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Evaluating the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT):: a tool for the concurrent assessment of spelling and handwriting.
Get PDFSpelling and handwriting are related skills which are critical for writing but are typically assessed separately. Doing so makes it more difficult to understand their respective development. We describe the creation and evaluation of a tool for their concurrent assessment: the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT). We examined whether (a) sentence spelling and handwriting legibility could be reliable and valid, independent measures of English spelling and handwriting legibility and (b) whether spelling and handwriting legibility can be measured concurrently. A total of 1461 primary-aged children (Mage = 9.14 years-old, SD = 12.80) completed the SaHLT and background tests. The SaHLT was a sensitive, reliable, and valid measure of spelling and handwriting. Multi-group factor analyses revealed the test to be a robust concurrent measure. The SaHLT offers a cost and time saving method of measuring two key skills of writing. This is important for assessments in practice and for furthering our understanding of the relationship between spelling and handwriting.<br/
Similarity-induced interference or facilitation in language production reflects representation, not selection
Get PDFResearchers have long interpreted the presence or absence of semantic interference in picture naming latencies as confirming or refuting theoretical claims regarding competitive lexical selection. But inconsistent empirical results challenge any mechanistic interpretation. A behavioral experiment first verified an apparent boundary condition in a blocked picture naming task: when orthogonally manipulating association type, taxonomic associations consistently elicit interference, while thematic associations do not. A plausible representational difference is that thematic feature activations depend more on supporting contexts. Simulations show that contextsensitivity emerges from the distributional statistics that are often used to measure thematic associations: residual semantic activation facilitates the retrieval of words that share semanticfeatures, counteracting learning-based interference, and training a production model with greater sequential cooccurrence for thematically related words causes it to acquire stronger residual activation for thematic features. Modulating residual activation, either directly or through training, allows the model to capture gradient values of interference and facilitation, and in everysimulation competitive and noncompetitive selection algorithms produce qualitatively equivalent results
Developing an evidence base for behavioural interventions: A case study of the Headsprout® Early Reading programme
Get PDFEvidence informed decision making is considered best practice when choosing interventions in applied settings across health, social care, and education. Developing that evidence base, however, is not straightforward. The Sharland Foundation Developmental Disabilities Applied Behavioural Research and Impact Network (SF-DDARIN), a network of like-minded researchers and practitioners from across the UK has implemented a process that systematically develops an evidence base for behaviourally based interventions.In this case study we describe the progressive research steps undertaken by the SF-DDARIN to develop the evidence base for an on-line reading intervention, the Headsprout® Early Reading programme (HER®) which uses behavioural principles to promote learning to read.A series of discrete projects targeting gaps in the evidence base for HER® led to the funding of two Randomised Controlled Trials in England, one in Education and one in Health and Social Care.This case study illustrates an original, creative and effective way of collaborating across academic research departments and applied settings, to systematically extend the evidence base for a chosen intervention
‘Misdiagnosed and Misunderstood’: Insights into Rarer Forms of Dementia through a Stepwise Approach to Co-Constructed Research Poetry.
Get PDFThis study investigated co-constructed research poetry as a way to understand the livedexperiences of people affected by rarer dementia and as a means to use poetry to convey thoseexperiences to healthcare professionals. Using mixed methods, 71 people living with rarer dementiaand care-partners (stakeholders) contributed to co-constructing 27 poems with professional poets;stakeholders’ verbatim words were analysed with descriptive qualitative analysis. Stakeholderswere also surveyed and interviewed about their participation. Healthcare professionals (n = 93)were surveyed to elicit their responses to learning through poetry and its acceptability as a learningtool. Poems conveyed a shared narrative of different aspects of lived experience, often owing toatypical symptoms, misunderstandings by professionals, lack of support pathways, and a continuousstruggle to adapt. Stakeholder surveys indicated it was a valuable experience to both co-createand respond to the poems, whilst group interviews revealed people’s experiences of the researchpoetry were characterised by reflection on lived experience, curiosity and exploration. Healthcareprofessionals’ responses reinforced poetry’s capacity to stimulate cognitive and affective learningspecific to rare dementia support and prompt both empathy and critical thinking in practice. As thelargest poetry-based study that we are aware of, this novel accessible approach of creating grouppoems yielded substantial information about the experiences and needs of those affected by rarerdementia and how poetry can contribute to healthcare education and trainin
Health economic evaluations of preventative care for perinatal anxiety and associated disorders: a rapid review
