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Teacher education programs have a critical role in supporting prospective teachers' connections between theory and practice. In this study, we examined three prospective secondary mathematics teachers' discourses regarding collective argumentation during and after a unit of instruction addressing collective argumentation and ways they recontextualized their on-campus coursework (theory) into their student teaching (practice) as demonstrated by their support for students' mathematical arguments during student teaching. Through a recursive process of coding data from interviews, reflections, and classroom discussions, we constructed descriptions of participants' discourses about argumentation based in their coursework and identified three themes about collective argumentation in the prospective teachers' discourses: the purposes of argumentation, the role of the teacher in argumentation, and characteristics of effective mathematical arguments. Analysis using extended Toulmin diagrams of classroom data from participants' student teaching showed that these three interrelated themes were visible in the participants' enactment of moves supporting collective argumentation. Our study opens spaces for future investigations into how teachers recontextualize their learning from coursework (theory) into their practice.

Background: The aim of the study was to investigate prospective associations between dietary patterns and cognitive performance during adolescence. Methods: Participants were sourced from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study that includes 2868 children born between 1989 and 1992 in Perth, Western Australia. When the children were 17 years old (2006-2009), cognitive performance was assessed using a computerized cognitive battery of tests (CogState) that included six tasks. Using a food frequency questionnaire administered when the children were 14 years old (2003-2006), "Healthy" and "Western" dietary patterns were identified by factor analysis. Associations between dietary patterns at 14 years of age and cognitive performance at 17 years of age were assessed prospectively using multivariate regression models. Results: Dietary and cognitive performance data were available for 602 participants. Following adjustment for the "Healthy" dietary pattern, total energy intake, maternal education, family income, father's presence in the family, family functioning and gender, we found that a longer reaction time in the detection task (ß = 0.016; 95% CI: 0.004; 0.028; p = 0.009) and a higher number of total errors in the Groton Maze LeRecall Test--delayed recall task (ß = 0.060; 95% CI: 0.006; 0.114; p = 0.029) were significantly associated with higher scores on the "Western" dietary pattern. The "Western" dietary pattern was characterized by high intakes of take-away food, red and processed meat, soft drink, fried and refined food. We also found that within the dietary patterns, high intake of fried potato, crisps and red meat had negative associations, while increased fruit and leafy green vegetable intake had positive associations with some aspects of cognitive performance. Conclusion: Higher dietary intake of the "Western" dietary pattern at age 14 is associated with diminished cognitive performance 3 years later, at 17 years.

Recently, there has been heightened interest in suggestions of enhanced visual acuity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) which was sparked by evidence that was later accepted to be methodologically flawed. However, a recent study that claimed children with ASD have enhanced visual acuity (Brosnan et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 42:2491-2497, 2012) repeated a critical methodological flaw by using an inappropriate viewing distance for a computerised acuity test, placing the findings in doubt. We examined visual acuity in 31 children with ASD and 33 controls using the 2 m 2000 Series Revised Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study chart placed at twice the conventional distance to better evaluate possible enhanced acuity. Children with ASD did not demonstrate superior acuity. The current findings strengthen the argument that reports of enhanced acuity in ASD are due to methodological flaws and challenges the reported association between visual acuity and systemising type behaviours. Keywords Asperger syndrome * Case control study * ETDRS * High functioning autism * Perception * Vision, Introduction Neurological differences in people with ASD can result in a variety of perceptual processing alterations. In particular, many studies have found an enhancement in 'local processing' in ASD (Dakin [...]

A study was conducted to determine the beneficial effects of physical activity on the incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results revealed that adults manifesting a memory loss and subjected to physical activity displayed considerable improvement over a period of time.