Showing posts with label T5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label T5. Show all posts
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Child Sex Trafficking in Cambodia
Just wanted to share this youtube, even though it is already the end of the semester and maybe this blog will disappear soon. Such a sad sad reality. Made me feel like crying when I saw the kids at the counselling session. Some are as young as 4!
Anyway good luck to everyone for their finals.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Child labour – the issues
In the opening decade of the 21st century, reports about children being exploited to make money for others are even more horrifying than the accounts that circulated during much of the last century. For example, children are – literally – enslaved to make carpets that decorate homes in Europe and North America. They are whipped because their employer thinks child servants should collect buckets of water more quickly. They are held captive so that older men can have sex with them. They are even recruited as cannon fodder for political purposes.
The sheer numbers are both startling and sobering – literally tens of millions of children around the world today work long hours before they have even reached the age of 10, let alone 18.
Child labour came under the international spotlight in the 1990s. For the first time since the industrialised world’s campaigns on the issue a century earlier, diplomats and economists started discussing why vast numbers of children were working rather than being educated, and what should be done about it. This time, the focus was on developing countries.
This new attention to an old issue was largely due to worries raised by people in industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom. Trade unionists, politicians and campaigners for social justice voiced concern that jobs were disappearing rapidly as businesses switched production from the industrialised world to developing countries where labour costs were much lower. Simultaneously, organisations in developing countries sounded the alarm when they saw children working longer and longer hours – not only producing goods for export, but also providing a cheap and malleable workforce for the local economy. Their worry was echoed by activists in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, who realised that the transition that started in 1989, was provoking an economic crisis which hit children particularly hard.
As more attention was given to the work children were performing, so the statistics about the numbers involved became more startling. The estimates of children between 5 and 14 in full-time employment had risen from 100 million at the beginning of the 1990s to 120 million by
1996.1 Six years later, when the information available had been scrutinised more carefully, the total was estimated at 211 million, along with a further 141 million young people aged 15 to 17 who were also in employment.2 At the beginning of the new millennium, 1 in 12 children in the world was reckoned to be involved in work which put their health at risk or caused them serious harm.
The late 1990s saw a series of initiatives – by governments and international organisations such as UNICEF, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank – to consider the policies needed to address child labour globally, and the priorities for action.
Two separate international conferences in 1997, in Amsterdam and Oslo, agreed to a proposal that stopping types of child labour that caused particular harm to children should be a priority – referred to initially as “intolerable” and later as the “worst forms” of child labour. Both endorsed UNICEF’s priority of ensuring that children, particularly more girls, attended school and went on attending classes for longer.
In 1999, a new international convention was adopted at the annual International Labour Conference, the “Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention” (also referred to as ILO Convention 182). This identified four categories of child labour, which governments, trade unions and employers’ organisations all agreed it was urgent to stop. The Convention was rapidly ratified and came into force the following year.
By June 2004, 150 countries had ratified it. In the course of the international deliberations, a whole new vocabulary has been developed for distinguishing between different categories of work involving under- 18s.
From 1999 onwards, UNICEF gave special priority to education, to ensure that children attended school rather than starting work too young. UNICEF has also been advocating for the quality of education to be good enough to keep children in school once they have enrolled.
In 2000, the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, focused on education policies. It was an opportunity to reflect on how badly girls were missing out at school in comparison to boys, and on what action was needed to make “education for all” a reality. In the same year the
UN adopted a new convention to stop children (and adults) being trafficked – taken away from their homes, often to other countries, to be involved in commercial sexual exploitation or other forms of economic exploitation in arduous and unacceptable conditions. UNICEF has paid special attention to the predicament of children who have been trafficked (most of whom are girls), particularly girls who work in private homes, not traditionally seen as places of work.
In May 2002, the United Nations reviewed the situation of children in general, summarising its agenda for the 21st century in “A World Fit for Children”. This emphasises the need for quality education for all children, and commits the world’s governments to a set of actions to protect children against abuse, exploitation and violence. Richer nations, such as the United Kingdom, committed themselves to providing assistance to other countries for social and economic development, poverty eradication programmes and universal education, as well as specific support to address child labour and its root causes.
http://www.unicef.org.uk/publications/pdf/ECECHILD2_A4.pdf
Credits to Yong Shu Li (T5)
The sheer numbers are both startling and sobering – literally tens of millions of children around the world today work long hours before they have even reached the age of 10, let alone 18.
Child labour came under the international spotlight in the 1990s. For the first time since the industrialised world’s campaigns on the issue a century earlier, diplomats and economists started discussing why vast numbers of children were working rather than being educated, and what should be done about it. This time, the focus was on developing countries.
This new attention to an old issue was largely due to worries raised by people in industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom. Trade unionists, politicians and campaigners for social justice voiced concern that jobs were disappearing rapidly as businesses switched production from the industrialised world to developing countries where labour costs were much lower. Simultaneously, organisations in developing countries sounded the alarm when they saw children working longer and longer hours – not only producing goods for export, but also providing a cheap and malleable workforce for the local economy. Their worry was echoed by activists in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, who realised that the transition that started in 1989, was provoking an economic crisis which hit children particularly hard.
As more attention was given to the work children were performing, so the statistics about the numbers involved became more startling. The estimates of children between 5 and 14 in full-time employment had risen from 100 million at the beginning of the 1990s to 120 million by
1996.1 Six years later, when the information available had been scrutinised more carefully, the total was estimated at 211 million, along with a further 141 million young people aged 15 to 17 who were also in employment.2 At the beginning of the new millennium, 1 in 12 children in the world was reckoned to be involved in work which put their health at risk or caused them serious harm.
The late 1990s saw a series of initiatives – by governments and international organisations such as UNICEF, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank – to consider the policies needed to address child labour globally, and the priorities for action.
Two separate international conferences in 1997, in Amsterdam and Oslo, agreed to a proposal that stopping types of child labour that caused particular harm to children should be a priority – referred to initially as “intolerable” and later as the “worst forms” of child labour. Both endorsed UNICEF’s priority of ensuring that children, particularly more girls, attended school and went on attending classes for longer.
In 1999, a new international convention was adopted at the annual International Labour Conference, the “Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention” (also referred to as ILO Convention 182). This identified four categories of child labour, which governments, trade unions and employers’ organisations all agreed it was urgent to stop. The Convention was rapidly ratified and came into force the following year.
By June 2004, 150 countries had ratified it. In the course of the international deliberations, a whole new vocabulary has been developed for distinguishing between different categories of work involving under- 18s.
From 1999 onwards, UNICEF gave special priority to education, to ensure that children attended school rather than starting work too young. UNICEF has also been advocating for the quality of education to be good enough to keep children in school once they have enrolled.
In 2000, the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, focused on education policies. It was an opportunity to reflect on how badly girls were missing out at school in comparison to boys, and on what action was needed to make “education for all” a reality. In the same year the
UN adopted a new convention to stop children (and adults) being trafficked – taken away from their homes, often to other countries, to be involved in commercial sexual exploitation or other forms of economic exploitation in arduous and unacceptable conditions. UNICEF has paid special attention to the predicament of children who have been trafficked (most of whom are girls), particularly girls who work in private homes, not traditionally seen as places of work.
In May 2002, the United Nations reviewed the situation of children in general, summarising its agenda for the 21st century in “A World Fit for Children”. This emphasises the need for quality education for all children, and commits the world’s governments to a set of actions to protect children against abuse, exploitation and violence. Richer nations, such as the United Kingdom, committed themselves to providing assistance to other countries for social and economic development, poverty eradication programmes and universal education, as well as specific support to address child labour and its root causes.
http://www.unicef.org.uk/publications/pdf/ECECHILD2_A4.pdf
Credits to Yong Shu Li (T5)
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Boost Creativity: 7 Unusual Psychological Techniques
Everyone is creative: we can all innovate given time, freedom, autonomy, experience to draw on, perhaps a role model to emulate and the motivation to get on with it.
