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Ernst Papanek (1900-1973) was an Austrian pedagogue who, between 1938 and 1940, was responsible for children's homes in France he directed for the OSE (Oeuvre de secours aux en-fants). In these children's homes at Montmorency, close to Paris, Papanek tried to treat the traumatized children who had lost their homes, their parents, and those who struggled with their own identities that had been called into question by ideological propaganda and personal experiences alike. Papanek decided to give their souls a new home and not only intended to keep them physically alive but also to use a new form of therapy that was supposed to treat the children as a group. In 1940, Papanek had to escape from France, via Spain and Portugal, to the United States, and he tried to rescue the children by bringing them across the Atlantic as well. However, when he advocated for the idea to continue their treatment as a group in a children's home like the ones he had run in France, he met with resistance, as such approaches were uncommon in the United States, where social workers sought to separate the children and have them adopted into different foster families nationwide. This paper describes this transatlantic "struggle of ideas" when it comes to the role of group therapy for traumatized children and the positive impact of such children living collectively in homes.

This study tried to determine the errors in writing samples to clarify the proficiency and deficiency of writing in the mother tongue of Turkish children who live in France. Participants in the study included 25 students who studied Turkish and Turkish culture at the level of primary and secondary public schools in Lyon, France. In the research, document analysis method was used within the framework of the qualitative research model. Twenty-five writing papers collected after a writing task assigned by Turkish and Turkish culture teachers during the class including 4,695 words, constitute the data set of the research. Writing samples obtained from students were accepted as documents and subjected to content analysis. Content analysis was done through Nvivo 12 qualitative data analysis program, which is frequently used in qualitative research. Within the scope of the research, a total of 1669 error codes were obtained in four categories from the documents. It was seen that the highest number of errors occurred in the category of writing errors with the error code 656, followed by spelling errors with the error code 622, inter-language transfer errors with the error code 248, and punctuation errors with the error code 143. The result is that students in France should go through a more qualified learning process in their native language writing skills.

Between 2015 and 2016 we conducted computer based tests with 177 French migrant students enrolled in primary, middle and high schools, to evaluate their mathematical abilities and their levels of literacy. With 26 of this group, we supplemented data from their results with interviews and exercises on paper. By comparing their scores to those of native speakers, we sought to establish the reasons for the gap in mathematical achievement that exists between these groups of learners. We have observed that academic language plays an essential role in this phenomenon but we have proved that this factor is not necessary linked to their proficiency in French. In addition, we have found other obstacles which hinder mathematical achievement of some migrant students. Consequently, considering the range of these factors, we have concluded that an evaluation of the specific needs of each migrant student has to been made so that each of them can receive the help that they require.

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Little is known about whether manipulatives can support children's inferences of the mathematical structure of word problems. The objective was to test the effects of using manipulatives during problem solving on students' understanding of the additive relationships in word problems. Third and fifth graders (N = 45) solved one-step addition and subtraction word problems that described either a mathematical action or relation. Children in each grade were randomly assigned to either a manipulatives or a paper-and-pencil condition. Problem structure understanding was assessed by the degree to which students' strategies and verbal justifications reflected the quantitative relationships described in the problem text. Performance of the fifth graders was not impacted by the use of manipulatives, but in the third grade, strategy performance with manipulatives was superior to performance without manipulatives on Relation problems. The degree to which the third graders' justifications were aligned with corresponding problem structure was positively impacted by manipulatives regardless of problem type.

This paper discusses the contributions of the Dominican Sisters and Sisters of Mercy in running schools for female deaf children in Ireland during the period 1846 to 1946. The schools were established as part of an attempt to educate Catholics in the Catholic faith and provide literacy to female deaf children. In assuming the challenge of educating deaf girls, the sisters adopted a method of teaching and learning through signed language of which they had little prior knowledge. While the history of the schools is contextualised as a central narrative of this paper, the religious orders' attempt to educate deaf children effectively is examined in the context of teacher role models and sign language pedagogy. This paper argues that the work of the Mercy and Dominican sisters should be recognised for its contribution to the education of female deaf children, whose needs would otherwise have been neglected.

