Many evolutionary anthropologists view cooperation as core to the evolutionary success of our species. Concurrently, many sustainability scientists view cooperation as core to the future sustainable development of our species. When it comes to biology education, however, it is unclear how or if students are being engaged in these scientific…

Introduction: Recent trends in training teachers of students who are blind or have low vision (i.e., those who are visually impaired) have shifted away from traditional hand-over-hand guidance and toward a hand-under-hand approach. However, a search for peer-reviewed studies that address the effects of the use of hand-under-hand versus…

Background &aims: Language abilities of autistic children and children at elevated likelihood for autism (EL-siblings) are highly heterogeneous, and many of them develop language deficits. It is as of yet unclear why language abilities of autistic children and EL-siblings vary, although an interaction of multiple influential factors is likely…

From an early age, most children choose to play with toys typed to their own gender. In order to identify variables that predict toy preference, we conducted a meta-analysis of observational studies of the free selection of toys by boys and girls aged between 1 and 8 years. From an initial pool of 1788 papers, 16 studies (787 boys and 813 girls)…

Purpose: Prenatal exercise is a health behavior that is receiving growing attention amid concern that women in Western societies are gaining excess weight during pregnancy and contributing to future obesity in both the mother and child. In this article, we draw on insights from the fields of social epidemiology and social theory of the body to…

Purpose: Considerable research has shown adverse neurobiological effects of chronic alcohol use, including long-term and potentially permanent changes in the structure and function of the brain; however, much less is known about the neurobiological consequences of chronic smoking, as it has largely been ignored until recently. In this article, we…

This paper reviews the literature exploring gender differences associated with the clinical presentation of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The potentially mediating effect of comorbid psychopathology, biological and neurodevelopmental implications on these gender differences is also discussed. A vastly heterogeneous condition, while females on…

For accurate reading comprehension, readers must first learn to map letters to their corresponding speech sounds and meaning, and then they must string the meanings of many words together to form a representation of the text. Furthermore, readers must master the complexities involved in parsing the relevant syntactic and pragmatic information…

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has many behavioral and cognitive features that would make it appear to be closely tied to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Obsessive-compulsive-related disorders (OCRDs) have been described in the literature as conditions that share a common phenomenology, neurobiology, and treatment response. The authors…

Cognition, memory, safety, mental health, and weight are all affected by inadequate sleep. Biological studies indicate significant changes in sleep architecture during adolescence, such as changes in melatonin secretion, and a need for greater total sleep time. Yet, social contexts and cultural values impinge on these changing biological sleep…

The importance of spatial ability in learning different school subjects and being successful at certain jobs has been recognized globally. The vast majority of the studies on the topic have focused on the nature of the phenomenon, the factors that affect its development), and the difference between males and females on spatial ability. However,…

Describes results of several studies of the neurochemical determinants of inspection time (IT), outlining the significance of several studies in which performance on the IT task is measured before and after modulating key human central nervous system neurotransmitters and receptor systems. Results of these studies suggest a primarily cholinergic…

The prevalence and cost of chronic pain is a major physical and mental health care problem in the United States today. As a result, there has been a recent explosion of research on chronic pain, with significant advances in better understanding its etiology, assessment, and treatment. The purpose of the present article is to provide a review of…

The author reviews the theories of S. Orton relating neurological factors to dyslexia. He further considers possible advantages of a predisposition to dyslexia, including the possession of talents. He answers four common critiques of Orton's biological approach to dyslexia, and suggests instead, the advantages of such an approach. (CL)

The author traces the origin of his thinking on a biobehavioral systems approach to human sociobiology and argues that it is a fruitful alternative to sociobiological models derived from population biology and genetics. Available from Behavioral Science, Systems Science Publications, University of Louisville, Louisvilly, KY 40208; sc $3.75.…