But there are times when even the most creative person gets bored, starts going round in circles, or hits a cul-de-sac. So here are 7 unusual creativity boosters that research has shown will increase creativity:
1. Psychological distance
People often recommend physical separation from creative impasses by taking a break, but psychological distance can be just as useful.
Participants in one study who were primed to think about the source of a task as distant, solved twice as many insight problems as those primed with proximity to the task (Jia et al., 2009).
◊ For insight: Try imagining your creative task as distant and disconnected from your current location. This should encourage higher level thinking.
2. Fast forward in time
Like psychological distance, chronological distance can also boost creativity.
Forster et al. (2004) asked participants to think about what their lives would be like one year from now. They were more insightful and generated more creative solutions to problems than those who were thinking about what their lives would be like tomorrow.
Thinking about distance in both time and space seems to cue the mind to think abstractly and consequently more creatively.
◊ For insight: Project yourself forward in time; view your creative task from one, ten or a hundred years distant.
3. Absurdist stimulation
The mind is desperate to make meaning from experience. The more absurdity it experiences, the harder it has to work to find meaning.
Participants in one study read an absurd short story by Franz Kafka before completing a pattern recognition task (Proulx, 2009). Compared with control participants, those who had read the short story showed an enhanced subconscious ability to recognise hidden patterns.
◊ For insight: read Alice in Wonderland, Kafka's Metamorphosis, or any other absurdist masterpiece. Absurdity is a 'meaning threat' which enhances creativity.
4. Use bad moods
Positive emotional states increase both problem solving and flexible thinking, and are generally thought to be more conducive to creativity. But negative emotions also have the power to boost creativity.
One study of 161 employees found that creativity increased when both positive and negative emotions were running high (George & Zhou, 2007). They appeared to be using the drama in the workplace positively.◊ For insight: negative moods can be creativity killers but try to find ways to use them—you might be surprised by what happens.
5. Combining opposites
Interviews with 22 Nobel Laureates in physiology, chemistry, medicine and physics as well as Pulitzer Prize winning writers and other artists has found a surprising similarity in their creative processes (Rothenberg, 1996).Called 'Janusian thinking' after the many-faced Roman god Janus, it involves conceiving of multiple simultaneous opposites. Integrative ideas emerge from juxtapositions, which are usually not obvious in the final product, theory or artwork.
Physicist Niels Bohr may have used Janusian thinking to conceive the principle of complementarity in quantum theory (that light can be analysed as either a wave or a particle, but never simultaneously as both).
◊ For insight: set up impossible oppositions, try ridiculous combinations. If all else fails, pray to Janus.
6. Path of most resistance
When people try to be creative they usually take the path of least resistance by building on existing ideas (Ward, 1994). This isn't a problem, as long as you don't mind variations on a theme.If you want something more novel, however, it can be limiting to scaffold your own attempts on what already exists. The path of most resistance can lead to more creative solutions.
◊ For insight: because it's the path of least resistance, every man and his dog is going up and down it. Try off-road.
7. Re-conceptualisation
People often jump to answers too quickly before they've really thought about the question. Research suggests that spending time re-conceptualising the problem is beneficial.
Mumford et al. (1994) found that experimental participants produced higher quality ideas when forced to re-conceive the problem in different ways before trying to solve it. Similarly a classic study of artists found that those focused on discovery at the problem-formulation stage produced better art (Csikszentmihalyi & Getzels, 1971).◊ For insight: forget the solution for now, concentrate on the problem. Are you asking the right question?
Everyday creativity
Despite all the high falutin talk of Nobel Prize winners and artists, all of these methods can be applied to everyday life.
Combining opposites, choosing the path of most resistance, absurdism and the rest can just as easily be used to help you choose a gift for someone, think about your career in a new way or decide what to do at the weekend. 'Off-duty' creativity is just as important, if not more so, than all that 'serious' creativity.
Original article from here *click*
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Children need to be out in the sun often
Children need to be out in the sun often
2010/03/28
By Halimatul Hamid(new straits time)
KUALA LUMPUR: Children need to play and exercise more under the sun, said Universiti Putra Malaysia nutrition and dietetics department head, Associate Professor Dr Zalilah Mohd Shariff.
Addressing researchers and dieticians at the GlaxoSmithKline symposium on "Vitamin D Insufficiency In Malaysian School Children" yesterday, she said: "This is the best and easiest way for children to get their dose of the sunshine vitamin.
"Studies have shown that many children with vitamin D deficiency do not get enough sun exposure because parents are worried that their children will be exposed to air pollutants and harmful rays that could cause skin cancer.
"This misconception needs to be changed.
"The recommended sun exposure is just 10 to 15 minutes, three to five times a week," she said adding that 70 per cent of primary school students are vitamin D deficient.
Zalilah added that although students spend an hour a week for physical exercise in school, most of the activities were conducted under the shade.
"I have seen teachers conducting lessons under a tree or in the hall.
"There are even some who would give directions to their students while holding an umbrella," she claimed.
Zalilah said vitamin D does not only reduce the risk of rickets, cancer, diabetes mellitus and hypertension, it also helps boost the immune system to fight against fever and flu.
According to Universiti Malaya paediatric endocrinologist Dr Muhammad Yazid Jalaludin, groups at risk of deficiency include pregnant women, mothers who breast feed and obese children.
He said a preliminary study done by the University Malaya Medical Centre showed that 60 per cent of pregnant women in the third trimester suffered from vitamin D deficiency.
He said children and adults needed 400 units of vitamin D daily. Vitamin D content is high in salmon, sardines, mackerel, tuna, cod liver oil, egg yolk and fortified foods like milk, bread and cheese.
中國‧北京奢華難掩窮人悲哀‧母病父工作稚兒鎖街邊
2010-02-06 14:24 新洲日报
•
金蛋兒把鎖住自己的鐵鏈當玩具。
1 of 2
（中國）中國首都北京的奢華外表，掩藏著無數窮人的呻吟！
重慶一名在北京謀生的民工，因妻子患病，女兒早前突然失蹤，而他又要開電單車載客養家，無暇照 顧兩歲兒子，日間惟有將兒子用鐵鏈鎖在街邊。
事件引起中外媒體和民間的關注，紛紛向他們施以援手，目前已有學校免費讓男童入讀幼兒園，直到 他畢業為止。
貧父稱妻病需找生計
北京華冠購物商場最近出現了一個被鏈條鎖在電燈柱的2歲男童，乍看似乎是在虐待兒童，引起了路 人的關注。男童的父親程傳六表示，靠開電單車載客養家的他為了掙到鈔票要跑遍整個城市，微薄的收入也讓他實在無法負擔保姆費，鎖住他是唯一可以防止孩子被 人綁架的方法。
程傳六表示，因妻子患有精神病，4歲的女兒半個月前突然失蹤了，為保兒子，“只能拴住他，怕他 丟了”。
男童叫金蛋兒。每天早上程傳六開工前，把金蛋兒用鐵鏈鎖在路邊，有客時就請小販或其他電單車司 機幫忙照顧一下，直到下班才把孩子接回家。
臉蛋凍得通紅喝冷奶
近日，北京天寒地凍，氣溫在0℃下，可憐的小金蛋被兩米長的鐵鏈鎖住腳腕，臉蛋還凍得通紅，時 而坐在紙板上，喝爸爸留給他的冷奶，奶嘴已發黑。
程傳六稱，妻子生了三孩子，大女兒半個月前失蹤了，第二個兒子不幸夭折，金蛋兒是第三個，現妻 子又懷孕了。他稱，鄉下窮，回去沒飯吃，在京開車搭客每日還能賺四、五十元人民幣，至少能解決溫飽。對於孩子的未來，他一臉茫然：“沒想那麼多，過一天是 一天吧！”
北京民眾紛施援
金蛋兒的遭遇引起中外輿論關注。孩子被鎖在街頭的圖片，更震撼無數讀者。
近日，北京民眾紛紛向程家施以援助，有公益機構願意幫程家尋找失蹤的女兒。當地一家幼兒園稱， 願免費接收金蛋兒入園，直至他畢業。
而在輿論壓力下，當地政府急補鑊。房山區政府稱，民政部門早兩、三年前就注意到程家情況，曾勸 他們去救助站，也給他們送過衣服食品，但他們不接受援助。
中國時事評論員阮占江指，金蛋兒的遭遇是北京現代奢華的另一面，政府關心農民工不應只做表面文 章，而應切實行動。（大馬星洲日報）
How To Help a Child With Autism
Neglected child grew up with dogs
Credit to Chok Yuh Ping, T5
2010/03/28
By Halimatul Hamid(new straits time)
KUALA LUMPUR: Children need to play and exercise more under the sun, said Universiti Putra Malaysia nutrition and dietetics department head, Associate Professor Dr Zalilah Mohd Shariff.