After being wrongfully blamed for their child's disturbances, French parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are now perceived as essential partners of care professionals. This shift in perspective has encouraged the development of parent training programs in the field of autism. In this paper, we present three programs currently implemented in France for parents of a child with ASD. We investigated their social validity, from the parents' perspective. All three programs showed good social validity: attendance rate was good and parents were satisfied. In France, like elsewhere, more parents should be given the opportunity to participate in such programs to help them deal with the specific challenges of raising a child with ASD.

Engagement with stakeholders is an essential part of the research process. This is particularly the case for early autism research with infant cohorts and their families, where a range of ethical issues are pertinent. Here, we report on a large survey of parents who have a child on the autism spectrum (n = 1040) which specifically probed attitudes to early autism research. The large majority of parents showed positive attitudes overall, and these were associated with greater access to services, higher service quality ratings and higher rates of intellectual disability among their children. Parents valued the scientific goals of research, but half of parents also reported that an intervention component would be an essential prerequisite for them to participate in research. If enrolled in a study, parents were positive about most commonly used measures though less favourably disposed towards brain scans for children. They valued direct contact with the research team and openness in data sharing. We interpret our findings in terms of lessons for the early autism research community and for stakeholder engagement projects. [Members of the COST ESSEA Working Groups contributed to the writing of this paper.]

This paper reports on an original study designed to investigate age-related change in the way French children produce speech during oral narrative, considering both prosodic parameters -- speaking rate and duration of the prosodic speech unit -- and linguistic structure. Eighty-five French children aged four to eleven years were asked to tell a story after they were shown an excerpt from an animated film. All their remarks were transcribed and coded using "ELAN" as an annotation tool. Each narrative was analyzed for duration, articulation rate, and linguistic components (i.e., number of phonic groups, syllables, words, clauses). All measures were found to increase with age, with the duration of the phonic group and its linguistic structure showing the stronger differences. Results contribute to providing reference data on speech production during childhood, and they suggest the existence of two distinct developmental patterns in narrative production.

In language policy research, "policy" has traditionally been conceptualised as a notion separate from that of "practice". In fact, language practices were usually analysed with a view to evaluate whether a policy is being implemented or resisted to. Recently, however, Spolsky in ("Language policy". Cambridge University press, Cambridge, 2004; "Work Pap Educ Linguist" 22(1):1-14, 2007; "Encyclopedia of language and education". Springer, New York, 2008) has argued that policy and practice need not be seen as distinct and that there is a policy within language practices themselves. In this paper, I propose to call the policy found at the level of language practices a "practiced language policy". The aim of this paper is to explore further this new conceptualisation of language policy and to propose an approach to research it. I argue that Conversation Analysis in its broad sense (that is, including Sequential Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis) can be an efficient tool to discover practiced language policies and give an illustration of this argument drawing on a case study of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France.

This paper examines the life-time measures and trends of children's experiences in single-parent and two-parent families in Russia and France, within the context of generations. The study was conducted using two panel waves of GGS-Russia (2004, 2007) and GGS-France (2005, 2008). The results indicate that despite the Second Demographic Transition starting later in Russia than in France, and with approximately equal proportions of children born to single mothers, Russian children born in intact families are more likely to live in single-parent families later in life than French children. However, children born outside of a union in Russia have an advantage over French children in terms of their experiences and time spent living in two-parent families. The study of intergenerational dynamics reveals an obvious trend in Russia of an increase, from generation to generation, in the time such children spend living in two-parent families, while the same indicator in France has remained practically stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent keynote speech Paul Standish noted "there is agreement in judgments. But how the response to those judgments is realised is always cultural" (paper presented to PESA Conference, Taiwan, 2012, p. 2). Making judgments about what constitutes "crisis" for children is not necessarily agreed universally, though clearly there are some commonalities across many countries, as evident in United Nations on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) agreements. This article examines the local rhetoric and reality of "crisis" for children in countries across the world. What constitutes a crisis for children, and how this plays out in the contexts of nine countries is explored by the authors based on the insights of each countries' (OMEP) (www.omep.org.gu.se) Chapter representatives. Policies will be juxtaposed with provision based on the experiences of OMEP members reporting from their various contexts. Taken together they provide a contextualised perspective on "crisis" and its relationship to a non-absolutist foundation to children's rights. The article concludes that what constitutes crisis from a global perspective warrants consideration in the context of local reality--in this locale the concept of every child as having access to "rights" is far from realisation.