Get PDFOBJECTIVES: Perinatal mental health problems affect one in five women and cost the UK £8.1 billion for every year of births, with 72% of this cost due to the long-term impact on the child. We conducted a rapid review of health economic evaluations of preventative care for perinatal anxiety and associated disorders.DESIGN: This study adopted a rapid review approach, using principles of the standard systematic review process to generate quality evidence. This methodology features a systematic database search, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses diagram, screening of evidence, data extraction, critical appraisal and narrative synthesis.DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Library, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, PsycINFO and MEDLINE.ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STUDIES: Studies that evaluated the costs and cost-effectiveness of preventative care for perinatal anxiety and associated disorders carried out within the National Health Service and similar healthcare systems.DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: A minimum of two independent reviewers used standardised methods to search, screen, critically appraise and synthesise included studies.RESULTS: The results indicate a lack of economic evaluation specifically for perinatal anxiety, with most studies focusing on postnatal depression (PND). Interventions to prevent postnatal mental health problems are cost-effective. Modelling studies have also been conducted, which suggest that treating PND with counselling would be cost-effective.CONCLUSION: The costs of not intervening in maternal mental health outweigh the costs of preventative interventions. Preventative measures such as screening and counselling for maternal mental health are shown to be cost-effective interventions to improve outcomes for women and children.PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42022347859.</p
Defining economic impact on minority languages: The Case of Wales
Get PDFThe relationship between economy and language is thought to be key to language revitalisation efforts, although the nature of the relationship is often discussed only in general terms. Royles sets out to address this ambiguity by defining the different dimensions of this relationship, however the resultant framework is based on a limited body of evidence. Using the case of Wales, we undertake a systematic review of what is known about the impact of economic variables upon language, thus generating a wider body of evidence to verify Royles’ framework. Our investigation reveals that of the 15,414 references generated as part of the review, 73 were found to satisfy the search criteria and all of which were successfully allocated within Royles’ categories. In validating Royles’ framework we advance a new understanding of economic impact on minority languages by moving from general to definitive terms and suggest that the clarity that this provides can be utilised by policy practitioners in their efforts to halt language decline
On the oxidation and ignition of uranium carbide fragments in air and comparison with zirconium carbide oxidation
Get PDFOxidation of uranium carbide (UC) small fragments from sintered pellets was experimentally tested to better understand UC safe-handling procedures given the renewed interest of non-oxide fuels for high temperature gas or liquid metal cooled reactors. Transformation from UC to U3O8 via a self-ignition reaction was observed at partial pressure of oxygen as low as 10 Pa. The heat output from UC self-ignition in fragments (not-free from UO2 contamination) previously stored in either air atmosphere or inert-atmosphere during a three months period was monitored at 973 K and 1073 K in air atmosphere in a TGA/DTA and no difference could be observed. Residual carbon content, measured as amorphous carbon, carbide or CO/CO2, decreased with exposition temperature in U3O8 resulting oxide, this is in contrast with zirconium carbide resulting oxide, ZrO2. Cracking and stresses accumulated in the oxide were highest for UC to U3O8 compared to UC to UO2 reactions and ZrC to ZrO2 reactions
Nature’s contribution to poverty alleviation, human wellbeing and the SDGs
Get PDFMillions of households globally rely on uncultivated ecosystems for their livelihoods. However, much of the understanding about the broader contribution of uncultivated ecosystems to human wellbeing is still based on a series of small-scale studies due to limited availability of large-scale datasets. We pooled together 11 comparable datasets comprising 232 settlements and 10,971 households in ten low-and middle-income countries, representing forest, savanna and coastal ecosystems to analyse how uncultivated nature contributes to multi-dimensional wellbeing and how benefits from nature are distributed between households. The resulting dataset integrates secondary data on rural livelihoods, multidimensional human wellbeing, household demographics, resource tenure and social-ecological context, primarily drawing on nine existing household surveys and their associated contextual information together with selected variables, such as travel time to cities, population density, local area GDP and land use and land cover from existing global datasets. This integrated dataset has been archived with ReShare (UK Data Service) and will be useful for further analyses on nature-wellbeing relationships on its own or in combination with similar datasets
Youth Justice Staff Perspectives on Psychological Resilience Interventions and Outcomes in Young People Who Offend
Get PDFInterventions aimed at increasing psychological resilience are an important factor in reducing recidivism in young people. However, little is known about how practitioners understand, apply, and assess the efficacy of the interventions they deliver. This knowledge gap is concerning as case workers are at the forefront of intervention delivery, where intervention success has wide implications for the young person and society. To provide some of the first evidence in this area, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 12 Youth Justice case workers based in Wales (UK). We used reflexive thematic analysis to examine four pre-conceived key themes. The first theme involved understanding what resilience is in young people along with the psychological factors that promoted resilience and psychological factors that undermined it. The second theme revolved around intervention strategies used to develop resilience in young people. The third theme focused upon intervention delivery, and the final theme related to intervention outcomes that included behavioral and psychological changes. Our findings offer some of the first evidence into effective psychological based resilience interventions, methods of delivery, psychological and behavioral changes related to desistance from a case workers perspective. Potential future considerations for interventions relating to youth who continue offending are discussed
