Discusses the policy of matching as it has influenced American adoption practice. Discusses how, as race became the primary criterion of likeness, matching linked adoption with broader issues in American culture and politics. Explores future interconnections between racial matching, genetic engineering, and ideologies of "biological…

Examines the extent to which substantial differences in the attitudes of children from the same family are mediated by nonshared environmental processes or by genetic factors. Results suggested that parental and sibling negativity is significantly related to adolescent adjustment through nonshared environmental processes, although genetic factors…

Background: Research on parental well-being has focused largely on Down syndrome and autism; however, fragile X syndrome is likely to pose different challenges for parents compared with these other diagnostic conditions. Moreover, there is considerable variability among youth with fragile X syndrome; for example, 25% to 33% of affected youth meet…

According to enrollments in schools for the deaf and data from the national census and neonatal hearing screening programs, the incidence of severe and profound childhood deafness in Australia is, and has been, less than commonly assumed. Factors implicated include improved medical care, mainstreaming, cochlear implants, and genetic science. Data…

Interest in biology and the out-of-school experiences of Finnish secondary school pupils (n = 3626, median age 15) were surveyed in the spring of 2003 using the international ROSE questionnaire. Likert-scaled items were categorised with an explorative factor analysis. The scores of eight interest-context factors and seven out-of-school experience…

Newborn screening is considered a highly successful public health program that has resulted in the reduction of mortality, mental retardation, and other serious disabilities in thousands of children since the introduction of screening for phenylketonuria (PKU) in the 1960s. Programs are based in state public health departments such that each state…

Behavior analyst teaching child development courses would do well to look into this book as the main text for the course. It represents the most comprehensive attempt to date to try and integrate the developmental literature with the study of basic mechanisms of learning. The book is written in a clear and concise manner that can be understood by…

Disparities in the health status and care experienced by people with intellectual disabilities are increasingly being recognized. This special report presents the results of an international expert consensus workshop held under the auspices of the Health Issues Special Interest Research Group of the International Association for the Scientific…

The National Science Foundation and others have made compelling arguments that research be incorporated into the learning of undergraduates. In response to these arguments, a two-hybrid research project was incorporated into a molecular biology course that contained both a lecture section and a laboratory section. The course was designed around…

Science is at heart a rational activity. Reasoning, being an important component of critical thinking has been successfully taught using Socratic methods. As an approach, the instructor or designer of instruction models an inquiring and probing mind focusing on providing questions and not answers. The main aim has been to allow learners to…

Task persistence, measured by a composite score of independent teacher, tester and observer reports, was examined using behavioral genetic analysis. Participants included 92 monozygotic and 137 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs in Kindergarten or 1st grade (4.3 to 7.9 years old). Task persistence was widely distributed, higher among older children,…

While plurilingualism is not necessarily a novel concept, the author argues that the ability to speak several languages will help Europeans to develop a European identity and to deconstruct existing cultural and even genetic barriers. To this aim it would make sense to be introduced at a very early age to elements of language and culture from…

This paper explores the prospect of genetic tests for performance in physical activity and sports practices. It investigates the terminology associated with genetics, testing, selection and ability as a means towards a socio-ethical analysis of its value within sport, education and society. Our argument suggests that genetic tests need not even be…

Aim: To study the prevalence of psychiatric diagnosis and psychopathology in adolescent offspring of parents with panic disorder, depression and normal controls. Methods: Adolescent offspring (11-16 years) of parents with a diagnosis of panic disorder and major depression, and normal controls were interviewed using Missouri Assessment of Genetics…

It is hard and getting harder to strike a satisfying balance in teaching. Time dedicated to student-generated models or ideas is often sacrificed in an effort to "get through the syllabus." I describe a series of RNA interference (RNAi) experiments for undergraduate students that simultaneously explores fundamental concepts in gene regulation,…