This paper aims to investigate whether--and how--consonant sonority (obstruent vs. sonorant) and status (coda vs. onset) within syllable boundaries modulate the syllable-based segmentation strategies. Here, it is questioned whether French dyslexic children, who experience acoustic-phonetic (i.e., voicing) and phonological impairments, are sensitive to an optimal "sonorant coda-obstruent onset" sonority profile as a cue for a syllable-based segmentation. To examine these questions, we used a modified version of the illusory conjunction paradigm with French dyslexic children compared with both chronological age-matched and reading level-matched controls. Our results first showed that the syllable-based segmentation is developmentally constrained in visual identification: in normally reading children, it appears to progressively increase as reading skills increase. However, surprisingly, our results also showed that dyslexic children were able to use syllable-sized units. Then, data highlighted that a syllable-based segmentation in visual identification basically relies on an optimal "sonorant coda-obstruent onset" sonority profile rather than on phonological and orthographic statistical properties in normally reading children as well as, surprisingly, in dyslexic children. Our results are discussed to support a sonority-modulated prelexical role of syllable-sized units in visual identification in French, even in dyslexic children who exhibited a developmentally delayed profile. We argue that dyslexic children have deficits in online phonetic-phonological processing rather than degraded or underspecified phonetic-phonological representations. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

At the end of the nineteenth century Aime Bogaerts, a Socialist primary school teacher at a Ghent municipal school and from 1901 on the chief editor of the Socialist newspaper "Vooruit", began a new educational initiative: "the children of the popular classes from Ghent" ("De Gentsche Volkskinderen"). Children from the working class were invited to sing, to dance, to recite, to do gymnastics and to play theatre. At the same time, short and longer holiday trips to France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England and Germany were organised. In this paper, based on written primary sources and visual sources, Bogaerts's "Gentsche Volkskinderen" will be analysed from a double "child at risk" perspective. First, there is the child at risk on a political-ideological level. With his initiative Bogaerts wanted to convince working-class parents to withdraw their children from the activities organised by the Liberal workers' societies as he strongly disagreed with the central Liberal idea of "moralising the workers by enlightening them". Second, there is the child at risk on an educational level. Bogaerts wanted to put forward a rationalistic educational project. This double analysis will reveal an interesting educational paradox: integral rationalistic educated children appear as Socialist propaganda tools. (Contains 3 figures and 82 footnotes.)

The aim of this paper was to study the construction of children's self-perception relying on Cooley's hypothesis. More precisely, we were interested in the mediation effect of significant others' actual appraisal on self-perception by the perception of others' actual appraisal (i.e., reflected appraisal). First, we argued that this mediation effect would occur in the domains where children have feedback from significant others (here teacher or parents). Second, we took into account two measures of reflected appraisal: reflected appraisal assessed in a classic fashion and appraisal social support assessed with Harter's scale (1985b). We argued that reflected appraisal assessed in a classic fashion would be a better mediator of the effect of actual appraisal on self-perception by reflected appraisal in comparison to appraisal social support. In order to test these hypotheses, we conducted a study with 126 children (age 8-9), 106 parents and six teachers. The results, taken as a whole, support these hypotheses. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 3 notes.)