Addressing researchers and dieticians at the GlaxoSmithKline symposium on "Vitamin D Insufficiency In Malaysian School Children" yesterday, she said: "This is the best and easiest way for children to get their dose of the sunshine vitamin.
"Studies have shown that many children with vitamin D deficiency do not get enough sun exposure because parents are worried that their children will be exposed to air pollutants and harmful rays that could cause skin cancer.
"This misconception needs to be changed.
"The recommended sun exposure is just 10 to 15 minutes, three to five times a week," she said adding that 70 per cent of primary school students are vitamin D deficient.
Zalilah added that although students spend an hour a week for physical exercise in school, most of the activities were conducted under the shade.
"I have seen teachers conducting lessons under a tree or in the hall.
"There are even some who would give directions to their students while holding an umbrella," she claimed.
Zalilah said vitamin D does not only reduce the risk of rickets, cancer, diabetes mellitus and hypertension, it also helps boost the immune system to fight against fever and flu.
According to Universiti Malaya paediatric endocrinologist Dr Muhammad Yazid Jalaludin, groups at risk of deficiency include pregnant women, mothers who breast feed and obese children.
He said a preliminary study done by the University Malaya Medical Centre showed that 60 per cent of pregnant women in the third trimester suffered from vitamin D deficiency.
He said children and adults needed 400 units of vitamin D daily. Vitamin D content is high in salmon, sardines, mackerel, tuna, cod liver oil, egg yolk and fortified foods like milk, bread and cheese.
中國‧北京奢華難掩窮人悲哀‧母病父工作稚兒鎖街邊
2010-02-06 14:24 新洲日报
•
金蛋兒把鎖住自己的鐵鏈當玩具。
1 of 2
（中國）中國首都北京的奢華外表，掩藏著無數窮人的呻吟！
重慶一名在北京謀生的民工，因妻子患病，女兒早前突然失蹤，而他又要開電單車載客養家，無暇照 顧兩歲兒子，日間惟有將兒子用鐵鏈鎖在街邊。
事件引起中外媒體和民間的關注，紛紛向他們施以援手，目前已有學校免費讓男童入讀幼兒園，直到 他畢業為止。
貧父稱妻病需找生計
北京華冠購物商場最近出現了一個被鏈條鎖在電燈柱的2歲男童，乍看似乎是在虐待兒童，引起了路 人的關注。男童的父親程傳六表示，靠開電單車載客養家的他為了掙到鈔票要跑遍整個城市，微薄的收入也讓他實在無法負擔保姆費，鎖住他是唯一可以防止孩子被 人綁架的方法。
程傳六表示，因妻子患有精神病，4歲的女兒半個月前突然失蹤了，為保兒子，“只能拴住他，怕他 丟了”。
男童叫金蛋兒。每天早上程傳六開工前，把金蛋兒用鐵鏈鎖在路邊，有客時就請小販或其他電單車司 機幫忙照顧一下，直到下班才把孩子接回家。
臉蛋凍得通紅喝冷奶
近日，北京天寒地凍，氣溫在0℃下，可憐的小金蛋被兩米長的鐵鏈鎖住腳腕，臉蛋還凍得通紅，時 而坐在紙板上，喝爸爸留給他的冷奶，奶嘴已發黑。
程傳六稱，妻子生了三孩子，大女兒半個月前失蹤了，第二個兒子不幸夭折，金蛋兒是第三個，現妻 子又懷孕了。他稱，鄉下窮，回去沒飯吃，在京開車搭客每日還能賺四、五十元人民幣，至少能解決溫飽。對於孩子的未來，他一臉茫然：“沒想那麼多，過一天是 一天吧！”
北京民眾紛施援
金蛋兒的遭遇引起中外輿論關注。孩子被鎖在街頭的圖片，更震撼無數讀者。
近日，北京民眾紛紛向程家施以援助，有公益機構願意幫程家尋找失蹤的女兒。當地一家幼兒園稱， 願免費接收金蛋兒入園，直至他畢業。
而在輿論壓力下，當地政府急補鑊。房山區政府稱，民政部門早兩、三年前就注意到程家情況，曾勸 他們去救助站，也給他們送過衣服食品，但他們不接受援助。
中國時事評論員阮占江指，金蛋兒的遭遇是北京現代奢華的另一面，政府關心農民工不應只做表面文 章，而應切實行動。（大馬星洲日報）
How To Help a Child With Autism
Neglected child grew up with dogs
Credit to Chok Yuh Ping, T5
Friday, April 2, 2010
How Children Learn that the Earth Isn’t Flat
A classic study of childhood learning suggests true understanding comes from letting go of established preconceptions.
Imagine the revelations we all once absorbed: humans are descended from apes, numbers can be usefully replaced by letters to solve problems and the Earth is (near-enough) a sphere which rotates around the sun. Despite their momentous importance for our understanding of everything around us, these facts can seem relatively trivial now, just as they were all in a day's work when we learnt them back in school.
However obvious these ideas might seem now, there was once a time when we just didn't get it, a time when maths was just numbers, humans were a species apart and the Earth was flat. How children revise their understanding of the world is one of the most fascinating areas of child psychology. But it is not just relevant to children; we all have to take on new concepts from time-to-time - even though they may not be as profound as the origin of the species.
It's tempting to think that learning is largely about memory - especially since in the bad old days of education learning was largely accomplished by rote. Of course fully appreciating complex ideas is about more than just memory, it's about understanding. But what mental processes take us from mere rote learning to genuine understanding?
A classic child psychology study carried out by Professors Stella Vosniadou and William Brewer provides a central insight into how we reach genuine understanding. They used a cognitive psychological theory called 'mental models' which suggests we create, and then test, mental models of the way the world works in order to build up our understanding. This theory implies there might be a series of intermediate points where we have some grasp of a concept, but it isn't yet complete. It's these intermediate mental models that Vosniadou and Brewer wanted to look at for evidence of understanding in progress.
What shape is the Earth?
For their study Vosniadou and Brewer (1991) interviewed sixty children who were between 6 and 11-years-old. Each was asked 48 questions, starting with the relatively innocuous: "What shape is the Earth?", and then moving on to more probing questions designed to reveal the mental model of the Earth they were using.
While most of the children started off well by representing the Earth as a circle, it soon became clear to the researchers that children had all kinds of different mental models. When asked what would happen if you kept walking and walking for ages and ages, many replied that you would fall off, which was surprising given that they thought the Earth was a sphere. Some even said you would fall off onto another planet. Others said that while the Earth was round we live on a flat surface inside it.
