The paper considers digital tutoring platforms as commercial products in the shadow education sector. In particular, it focuses on relatively new platforms which purportedly act as tutors themselves: web-based learning software providing "intelligent tutoring systems.' The question is not how effective and beneficial these platforms are for…

The authors of the "Childhood Autism Rating Scale" (CARS) state in the manual that the best cutoff score for distinguishing low functioning autism (LFA) from intellectual disability is 30 for children and 28 for adolescents and adults. This study determined that a cutoff score of 25.5 was most accurate in differentiating between high functioning…

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to examine the concurrent validity and classification accuracy of 3 parent report measures of language development in Spanish-speaking toddlers. Method: Forty-five Spanish-speaking parents and their 2-year-old children participated. Twenty-three children had expressive language delays (ELDs) as…

Research into parents' secondary-school choices suggests that many middle-class parents are keen to secure a middle-class peer group for their children. This article reports the findings of a small-scale, qualitative study into whether a similar phenomenon exists at primary-school level and, if so, why. In-depth interviews were conducted with 56…

This study explored sociodemographic variables, childhood characteristics, and family factors in the Puerto Rican homeless. The study is a secondary analysis in which a Puerto Rican homeless sample (N = 113) is compared with a Puerto Rican primary care patient group (N = 102). Discriminant function analysis was employed to determine if family and…

This study examined families' choices of children's literature books for joint story reading. Teachers, parents, and their children from five kindergarten classrooms participated in the study. Over a 4 months period, family members joined other parents twice a week to learn and practice story reading techniques. They selected children's literature…

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are a core feature of autism spectrum disorders. They constitute a major barrier to learning and social adaptation, but research on their definition, cause, and capacity for change has been relatively neglected. The last decade of research has brought new measurement techniques that have improved the…

Approximately 400,000 preschool children have a major neurodevelopmental disorder impacting on mobility, cognitive-adaptive, or communicative skills. As many as 1 in 3 children live at psychosocial disadvantage because of poverty, parental mental illness or substance misuse, or low parental educational (i.e. less than high school). In the past…