This paper examines evaluation in reading. Evaluation refers to the processes by which readers monitor their ongoing text comprehension to assess performance and task difficulties. Monitoring is assumed to explain a large proportion of individual differences in text comprehension, in that individuals need to be aware of their objectives and difficulties in order to adjust their strategies to match task requirements. The participants were French children in grades 3 and 5. Study 1 examined their evaluation-related knowledge (i.e.. knowledge about reading objectives, sources of difficulties, comprehension awareness). Study 2 examined the children's actual evaluation behavior during a comprehension task. The results showed that few children provided elaborate verbalizable knowledge about reading tasks, goals and corresponding skills, and that in most cases the children were highly confident in their responses to text comprehension questions, regardless of the correctness of their answer. The contribution of metalinguistic awareness to literacy acquisition as well as the implications of this type of study for educational practice are discussed. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)

This paper focuses on Spearman's law of diminishing returns which states that correlations between IQ tests decrease as the intellectual efficiency increases. In the present study, data from the national standardization sample of a French intelligence scale for children aged 4 to 9 years (Echelles Differentielles d'Efficiences Intellectuelles, forme Revisee) were examined to confirm this relationship. Each of the seven subtests of this scale was successively used to divide the sample into two IQ groups (low vs. high IQ) and correlations between the remaining six subtests were computed for each group. Fit measures of matrices revealed that correlations were not statistically different for six of the seven comparisons between low- and high-IQ participants. These results seem to indicate, at least in children aged 4 to 9 years, that lower IQ samples do not manifest a less differentiated pattern of correlations than higher IQ samples. Some theoretical implications of this finding are discussed, notably the need to envisage age as a potentially meaningful variable in research on the law of diminishing returns.

Presents French-speaking researchers' contribution to differential developmental psychology. Traces methodological and theoretical transformations necessary for understanding individual differences within a general theory of cognitive development. Provides overview of pluralistic and multidimensional model of cognitive functioning/development emerging from French and Swiss researchers. Describes agendas of researchers studying the relationships between inter- and intraindividual differences and general cognitive development. (Author/KB)

