholarship are interested in the Relative Age Effect (RAE), whereby age-banding confers advantages on older members of the cohort over younger ones. Most research does not test this relationship in a manner consistent with theory (which requires a decline in frequency across the cohort year), instead resorting to non-parametric, non-directional approaches. In this article, the authors address this disconnect, provide an overview of the benefits associated with Poisson regression modelling, and two managerially useful measures for quantifying RAE bias, namely the Indices of Discrimination and Wastage. In a tutorial-like exposition, applications and extensions of this approach are illustrated using data on professional soccer players competing in the top two tiers of the “Big Five” European football leagues in the search to identify paragon clubs, leagues, and countries from which others may learn to mitigate this form of age-discrimination in the talent identification process. As with OLS regression, Poisson regression may include more than one independent variable. In this way we test competing explanations of RAE; control for unwanted sources of covariation; model interaction effects (that different clubs and countries may not all be subject to RAE to the same degree); and test for non-monotonic versions of RAE suggested in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Despite poor clinic communication and staff treatment being reported by donors, high rates of overall satisfaction are still reported in surveys. This study will evaluate the importance of communication and interaction between donors and fertility clinic staff in gamete donor care. Methods: We report on 120 egg and sperm donors’ responses to a UK-wide online satisfaction survey. The survey focused on donors’ interactions with fertility clinic staff pre-, during, and post- donation. Basic cross-tabulation was performed on the data using online survey software. Textual data was read and extracts identified, which illustrated and expanded on the findings from the numerical data. Diagrammatic modeling was also utilised to analyse the textual data, with particular focus to relationships between the donors and clinic staff, the main activities within the gamete donation process, and how these activities may affect donor satisfaction with the gamete donation process. Results: Donors expressed concern for the infertile couple and the resulting child; conveyed frustration at not receiving information on the expenses they could claim; felt lost in the system regarding the ease of making clinic appointments, and once made they were routinely not seen on time for these appointments. Donors also negatively commented on aftercare, the location and condition of the donation room, and information on contraception. In addition, Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome was frequently reported, with these egg donors believing that clinic staff were not concerned with their physical or emotional well-being, but were instead disproportionately focused on extracting the eggs. Conclusions: The multifaceted notion of donors highlights the complexity inherent to the gamete donation process, which comprises various aspects of uncertainty in the donation system, and ambiguity in the donation process. Categorising donors as Altruist, Customer, and Patient, conveys the particular importance of staff communication and treatment in donor care. These categories are not mutually exclusive however, in that an individual donor may experience more than one of these perspectives during the course of their gamete donation journey. Finally, there were a number of exemplar cases, where donors reported high satisfaction throughout, and these correlated with them being given a single point of contact at the clinic. Subject to resource constraints, we suggest that this practice should be implemented throughout clinics in the UK, so that donors have access to dedicated clinic staff who not only support them emotionally and physically throughout the gamete donation process, but also ensure that communication is open, clear, timely, and consistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Socioeconomic status has been shown to be associated with sexual activity, contraceptive-use, pregnancy and abortion among young people. Less is known about whether the strength of the association differs for each outcome, between men and women, or cross-nationally. We investigate this using contemporaneous national probability survey data from Britain and France. Methods: Data were analysed for 17–29 year-olds in Britain’s third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3, n = 5959) undertaken 2010–2012, and the 2010 French Fertility, Contraception and Sexual Dysfunction survey (FECOND, n = 3027). For each country, we estimated the gender-specific prevalence of sex before-16, contraceptive-use, conception before-20, and abortion in the event of conception, and used logistic regression to examine associations between two measures of socioeconomic status–educational-level and parental socioeconomic-group–and each outcome. We tested for interactions between socioeconomic characteristics and country, and socioeconomic characteristics and gender, for each outcome. Results: For each outcome, Britain and France differed with regard to prevalence but associations with socioeconomic characteristics were similar. Respondents of higher educational level, and, less consistently, with parents from higher socioeconomic-groups, were less likely to report sex before-16 (Britain, men: adjusted OR (aOR) 0.5, women: aOR 0.5; France, men: aOR 0.5, women: aOR 0.5), no contraception at first sex (Britain, men: aOR 0.4, women: aOR 0.6; France, men: aOR 0.4, women: aOR 0.4), pregnancy before-20 (Britain: aOR 0.3; France: aOR 0.1), and in Britain, a birth rather than an abortion in the event of conception (Britain: aOR 3.1). We found no strong evidence of variation in the magnitude of the associations with socioeconomic characteristics by country or gender. Conclusions: Population level differences in conception and abortion rates between the two countries may partly be driven by the larger proportion of the population that is disadvantaged in Britain. This research highlights the role intra-country comparisons can play in understanding young people’s sexual and reproductive behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated behaviours in stable contexts can become automatic habits. Habits are resistant to information-based techniques to change behaviour, but are contextually cued, so a change in behaviour context (e.g., location) weakens habit strength and can facilitate greater consideration of the behaviour. This idea was demonstrated in previous work, whereby people with strong environmental attitudes have lower car use, but only after recently moving home. We examine the habit discontinuity hypothesis by analysing the Understanding Society dataset with 18,053 individuals representative of the UK population, measuring time since moving home, travel mode to work, and strength of environmental attitudes. Results support previous findings where car use is significantly lower among those with stronger environmental views (but only after recently moving home), and in addition, demonstrate a trend where this effects decays as the time since moving home increases. We discuss results in light of moving into a new home being a potential ‘window of opportunity’ to promote pro-environmental behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]