At first the answers seemed rather haphazard and inconsistent, as though children were just making them up. But then, with further questioning, a clear pattern of responses began to emerge (brackets contain the number of children displaying this mental model):
- Rectangular Earth: thought the Earth was a flat rectangle which you could fall off (1/60).
- Disc Earth: thought the Earth was a flat disc which you could fall off (1/60).
- Dual Earth: thought that one 'Earth' is flat which we are standing on and there is another 'Earth' in the sky that is round. Their answers revealed they saw the planet as flat when asked about 'the ground', but round when asked about 'the Earth' (8/60).
- Hollow sphere: thought we live inside the Earth on a flat area (12/60).
- Flattened sphere: thought that the Earth was a flattened sphere so that there were areas on the top (and the bottom) where people could live (4/60).
- Sphere: the amount of children demonstrating the conventional view steadily increased across the age ranges examined (23/60).
- Mixed models: the rest of the children either did not give consistent answers or models could not be constructed for them (11/60).
The fact that four-fifths of the children could be fitted into clearly defined categories shows how we are likely to construct the same types of mental models as each other, both accurate and inaccurate.
Understanding in progress
These results show the mind working to come to terms with a brand new concept that is fundamentally alien to the senses. Our everyday experience suggests the Earth must be flat, otherwise, as gravity pulls us down, we'd slide off it. This is our first 'mental model' of the Earth. Then we are taught the Earth is approximately spherical and we try to update our original model but, it appears, for a period we get stuck in between.
It's these intermediate mental models that point to how we try to make sense of new concepts by first trying to integrate them into our current understanding in some way. The hollow sphere and the dual Earth models that children adopted are two examples of this. Both are ways of trying to hold both the flat Earth and spherical Earth models at the same time.
What was holding back the children's learning was their presupposition, coming from everyday experience, that the Earth is flat. Until they let go of this old way of looking at the Earth, they can't fully embrace a new view; they can only create an ugly, if occasionally ingenious, compromise. Established presuppositions from personal experience are powerful factors which are difficult to let go of, even when contradictory evidence is staring us right in the face. Sometimes real understanding is less about learning new concepts than letting go of old ones.
References
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental Models of the Earth: A Study of Conceptual Change in Childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24(4), 535-85.
Original article from here *click*
6 Types of Play: How We Learn to Work Together
Play is a serious business. The pioneering developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky thought that, in the preschool years, play is the leading source of development.
Through play children learn and practice many basic social skills. They develop a sense of self, learn to interact with other children, how to make friends, how to lie and how to role-play.
The classic study of how play develops in children was carried out by Mildred Parten in the late 1920s at the Institute of Child Development in Minnesota. She closely observed children between the ages of 2 and 5 years and categorised their play into six types.
Parten collected data by systematically sampling the children's behaviour. She observed them for pre-arranged 1 minute periods which were varied systematically (Parten, 1933).
The thing to notice is that the first four categories of play don't involve much interaction with others, while the last two do. While children shift between the types of play, what Parten noticed was that as they grew up, children participated less in the first four types and more in the last two - those which involved greater interaction.
- Unoccupied play: the child is relatively stationary and appears to be performing random movements with no apparent purpose. A relatively infrequent style of play.
- Solitary play: the child is are completely engrossed in playing and does not seem to notice other children. Most often seen in children between 2 and 3 years-old.
- Onlooker play: child takes an interest in other children's play but does not join in. May ask questions or just talk to other children, but the main activity is simply to watch.
- Parallel play: the child mimics other children's play but doesn't actively engage with them. For example they may use the same toy.
- Associative play: now more interested in each other than the toys they are using. This is the first category that involves strong social interaction between the children while they play.
- Cooperative play: some organisation enters children's play, for example the playing has some goal and children often adopt roles and act as a group.
Unlike Jean Piaget who saw children's play in primarily cognitive developmental terms, Parten emphasised the idea that learning to play is learning how to relate to others.
Reference
Parten, M. (1933). Social play among preschool children. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 136-147.
Original article from here *click*
Monday, March 29, 2010
Second baby for former cancer patient after tissue transplant
A former cancer patient has made medical history by giving birth to two daughters after her fertility was restored with ovarian tissue that had been frozen.
Stinne Bergholdt, a doctor from Odense, Denmark, is the first woman in the world to give birth twice after undergoing the procedure, though seven others have had one child.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, doctors said that the birth of Dr Bergholdt’s second child, Lucca, demonstrated the long-term success of the procedure.
Dr Bergholdt, now 32, was given a diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare cancer that mainly affects the bones, in 2004. Before starting chemotherapy, which would have left her sterile, part of her right ovary was removed and frozen. In December 2005, after successful treatment, six strips of frozen ovarian tissue were thawed and transplanted on to what remained of her right ovary.
After mild ovarian stimulation she became pregnant and gave birth to her first daughter, Aviaja, in February 2007.
The following year Dr Bergholdt returned to the clinic where the transplant took place for in vitro fertilisation for a second baby. The treatment was not necessary, however — a test revealed that she had conceived again naturally.
Professor Claus Yding Andersen, from the University Hospital of Copenhagen, who has pioneered the technique and treated Dr Bergholdt, said: “As long as the tissue remains properly stored in liquid nitrogen, it could remain functional for 40 years.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article7040280.ece
Stinne Bergholdt, a doctor from Odense, Denmark, is the first woman in the world to give birth twice after undergoing the procedure, though seven others have had one child.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, doctors said that the birth of Dr Bergholdt’s second child, Lucca, demonstrated the long-term success of the procedure.
Dr Bergholdt, now 32, was given a diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare cancer that mainly affects the bones, in 2004. Before starting chemotherapy, which would have left her sterile, part of her right ovary was removed and frozen. In December 2005, after successful treatment, six strips of frozen ovarian tissue were thawed and transplanted on to what remained of her right ovary.
After mild ovarian stimulation she became pregnant and gave birth to her first daughter, Aviaja, in February 2007.
The following year Dr Bergholdt returned to the clinic where the transplant took place for in vitro fertilisation for a second baby. The treatment was not necessary, however — a test revealed that she had conceived again naturally.
Professor Claus Yding Andersen, from the University Hospital of Copenhagen, who has pioneered the technique and treated Dr Bergholdt, said: “As long as the tissue remains properly stored in liquid nitrogen, it could remain functional for 40 years.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article7040280.ece
Schizophrenia in Children
Factsheet: Schizophrenia in Children
What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a medical illness that causes strange thinking, abnormal feelings, and unusual behavior. It is an uncommon psychiatric illness in children and is hard to recognize in its early phases. The behavior of children and teens with schizophrenia may differ from that of adults with this illness.
Mounting evidence indicates that schizophrenia has neurodevelopmental roots. The appearance of schizophrenic symptoms before age 12 is rare (less than one-sixtieth as common as the adult-onset type), but studying these cases is important for an understanding of this disorder.
Neurodevelopmental damage seems to be greater in childhood schizophrenia than in the adult-onset type. Most schizophrenic children show delays in language and other functions long before their psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking) appear, usually at age seven or later. In the first years of life, about 30% of these children have transient symptoms of pervasive developmental disorder, such as rocking, posturing, and arm flapping. Childhood home movies indicate uneven motor development, such as unusual crawling, in adult-onset schizophrenic patients. Children with schizophrenia may be even more seriously impaired in this respect; they are also more anxious and disruptive than adult-onset schizophrenic patients were as children.
Early Warning Signs:
• Trouble discerning dreams from reality
• Seeing things and hearing voices that are not real
• Confused thinking
• Vivid and bizarre thoughts and ideas
• Extreme moodiness
• Peculiar behavior
• Concept that people are “out to get them”
• Behaving younger than chronological age
• Severe anxiety and fearfulness
• Confusing television or movies with reality
• Severe problems in making and keeping friends
The behavior of children with this illness may change over time. The schizophrenic psychosis develops gradually in children, without the sudden psychotic break that sometimes occurs in adolescents and adults. Children may begin talking about strange fears and ideas. They may start to cling to parents or say things that do not make sense. Children who used to enjoy relationships with others may become more shy or withdrawn and seem to be in their own world.