Background: Teachers and clinicians may struggle to provide early identification to support multilingual children's language development. Dynamic assessments are a promising approach to identify and support children's language development. Aims: We developed and studied a novel word learning task that is dynamic and language neutral. It makes use of multilingual children's abilities to apply language transfer, fast mapping and socially embedded language to the learning of new words. Methods & Procedures: A total of 26 children attending kindergarten in French participated in this study. Within this group, 13 different home languages were spoken. Children took part in a dynamic assessment task of their word learning that consisted of a test–teach–retest task. Children's scores on this task were compared with their language abilities reported by their parents, amount of language exposure and scores on standardized tests of vocabulary. All tasks were delivered in French. Outcomes & Results: Children had higher accuracy for known words as compared with new words in the task, which may suggest transfer of knowledge from their first language. They also showed increased accuracy in identifying and naming the new words across the three trials, suggesting fast mapping of these new vocabulary items. Finally, the scores on the dynamic task correlated to children's vocabulary scores on the standardized tests, but not parent report of language development, or the amount of exposure to the language of school. Conclusions & Implications: This novel dynamic assessment task taps into the process of vocabulary learning, but is less influenced by prior language knowledge. Together, these findings provide insight into early word learning by young multilingual children and proposes a conceptual model for identifying strategies to support second language acquisition. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: Many barriers exist with regards to assessing the language abilities of multilingual children when a clinician aims to assess their language abilities in both languages. An alternative approach is to measure children's language processing abilities. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: A novel dynamic and multilingual task was developed and implemented in this study. This task builds on children's word learning abilities that include cross‐language transfer, fast‐mapping, and socially imbedded learning. This multilingual task was found to tap into vocabulary learning but was not influenced by prior language knowledge. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Applying a task that focuses on language processing abilities is a promising strategy to capture language abilities in multilingual children. In addition, the dynamic nature of this tasks allows a clinician to identify scaffolding strategies that best support children's word learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to assess the usefulness of shear-wave elastography (SWE) and strain elastography (SE) for identifying and monitoring thyroid gland changes in children diagnosed with chronic autoimmune thyroiditis (CAT). Our study included 77 children between the ages of six and eighteen. Of these, 45 were diagnosed with CAT, while 32 had no thyroid pathology. Following a clinical examination and laboratory tests, an ultrasound was carried out, and then a SE (using a Hitachi Preirus machine) and SWE (using an Aixplorer Mach 30, Supersonic imagine, France) were performed in the same session. The median thyroid elastic index (EI) in the CAT group was 13.8 (13.3–17) kPa compared to 10.1 (9.3–11.2) kPa in healthy children (p < 0.0001). We found a median strain ratio (SR) of 1.2 (1.2–1.3) for CAT compared to 0.7 (0.6–0.9) for healthy thyroid tissue (p < 0.0001). The optimal cut-off value for predicting the presence of CAT in children using SR was >1 (Se = 82.2%, Sp = 87.5%, PPV = 90.2%, and NPV = 77.8%, AUROC = 0.850), while using SWE, the optimal cut-off value for predicting the presence of CAT in children was >12 kPa (Se = 88.9%, Sp = 93.7%, PPV = 95.2%, and NPV = 85.5%, AUROC = 0.943). Both techniques are useful for measuring thyroid tissue elasticity, and their diagnostic accuracy and reliability are comparable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Insufficient levels of physical activity and increasing sedentary time among children and youth are being observed internationally. The purpose of this paper is to summarize findings from France's 2018 Report Card on physical activity for children and youth, and to make comparisons with its 2016 predecessor and with the Report Cards of other countries engaged in the Global Matrix 3.0. Methods: The France's 2018 Report Card was developed following the standardized methodology established for the Global Matrix 3.0 by grading 10 common physical activity indicators using best available data. Grades were informed by national surveys, peer-reviewed literature, government and nongovernment reports, and online information. Results: The expert panel awarded the following grades: overall physical activity, D; organized sport participation and physical activity, C--; active play, INC; active transportation, C--; sedentary behaviors, D--; physical fitness, B--; family and peers, INC; school, B; community and the built environment, INC; and government, C. Conclusions: Very concerning levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviors among French children and youth were observed, highlighting the urgent need for well-designed national actions addressing the presented physical inactivity crisis. The top 3 strategies that should be implemented in priority to improve the lifestyle of French children and youth are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is some indication that discrimination as well as low levels of life satisfaction render young people at risk of cyberhate victimization. Adopting a socio-ecological perspective, this paper examines whether supportive family, peer and school environments may buffer against the effects of perceived discrimination and low life satisfaction on cyberhate victimization. Data from four countries (N = 3396) of the EU Kids Online IV survey on children aged 11–17 (51% girls) revealed a positive association between perceived discrimination and cyberhate victimization, but this impact was moderated by supportive family and peer environments. A negative association between life satisfaction and cyberhate victimization was mitigated by peer support. However, no associations with the school context were found. The current study provides new insights on how social support on different levels of the social environment may buffer against potential risk factors for cyberhate victimization and can inform decision-makers towards intervention and prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Articulatory excursion and vocal intensity are reduced in many children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP), contributing to the children's intelligibility deficits and negatively affecting their social participation. However, the effects of speech‐treatment strategies for improving intelligibility in this population are understudied, especially for children who speak languages other than English. In a cueing study on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, acoustic variables and intelligibility improved when the children were provided with cues aimed to increase articulatory excursion and vocal intensity. While French is among the top 20 most spoken languages in the world, dysarthria and its management in French‐speaking children are virtually unexplored areas of research. Information gleaned from such research is critical for providing an evidence base on which to provide treatment. Aims: To examine acoustic and perceptual changes in the speech of French‐speaking children with dysarthria, who are provided with speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion (French translation of 'speak with your big mouth') and vocal intensity (French translation of 'speak with your strong voice'). This study investigated whether, in response to the cues, the children would make acoustic changes and listeners would perceive the children's speech as more intelligible. Methods & Procedures: Eleven children with dysarthria due to CP (six girls, five boys; ages 4;11–17;0 years; eight with spastic CP, three with dyskinetic CP) repeated pre‐recorded speech stimuli across three speaking conditions (habitual, 'big mouth' and 'strong voice'). Stimuli were sentences and contrastive words in phrases. Acoustic analyses were conducted. A total of 66 Belgian‐French listeners transcribed the children's utterances orthographically and rated their ease of understanding on a visual analogue scale at sentence and word levels. Outcomes & Results: Acoustic analyses revealed significantly longer duration in response to the big mouth cue at sentence level and in response to both the big mouth and strong voice cues at word level. Significantly higher vocal sound‐pressure levels were found following both cues at sentence and word levels. Both cues elicited significantly higher first‐formant vowel frequencies and listeners' greater ease‐of‐understanding ratings at word level. Increases in the percentage of words transcribed correctly and in sentence ease‐of‐understanding ratings, however, did not reach statistical significance. Considerable variability between children was observed. Conclusions & Implications: Speech cues targeting greater articulatory excursion and vocal intensity yield significant acoustic changes in French‐speaking children with dysarthria. However, the changes may only aid listeners' ease of understanding at word level. The significant findings and great inter‐speaker variability are generally consistent with studies on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, although changes appear more constrained in these French‐speaking children. What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subjectAccording to the only study comparing effects of speech‐cueing strategies on English‐speaking children with dysarthria, intelligibility increases when the children are provided with cues aimed to increase articulatory excursion and vocal intensity. Little is known about speech characteristics in French‐speaking children with dysarthria and no published research has explored effects of cueing strategies in this population.What this paper adds to existing knowledgeThis paper is the first study to examine the effects of speech cues on the acoustics and intelligibility of French‐speaking children with CP. It provides evidence that the children can make use of cues to modify their speech, although the changes may only aid listeners' ease of understanding at word level.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?For clinicians, the findings suggest that speech cues emphasizing increasing articulatory excursion and vocal intensity show promise for improving the ease of understanding of words produced by francophone children with dysarthria, although improvements may be modest. The variability in the responses also suggests that this population may benefit from a combination of such cues to produce words that are easier to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the wide-spread use of children's literature in the French primary school. Discusses the benefits and problems resulting from the use of children's literature in the school and considers prospects for the future use of this resource. (GEA)