Treatment
Early diagnosis and medical treatment are important. Children with the problems and symptoms listed above must have a complete evaluation. These children may need individual treatment plans involving other professionals. A combination of medication and individual therapy, family therapy, and specialized programs (school, activities, etc.) is often necessary. Psychiatric medication can be helpful for many of the symptoms and problems identified.
Standard antipsychotic drugs appear to be effective for schizophrenic children and adolescents, and the atypical drug clozapine is helpful for at least half of those who do not respond to typical drugs. In a few cases their psychotic symptoms seem to disappear entirely. Unfortunately, children may be more susceptible than adults to the toxic effects of clozapine; about one third of them have to stop taking it because of the side effects. Newer antipsychotic drugs that may be safer and just as effective are now being tested.
Parents need to ask their family physician or pediatrician to refer them to a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is specifically trained and skilled at evaluating, diagnosing, and treating children with schizophrenia.
http://www.nmha.org/index.cfm?objectid=C7DF980C-1372-4D20-C8BA1DC89DBEAD32
Credits to Shu Li ^^
What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a medical illness that causes strange thinking, abnormal feelings, and unusual behavior. It is an uncommon psychiatric illness in children and is hard to recognize in its early phases. The behavior of children and teens with schizophrenia may differ from that of adults with this illness.
Mounting evidence indicates that schizophrenia has neurodevelopmental roots. The appearance of schizophrenic symptoms before age 12 is rare (less than one-sixtieth as common as the adult-onset type), but studying these cases is important for an understanding of this disorder.
Neurodevelopmental damage seems to be greater in childhood schizophrenia than in the adult-onset type. Most schizophrenic children show delays in language and other functions long before their psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking) appear, usually at age seven or later. In the first years of life, about 30% of these children have transient symptoms of pervasive developmental disorder, such as rocking, posturing, and arm flapping. Childhood home movies indicate uneven motor development, such as unusual crawling, in adult-onset schizophrenic patients. Children with schizophrenia may be even more seriously impaired in this respect; they are also more anxious and disruptive than adult-onset schizophrenic patients were as children.
Early Warning Signs:
• Trouble discerning dreams from reality
• Seeing things and hearing voices that are not real
• Confused thinking
• Vivid and bizarre thoughts and ideas
• Extreme moodiness
• Peculiar behavior
• Concept that people are “out to get them”
• Behaving younger than chronological age
• Severe anxiety and fearfulness
• Confusing television or movies with reality
• Severe problems in making and keeping friends
The behavior of children with this illness may change over time. The schizophrenic psychosis develops gradually in children, without the sudden psychotic break that sometimes occurs in adolescents and adults. Children may begin talking about strange fears and ideas. They may start to cling to parents or say things that do not make sense. Children who used to enjoy relationships with others may become more shy or withdrawn and seem to be in their own world.
Treatment
Early diagnosis and medical treatment are important. Children with the problems and symptoms listed above must have a complete evaluation. These children may need individual treatment plans involving other professionals. A combination of medication and individual therapy, family therapy, and specialized programs (school, activities, etc.) is often necessary. Psychiatric medication can be helpful for many of the symptoms and problems identified.
Standard antipsychotic drugs appear to be effective for schizophrenic children and adolescents, and the atypical drug clozapine is helpful for at least half of those who do not respond to typical drugs. In a few cases their psychotic symptoms seem to disappear entirely. Unfortunately, children may be more susceptible than adults to the toxic effects of clozapine; about one third of them have to stop taking it because of the side effects. Newer antipsychotic drugs that may be safer and just as effective are now being tested.
Parents need to ask their family physician or pediatrician to refer them to a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is specifically trained and skilled at evaluating, diagnosing, and treating children with schizophrenia.
http://www.nmha.org/index.cfm?objectid=C7DF980C-1372-4D20-C8BA1DC89DBEAD32
Credits to Shu Li ^^
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
'Baby brain' and 12 other pregnancy myths
Pregnancy may bring a rush of euphoric emotions for many women, but it can also mean nine months of paranoia and panic. We are fed so much information that the path from conception to labour can be fraught with confusion. Once that bump appears, everyone has an opinion on everything from the gender of your child to how you should live your life while carrying him or her.
And who knows what to believe? Last week, for instance, the long-held belief being that pregnancy triggers memory lapses dubbed “baby-brain” syndrome was debunked by a report in the British Journal of Psychiatry. According to a study by the Australian National University in Canberra, neither pregnancy nor motherhood damaged brain power, so being forgetful can no longer be blamed on the baby.
Then came the revelation from the supermodel Gisele Bündchen that she had sailed through labour, giving birth to her son in the bathtub at her Boston penthouse. “It wasn’t painful, not even a little bit,” said the 29-year-old Brazilian, right. “The whole time, my head was so focused — every contraction, the baby is closer, the baby is closer. ” So should all women be rushing to use birthing pools? Not necessarily. No evidence confirms that childbirth is less painful in water. “Birthing pools work for some,” says Maylyn Bonds, a midwife for Tommy’s, a charity that funds research into pregnancy problems. “They don’t help others.”
Many more myths can be exploded. Here we review the evidence that scuppers 12 old wives’ tales:
Don’t dye your hair
For many women, the prospect of nine months without attention to their roots and highlights is almost too much to bear. Fears about hair dyes stem from small studies that indicate that some chemicals penetrate the scalp. Hair colourists exposed to dye on a daily basis have been shown to be at a slightly higher risk of miscarriage. However, there is no direct evidence that hair dyes are harmful to the foetus, and many of the studies were based on unfeasibly high levels of chemicals.
“Hair highlights are applied to the hair shaft not the scalp where chemicals can be absorbed, so highlights are considered safe during pregnancy,” says Bonds. “With other hair dyes there is not a 100 per cent guarantee that no chemicals will be absorbed through the skin, but the amounts are so tiny that the risk is thought to be minimal.”
Having sex during pregnancy can harm the baby
According to Bonds, a doctor might caution against sex in the third trimester for a minority of women who have a history of premature labour, vaginal bleeding or placenta previa (when the placenta covers the cervix) in case it triggers early labour, but for most women the message is that sex won’t harm the foetus.
Dr Sarah Jarvis, a GP and author of Pregnancy for Dummies, says that there is some truth in the belief that, in the later stages of pregnancy, sex prepares the body for labour. “Love-making stimulates the body to produce the hormone oxytocin, which can help your cervix ripen in readiness for labour,” she says.
“The partner’s semen also contains hormones called prostaglandins, which can cause contractions.”
Morning sickness is a sign that a foetus is healthy
Morning sickness has nothing to do with the health (or gender) of a foetus. The increased nausea and vomiting are associated with higher levels of hormones produced by healthy placental tissue combined with low blood-sugar levels, says Bonds. One theory suggests that morning sickness — which can occur at any time of the day — may help women to avoid foods that could harm a foetus.
A few studies have linked morning sickness to lower rates of miscarriage, however many other studies have failed to find a link. Bonds says: “It is just another symptom of pregnancy and doesn’t indicate whether a baby is thriving.”
If your bump is high, you are carrying a girl; if it’s low, it’s a boy. But is there any truth in the myth that you can tell the sex by the shape of your bump? Bonds says that, other than an ultrasound scan, there is no way to determine a baby’s gender.
How you carry your bump can predict gender
How a bump is carried is as much to do with the mother’s body shape and muscle tone. With first babies, the muscles and ligaments tend to be tighter so babies are carried higher. But a bump’s position is also determined by the baby’s presentation (whether it is breech or transverse), and its gestational age and weight. “Gender has nothing to do with any of it,” Bonds says.