Describes the experience of three American children learning French in a francophone environment. Discusses the patterns of French language use that emerged during their first year in Paris, identifying four distinct stages, and suggests criteria for measuring learners' success. Emphasizes communication and functional language skills rather than linguistic competence. (MES)

Background: Many countries publish periodic Report Cards on physical activity for children and youth. This paper presents the results from the first French Report Card providing a systematic synthesis and assessment of the national engagements to facilitate childhood physical activity. Methods: A search for nationally representative data on 8 indicators of physical activity was conducted and the data were assessed by an expert panel according to international procedures. Whether children across France are achieving specific benchmarks was rated using an established grading framework [A, B, C, D, F, or INC (incomplete)]. Data were interpreted, grades assigned and detailed in the 2016 Report Card that was produced and disseminated. Results: The expert panel awarded the following grades: Overall Physical Activity: INC; Organized Sport Participation: D; Active Transportation: D; Sedentary Behaviors: D; Family and Peers: INC; School: B; Community and the Built Environment: INC; Government Strategies and Investment: INC. Conclusions: The grades reveal that efforts must be done to improve youth's physical activity and that several gaps in the literature still need to be addressed. Collectively the results highlight that children's physical activity levels are low and that further national supports and investments are needed to promote childhood healthy active living in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have demonstrated the crucial role of vocabulary in predicting reading performance in general. More recent work has indicated that one particular facet of vocabulary (its depth) is more closely related to language comprehension, especially inferential comprehension. On this basis, we developed a training application to specifically improve vocabulary depth. The objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of a mobile application designed to improve vocabulary depth. The effectiveness of this training was examined on 3rd and 4th grade children's vocabulary (breadth and depth), decoding and comprehension performances. A randomized waiting‐list control paradigm was used in which an experimental group first received the intervention during the first 4 weeks (between pretest and post‐test1), thereafter, a waiting control group received the training for the next 4 weeks (between postest1 and posttest2). Results showed that the developed application led to significant improvements in terms of vocabulary depth performance, as well as a significant transfer effect to reading comprehension. However, we did not observe such a beneficial effect on either vocabulary breadth or written word identification. These results are discussed in terms of the links between vocabulary depth and comprehension, and the opportunities the app presents for remedying language comprehension deficits in children. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic:Vocabulary is a powerful predictor of both word identification and text comprehensionVocabulary depth rather than breadth is more closely related to language comprehensionDepth of vocabulary is particularly predictive of inferencing skills What this paper adds:We develop a new training application specifically targeting vocabulary depthThe training led to significant gain in children's knowledge for the taught wordsWe also observe a transfer effect with significant improvements in reading comprehension Implications for practice and/or policy:Vocabulary depth trainings represent a good way for remedying language comprehension deficits [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Population (00324663) is the property of Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose French retailer, Système U, has triggered controversial debates among professionals and parents recently, by inserting images revolutionising gender norms in its Christmas toy catalogue. As children’s perceptions did not feature in these debates, the purpose of this paper is to explore their reactions to this catalogue, its gender-incongruent images and their associated toys.Design/methodology/approach An exploratory qualitative study was conducted with 27 children aged five to ten, from middle-upper social class. The methodology combined in one session participant observation, interview with visual stimuli and a collage exercise. First, each child was observed as they browsed freely through the catalogue, commenting it. Second, the interview focussed on four gender-incongruent images inside the catalogue to further explore reactions. Finally, they participated to a collage exercise on a mini-questionnaire, aiming at checking their gender-flexibility.Findings First, all children tend to focus on their own-gender pages only, as they have an intuitive understanding of the catalogue’s gendered structure. Second, incongruent images tend not to be noticed, with an exception being girls aged nine to ten. Third, the children’s acceptance of the gender-incongruent images is influenced by the gender-constancy stage, with the rigidity peak about gender norms at five to six; children’s own-gender-flexibility, between eight and ten; and the collective nature of the game.Originality/value This paper reveals children’s reactions to a toy catalogue containing gender-incongruent images. It provides new insights into how children notice, understand and appreciate these images and concludes with practical implications for retailers about how to better adapt catalogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the child–brand relationship dynamic in interaction with the relationships children develop with their family, peers and teacher. Design/methodology/approach – In all, six classes in French primary schools are observed for six months. Among the 112 children observed, aged 10-11 years, 24 of them are interviewed twice individually and 24 others are interviewed in focus groups. Findings – A lack of coherence between parents, peers and the teacher, as well as with the child’s own desires, affects the child–brand relationship and reduces the child’s self-esteem. Based on this, this study proposes a four-case typology of child–brand relationship dynamics with two criteria: the child’s attitude toward the brand relationship (favorable and unfavorable) and the consistency of attitudes in his/her socialization spheres (peers, parents and teacher) relative to this relationship. Then, the most frequent trajectories children follow across these brand relationship cases are identified. Research limitations/implications – This study applies to branded clothes. Practical implications – From a marketer’s perspective, this study reveals that there are different qualities in child–brand relationships. The strongest one appears when the child feels free from outside pressure and when peers, parents and the teacher create a virtuous circle for brands (or at least do not contradict the child’s desires for brands). Social implications – For public policymakers, it can be useful to be aware that when peers, parents and teachers’ opinions about brands differ, this affects the child’s self-esteem. Originality/value – The study offers a dynamic approach to child–brand relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper deals with the dietary daily intakes of main polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in French children and adolescents. Methods: Dietary intakes of main PUFA were determined from a general French population of 1500 children (3–10 years) and adolescents (11–17 years) by using the most recent set of national robust data on food (National Survey INCA 2 performed in 2006 and 2007). Results: Main results showed that mean daily intakes of total fat and n-6 PUFA linoleic acid (LA, 18:2n-6) were close to current recommended values for children and adolescent populations. However, 80% (children) to 90% (adolescents) of our French populations not only ingested low quantities of n-3 long-chain PUFA (docosahexaenoic (22:6n-3) and eicosapentaenoic (20:5n-3) acids) but also very low quantities of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, 18:3n-3) at the origin of a non-balanced n-6/n-3 ratio. Inadequate consumption of EPA + DHA was also observed in subgroups of infants and adolescent who consumed more than two servings/week of fish. Conclusions: Such disequilibrium in PUFA dietary intakes in favor of n-6 PUFA could have adverse impact on cell membrane incorporation of long-chain n-3 PUFA and deleterious impacts on the health of children and adolescents. Promoting the consumption of both vegetable oils and margarines rich in ALA, and oily fish rich in long-chain n-3 PUFA might improve such PUFA disequilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American literature on international adoption suggests that adoptees' pride in the culture of their birth country improves their self-esteem and helps them to cope with experiences of racism. Parents are therefore encouraged to teach their adopted children multicultural skills to improve their psychological well-being. French psychologists, on the contrary, suggest that adoptees should feel fully members of their adoptive country and families. These practices shed light on the respective multicultural and universalist paradigms in the US and France. Few papers, however, consider the opinions of adoptees. This study explores internationally adopted children raised in France and their spontaneous curiosity about their birth country. The present study used semistructured interviews with 19 adoptees aged 8-18 years old, to explore their attitudes towards the culture of their birth country. Transcripts of recorded interviews were analyzed according to interpretative phenomenological analysis. While there was striking consistency of interest in birth countries, adoptees' expression of curiosity varied across time. Children described distinctive goals: knowing more about their history, finding relatives, becoming a multicultural citizen, or simply helping people. Their parents' involvement was thus seen as helpful, but adoptees stress the need to feel ready and may prefer independent ways of learning about their birth country. Adoptees' multiple feelings of belonging derive not only from multicultural training but from a lifelong construction of self. Professionals and parents may need to adapt to adoptees' individual development, distinctive time frames, and ways of learning to provide better support to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of developments in France and the United States where early psychiatrists such as Pinel, Esquirol, Belhomme and Séguin advocated ‘moral treatment’ of the insane and classified ‘idiots’ and ‘imbeciles’ as incurable though educable, the Revd C. E. Van Koetsveld initiated his ‘School for Idiots’ in The Hague in 1855. Within two years, he had also opened a boarding facility that accommodated many of his pupils. Legal regulations (the Insanity Act of 1841) demanded a judicial authorization for placing a child in the institution. Thus, the admittance to the first autonomous Dutch institution for the medico-pedagogical treatment of children with mental deficiencies involved a systematic registration of the children’s specific characteristics. A local figure of authority, often a physician, was required to fill in a short questionnaire on the condition of the child nominated for placement in the institution by their legal representative such as a parent or guardian. The first aim of this paper is to outline theoretically how physicians and educationists used medico-pedagogical selection to develop a notion of the mental boundaries they thought could be recognized in children’s minds. The work of E. Séguin was crucial in this development. He considered these boundaries as hindrances to a ‘normal’ life, for example, for participating in education and at work. Based on his work, other physicians and educationists were stimulated to contribute to new interventions in minding and educating ‘idiotic’ children. The second part of the paper offers the Dutch example. It includes the analysis of 187 files on girls and boys who were admitted to Van Koetsveld’s institution during the years 1857 to 1873. The analysis reveals the gender and family characteristics amongst the children, as well as information on medical factors and hereditary properties, which made Van Koetsveld and his staff decide to classify these children as eligible for treatment at the first Dutch ‘School for Idiots’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]