Sleeping on your back can harm the baby
In the 1960s and 1970s research showed that blood flow can be compromised in women made to give birth lying flat on their backs because a major vessel, the vena cava, underneath the uterus becomes compressed. But those findings don’t necessarily mean it is dangerous to sleep on your back while pregnant.
Dr Philip Owen, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at North Glasgow University NHS Trust, says that the best resting position when pregnant is to lie on your side with your knees bent, which “makes the heart’s job easier because it stops the weight of the baby applying pressure to your large veins”.
However, in a normal, healthy pregnancy, experts say that a baby can generally accommodate any sleeping position that the mother adopts to ensure she gets a restful night.
Stretch marks are avoidable if you slather on creams
Diligently applying expensive creams and potions from day one of pregnancy must surely pay off. But according to research by Professor Alexa Boer Kimball, a dermatologist at Harvard University medical school, there’s no proof that any of the creams and oils that claim to prevent stretch marks actually work. The most they can achieve is a reduction of itching caused by dry skin during pregnancy.
Stretch marks develop because of changes in the elastic supportive tissue that lies just beneath the skin. No one really knows why about half of pregnant women get them, and the rest don’t.
Kimball says that genetics play a role but that how much and how quickly your skin has to expand during your pregnancy is also a factor. “The skin is very elastic,” she says. “But weight gain in pregnancy can be pretty dramatic, and sometimes it’s more than the skin can handle.”
Don’t take up exercise when you are pregnant
Thirty years ago the advice to pregnant women was that a gentle stroll was their physical limit and they should cover no more than a mile a day. Now researchers have confirmed that more exercise is not only safe but beneficial, even for women who have never been active before.
In a study of more than 150,000 pregnant women by exercise physiologists at the University of St Louis, most did not meet even the minimum requirement of daily activity — 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day for healthy expectant mothers. Many wrongly believed that exercise can damage an unborn child by starving it of blood and oxygen. In fact, said the researchers, a woman’s heart pumps more blood than normal to ensure the foetus is not deprived when she works out.
“Women who worked out before should continue in the same vein provided their pregnancy is healthy, avoiding only contact sports, scuba diving or other activities that might cause abdominal distress,” says Louise Sutton, of the Carnegie Centre for Sports Performance at Leeds Metropolitan University. “But there is no excuse not to start exercising in pregnancy — the first step should be moderate, non-weightbearing activities, such as brisk walking, swimming or cycling.”
Don’t fly in the first trimester
The consensus among experts is that air travel is safe for most women. Although radiation exposure does increase at high altitudes, only frequent fliers approach anything near the upper safety limits.
“Flying is considered perfectly safe for pregnant women,” says Bonds. “Only women who have had a previous history of miscarriage, premature birth, low placenta or bleeding in pregnancy will be advised to avoid it by their doctor.”
However, she adds, because pregnancy and sitting down for long periods on a plane increase the risk of blood clots, it is particularly important to get up and walk around to avoid deep vein thrombosis.
Don’t sit in front of a computer
There is no scientific evidence to suggest that a women needs to limit her exposure to a computer screen. While tiny amounts of low-frequency electromagnetic radiation are emitted from the back of computers, none comes from the front.
Obstetricians at Montefiore Medical school in New York found that radiation is minuscule, particularly now that LCD screens are used.
A bigger risk, says Sammy Margo, a spokesperson for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, is the painful wrist complaint, carpal tunnel syndrome, caused by prolonged use of a keyboard and bad posture, especially with ligaments becoming more lax as pregnancy progresses.
Curry and raspberry leaf tea will induce labour
Nearly a fifth of women questioned in a study for Tommy’s last year thought that wolfing down a curry would trigger labour, and 38 per cent thought raspberry leaf tea was the answer for a quick delivery.
Raspberry leaf tea has been used as a uterine tonic by Native Americans for thousands of years and is thought to help to tone the uterus and to trigger contractions.Spice is thought to increase production of prostaglandin. This hormone helps to contract the smooth muscles of the body and is known to play a role in inducing labour. But, says Sharon Broad, a Tommy’s midwife, there is no evidence to support the view that either raspberry leaf tea or curry induce labour. It’s all anecdotal.
Natural birth is better than a Caesarean section
One in four babies in the UK is delivered by Caesarean section according to the latest NHS statistics, double the number 20 years ago. Emergency Caesarean sections, for problems such as foetal distress, prolapsed umbilical cord or failure to progress in labour, still account for the lion’s share, as both midwifery and medical staff are increasingly likely to err on the side of caution if either mother or baby seems to be getting into trouble. But are mothers who have Caesarean deliveries selling themselves and their babies short?
“Most mothers would probably like to have a natural vaginal birth but if this is not possible, Caesarean should not be viewed as a failure,” says Bonds. “The recovery after a vaginal birth is quicker and easier than for mothers who have had Caesareans, but the best way is the safest way for the baby and mother — whichever route that might be.”
Breastfeeding helps you to lose weight
Contrary to popular belief, breastfeeding doesn’t necessarily help new mothers to shed weight any faster. Producing milk uses 200 to 500 calories a day, on average. That’s about the number burnt off in a gym workout and equal to those in a cheese and pickle sandwich.
However, breastfeeding mothers also produce the hormone prolactin that not only prompts milk production but stimulates appetite. The upshot? In many cases, women who breastfeed offset the calorie debt by consuming more food overall.
In a 2004 study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre studied new mothers. In the first six months, the 81 non-breastfeeding mothers lost fat from their whole body, arms and legs faster than the 87 breastfeeding mums, who were shown to snack on more calories throughout the day.
Retrieved from http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article7019625.ece
Credits to Yee Wai Loong
'Eating for two' may harm baby
Pregnant women are often assumed to be “eating for two”, but a high-calorie diet may also be influencing the sex and health of their child, researchers say.
A study in pregnant mice found that diets which were high in fat or carbohydrates had an effect on almost 2,000 genes in the developing offspring, including those involved in kidney function and smell.
The most striking variations were found in those of the female foetuses, suggesting that girls may be more susceptible than boys to genetic changes triggered by their mother’s diet.
Sons and daughters are also at different risk for conditions such as obesity or diabetes later in life, apparently related to either the mother’s diet or body condition while pregnant.
For instance, sons of obese mothers are more likely than daughters to become obese and develop diabetes as they get older, even though no differences in birth weight may be evident.
The study, published the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows previous research that suggested that a woman’s diet around the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby.
A high-calorie diet at this time — and regular breakfasts — might increase the odds of a boy while women with a lower energy intake were more likely to give birth to a girl.
However, researchers say that there could be several confounding factors that determine the sex or health of a baby, including that mothers who are overweight or obese being at greater risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.
The latest study examined the effects of high-fat and high-carbohydrate diets on the placenta, the barrier between mother and baby, compared to mice given normal soybean meal-based food.
Dr Cheryl Rosenfeld, of the University of Missouri, and colleagues write: “Diet during pregnancy influences the future health of a woman’s offspring, with outcomes differing depending on the child’s sex."
They concluded that gene expression in the mouse placenta is “adaptive and shaped by maternal diet” with the biggest effect on the placentae of females.
There has been a small but consistent decline of about one per 1,000 births annually in the proportion of boys being born in industrialised countries, including the UK, over the last 40 years.
Some researchers have suggested this could be because women have been consuming low fat foods and skipping breakfast, among other things.
“Maternal diet also may influence the sex of offspring born in certain mammalian species, including mice and humans,” the authors conclude. “High calorie diets generally favour birth of males over females, whereas low calorie diets tend to favour females over males.
“In humans and mice, food restriction and a suboptimal diet during the period around conception and early pregnancy also lead to a surfeit of daughters, most probably due to selective loss of male foetuses, the most vulnerable sex in the womb.”
Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7054842.ece
A study in pregnant mice found that diets which were high in fat or carbohydrates had an effect on almost 2,000 genes in the developing offspring, including those involved in kidney function and smell.
The most striking variations were found in those of the female foetuses, suggesting that girls may be more susceptible than boys to genetic changes triggered by their mother’s diet.
Sons and daughters are also at different risk for conditions such as obesity or diabetes later in life, apparently related to either the mother’s diet or body condition while pregnant.
For instance, sons of obese mothers are more likely than daughters to become obese and develop diabetes as they get older, even though no differences in birth weight may be evident.
The study, published the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows previous research that suggested that a woman’s diet around the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby.
A high-calorie diet at this time — and regular breakfasts — might increase the odds of a boy while women with a lower energy intake were more likely to give birth to a girl.
However, researchers say that there could be several confounding factors that determine the sex or health of a baby, including that mothers who are overweight or obese being at greater risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.
The latest study examined the effects of high-fat and high-carbohydrate diets on the placenta, the barrier between mother and baby, compared to mice given normal soybean meal-based food.
Dr Cheryl Rosenfeld, of the University of Missouri, and colleagues write: “Diet during pregnancy influences the future health of a woman’s offspring, with outcomes differing depending on the child’s sex."
They concluded that gene expression in the mouse placenta is “adaptive and shaped by maternal diet” with the biggest effect on the placentae of females.
There has been a small but consistent decline of about one per 1,000 births annually in the proportion of boys being born in industrialised countries, including the UK, over the last 40 years.
Some researchers have suggested this could be because women have been consuming low fat foods and skipping breakfast, among other things.
“Maternal diet also may influence the sex of offspring born in certain mammalian species, including mice and humans,” the authors conclude. “High calorie diets generally favour birth of males over females, whereas low calorie diets tend to favour females over males.
“In humans and mice, food restriction and a suboptimal diet during the period around conception and early pregnancy also lead to a surfeit of daughters, most probably due to selective loss of male foetuses, the most vulnerable sex in the womb.”
Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7054842.ece
Speech and Language Development in Infants and Young Children
How is language learned?
Whether they speak early or late, are learning one language or more, are learning to talk along typical lines or are experiencing difficulties, the language acquisition of all children occurs gradually through interaction with people and the environment.
Your role in language learning
Maybe you are a couple raising your baby, or you might be a sole parent or caregiver. Whatever your family structure, you are the most 'significant other' your baby interacts with communicatively. The way you engage with him or her will determine the path that language development takes in the vital first five years.
Be natural
Enjoy this exciting period in your child's development. Talk in a natural way about what he or she is doing, seeing and hearing. Listen to the sounds, and later the words he or she says, and respond, so that your child knows you are listening. Read stories together from an early age, and make communicating fun.
Progress should be steady
Children learn at different rates. Some are fast language learners and some are slow, so it is best not to compare one child's language development with another's. The important thing to watch is that language development proceeds steadily, not whether it is fast or slow.
Language "Milestones"
"Ages and Stages" charts for speech and language development and speech intelligibility criteria can be worrying if they are interpreted too rigidly. Remember that children vary quite considerably with regard to the rate at which they reach the various speech and language "milestones". So there is no need to put out an SOS for a speech pathologist if your child does not do the things itemised at precisely the ages stated! When you see language ages and stages and read an age like '12 months' say to yourself, 'twelve months or so'.
The first three years
By 12 months (or so!) most children have one or two words that they say with meaning and can comply with simple requests (e.g., 'Can I have your cup?') or commands (e.g., "Don't touch!") and understand little questions (e.g., 'Where's your tummy?').
By 2 to 3 years of age your child should be able to follow two-part instructions ('Get your teddy and put it on the chair') and string two or three words together to talk about and ask for things.
If progress seems too slow
If 'first words' have not emerged by 18 months make a concerted effort to spend half an hour a day just playing and interacting one-to-one with your baby. This can be difficult to organise in larger families, but it often does the trick! How to set these times up and maximise their usefulness can be discussed with an SLP, who may suggest and demonstrate various activities.
When to seek help
Even though they are concerned that their child's speech and language development may be unusual or slower than normal, people may hesitate to seek the professional advice of a speech-language pathologist. Sometimes this is because they are advised against it by reassuring friends, family and others. But sometimes it is because they think the child is too young to 'be assessed'.
The fact is, babies or toddlers are never too young for a communication skills assessment. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) see children from infancy.
The very very young clients SLPs include on their caseloads may have cleft palate, hearing impairment, developmental disability (for example, Down Syndrome) or they may have been identified early as being "at risk", unduly silent, withdrawn or unresponsive to the communicative attempts of others. Or they may simply be late talkers.
The right time to seek help is when you, as a parent, are concerned.
Speech development
Children's speech does not sound like adult speech because they make typical child-like 'sound replacements'. These sound replacements are called phonological processes by some researchers.
Phonological processes
Some of the phonological processes, and the ages by which they normally disappear from a child's speech are outlined in quite a lot of detail here. The following examples of phonological processes provide a general rule of thumb.
The phonological process called context sensitive voicing e.g., cup = gup has usually disappeared from a child's speech sound system by three years of age (3;0). Similarly, the phonological process called word final devoicing e.g., bed = bet has normally gone by 3;0. A few months later by 3;3 (that's three years 3 months) final consonant deletion, e.g., boat = bow generally vanishes. The phonological process of velar fronting e.g., car = tar persists until about 3;6 in many children. Consonant harmony e.g., kittycat = tittytat, continues until close to 3;9, by which age it has normally vanished.
Weak syllable deletion e.g., elephant = effant is common up to the age of 4;0, as is cluster reduction e.g., spoon = boon. Gliding of liquids e.g., leg = weg normally disappears by 5;0. Stopping of 'f' e.g., fish = tish, and Stopping of 's' e.g., say = tay go by 3;0. Stopping of 'z' e.g., peas = pead often persists until 3.6. Stopping of 'sh' (shop = dop), Stopping of 'j' (Jack = dack) and Stopping of 'ch' (chin = tin) are eliminated by 4;6. Stopping of 'th' (this = dis, that = dat) can go on until 5;0.
http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/devel1.htm
Whether they speak early or late, are learning one language or more, are learning to talk along typical lines or are experiencing difficulties, the language acquisition of all children occurs gradually through interaction with people and the environment.
Your role in language learning
Maybe you are a couple raising your baby, or you might be a sole parent or caregiver. Whatever your family structure, you are the most 'significant other' your baby interacts with communicatively. The way you engage with him or her will determine the path that language development takes in the vital first five years.
Be natural
Enjoy this exciting period in your child's development. Talk in a natural way about what he or she is doing, seeing and hearing. Listen to the sounds, and later the words he or she says, and respond, so that your child knows you are listening. Read stories together from an early age, and make communicating fun.
Progress should be steady
Children learn at different rates. Some are fast language learners and some are slow, so it is best not to compare one child's language development with another's. The important thing to watch is that language development proceeds steadily, not whether it is fast or slow.
Language "Milestones"
"Ages and Stages" charts for speech and language development and speech intelligibility criteria can be worrying if they are interpreted too rigidly. Remember that children vary quite considerably with regard to the rate at which they reach the various speech and language "milestones". So there is no need to put out an SOS for a speech pathologist if your child does not do the things itemised at precisely the ages stated! When you see language ages and stages and read an age like '12 months' say to yourself, 'twelve months or so'.
The first three years
By 12 months (or so!) most children have one or two words that they say with meaning and can comply with simple requests (e.g., 'Can I have your cup?') or commands (e.g., "Don't touch!") and understand little questions (e.g., 'Where's your tummy?').
By 2 to 3 years of age your child should be able to follow two-part instructions ('Get your teddy and put it on the chair') and string two or three words together to talk about and ask for things.
If progress seems too slow
If 'first words' have not emerged by 18 months make a concerted effort to spend half an hour a day just playing and interacting one-to-one with your baby. This can be difficult to organise in larger families, but it often does the trick! How to set these times up and maximise their usefulness can be discussed with an SLP, who may suggest and demonstrate various activities.
When to seek help
Even though they are concerned that their child's speech and language development may be unusual or slower than normal, people may hesitate to seek the professional advice of a speech-language pathologist. Sometimes this is because they are advised against it by reassuring friends, family and others. But sometimes it is because they think the child is too young to 'be assessed'.
The fact is, babies or toddlers are never too young for a communication skills assessment. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) see children from infancy.
The very very young clients SLPs include on their caseloads may have cleft palate, hearing impairment, developmental disability (for example, Down Syndrome) or they may have been identified early as being "at risk", unduly silent, withdrawn or unresponsive to the communicative attempts of others. Or they may simply be late talkers.
The right time to seek help is when you, as a parent, are concerned.
Speech development
Children's speech does not sound like adult speech because they make typical child-like 'sound replacements'. These sound replacements are called phonological processes by some researchers.
Phonological processes
Some of the phonological processes, and the ages by which they normally disappear from a child's speech are outlined in quite a lot of detail here. The following examples of phonological processes provide a general rule of thumb.
The phonological process called context sensitive voicing e.g., cup = gup has usually disappeared from a child's speech sound system by three years of age (3;0). Similarly, the phonological process called word final devoicing e.g., bed = bet has normally gone by 3;0. A few months later by 3;3 (that's three years 3 months) final consonant deletion, e.g., boat = bow generally vanishes. The phonological process of velar fronting e.g., car = tar persists until about 3;6 in many children. Consonant harmony e.g., kittycat = tittytat, continues until close to 3;9, by which age it has normally vanished.
Weak syllable deletion e.g., elephant = effant is common up to the age of 4;0, as is cluster reduction e.g., spoon = boon. Gliding of liquids e.g., leg = weg normally disappears by 5;0. Stopping of 'f' e.g., fish = tish, and Stopping of 's' e.g., say = tay go by 3;0. Stopping of 'z' e.g., peas = pead often persists until 3.6. Stopping of 'sh' (shop = dop), Stopping of 'j' (Jack = dack) and Stopping of 'ch' (chin = tin) are eliminated by 4;6. Stopping of 'th' (this = dis, that = dat) can go on until 5;0.
http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/devel1.htm
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Our generation is better language wise?
This statement that Mr. Tan made during class that our generation has better language than the generations before made me think, is that really true?
Somehow when I compare my language with my aunts and my dad, I have better English compared to my aunt and uncles that were Chinese educated (Phor Tay and Chung Ling) but compared to my aunts that were went to school in those with British education systems last time (St. Georges Girls School in Penang), I don't think mine is better. Even if I compare my mandarin with the previous generation, it is still worse.
The way I see it, a number of factors influenced our use of language. One of it is because our generation uses smses and Internet messaging, which causes our language to deteriorate as we cut the words into short forms (you to u, together to 2gether, etc) and use simple words. When we get used to doing so, we also tend to do it while doing tests, and maybe in our assignments, where we might absentmindedly write u instead of you.
Another factor is because our generation spend much less time actually reading books, be it textbooks, story books or even the newspaper. It's sad really, nobody reads books much now, they all want to watch the movie instead or watch drama shows on the TV, or stay glued to the computer. I believe that children should be encouraged to read from an early age, or even before they can read themselves the parents should read them stories, which will get them interested in books. Then the pathways between the neurons at the left hemisphere that has to do with language will be more developed.
Another contributing factor is in my opinion, the environment, or more specifically the type of language that the people around you, such as your family, peers etc, speak. When your family speaks mandarin always to you, obviously your mandarin will be better. Personally I speak English and Hokkien at home since young, which is why I am pretty fluent in both. Mandarin on the other hand, I avoid like the plague, but using it is sometimes unavoidable, especially in UTAR. Also, there's also Manglish that we Malaysians use so much.
Practice makes perfect, or in the words of Mr. Tan, "Use it or lose it." Language can always be improved by constant use and reading. It may be slow, but for sure it will improve bit by bit.
So I shall end this with a question directed to all those reading : Do you agree that your language is better than the older generation? Just compare yourself to the people in your family and so on. Maybe you can explain your perspective on this. So that we can make this blog more lively :D
Somehow when I compare my language with my aunts and my dad, I have better English compared to my aunt and uncles that were Chinese educated (Phor Tay and Chung Ling) but compared to my aunts that were went to school in those with British education systems last time (St. Georges Girls School in Penang), I don't think mine is better. Even if I compare my mandarin with the previous generation, it is still worse.
The way I see it, a number of factors influenced our use of language. One of it is because our generation uses smses and Internet messaging, which causes our language to deteriorate as we cut the words into short forms (you to u, together to 2gether, etc) and use simple words. When we get used to doing so, we also tend to do it while doing tests, and maybe in our assignments, where we might absentmindedly write u instead of you.
Another factor is because our generation spend much less time actually reading books, be it textbooks, story books or even the newspaper. It's sad really, nobody reads books much now, they all want to watch the movie instead or watch drama shows on the TV, or stay glued to the computer. I believe that children should be encouraged to read from an early age, or even before they can read themselves the parents should read them stories, which will get them interested in books. Then the pathways between the neurons at the left hemisphere that has to do with language will be more developed.
Another contributing factor is in my opinion, the environment, or more specifically the type of language that the people around you, such as your family, peers etc, speak. When your family speaks mandarin always to you, obviously your mandarin will be better. Personally I speak English and Hokkien at home since young, which is why I am pretty fluent in both. Mandarin on the other hand, I avoid like the plague, but using it is sometimes unavoidable, especially in UTAR. Also, there's also Manglish that we Malaysians use so much.
Practice makes perfect, or in the words of Mr. Tan, "Use it or lose it." Language can always be improved by constant use and reading. It may be slow, but for sure it will improve bit by bit.
So I shall end this with a question directed to all those reading : Do you agree that your language is better than the older generation? Just compare yourself to the people in your family and so on. Maybe you can explain your perspective on this. So that we can make this blog more lively :D
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Teratogens
Manie has birth defects caused by the antidepressants his mother took when she was pregnant with him.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Lie to Me
The average person tells three lies in ten minutes of conversation. DR. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth, ">
But as Lightman well knows, his scientific ability is both a blessing and a curse in his personal life, where family and friends deceive each other as readily as criminals and strangers do. Lightman is the world's leading deception expert, a scientist who studies facial expressions and involuntary body language to discover not only if you are lying but why.
Lightman heads a team of experts at The Lightman Group who assist federal law enforcement, government agencies and local police with their most difficult cases.
DR. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams, "The Practice") is a gifted psychologist and Lightman's professional partner who brings balance to the partnership by looking at the bigger picture while Lightman focuses on the details. He needs her guidance and insight into human behavior, whether he knows it or not. Will Loker (Brendan Hines, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is Lightman's lead researcher, who is so uncomfortable with the human tendency to lie that he's decided to practice what he calls "radical honesty." He says everything on his mind at all times and often pays the price.
Ria Torres (Monica Raymund, "Law and Order: SVU") is the newest member of the agency, and one of the few "naturals" in the field of deception detection. She has a raw, untrained ability to read people that makes her a force to be reckoned with.
How people facial expression and also non-verbal behaviour can tell a story of someone, without speaking a word~
Taken from http://www.aceshowbiz.com/tv/lie_to_me/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggqzD2mDms0&feature=related#
Credit to Chin Yee Jah, T5
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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