Evidence-based assessment tools provide a scientifically driven way of understanding the quality of communication and connection between a parent or caregiver and child. In this article, the authors describe how these tools can play an important role in the developmentally appropriate evaluation of parent-child attachment in the child welfare…

The development of trauma-informed child welfare systems (TICWSs) that advance individual agency practice to target transformation of the system as a whole has been conceptualized but not documented. A grassroots effort to build a TICWS with key participants (e.g., Department of Human Services, Community Mental Health, Family Court, schools) in…

Previous research has provided evidence for the utility of the Minneapolis Kindergarten Assessment (MKA), which is a measure of early literacy and numeracy skills. The present research was undertaken to replicate previous factorial results and evaluate the relative strength of an alternative parameterization of the measurement model, the bifactor…

In 3 experiments, the author examined how readers' eye movements are influenced by joint manipulations of a word's frequency and the syntactic fit of the word in its context. In the critical conditions of the first 2 experiments, a high- or low-frequency verb was used to disambiguate a garden-path sentence, while in the last experiment, a high- or…

There is accumulating correlational evidence that the effect of specific types of reading instruction depends on children's initial language and literacy skills, called child characteristics x instruction (CxI) interactions. There is, however, no experimental evidence beyond first grade. This randomized control study examined whether CxI…

Neurofeedback training is being offered with increasing frequency as a treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). School psychologists are in a unique position to educate teachers, parents, students, and others about a variety of disorders including ADHD, and it is important for them to be properly informed about the validity…

Imitative compatibility, or automatic imitation, has been used as a measure of imitative performance and as a behavioral index of the functioning of the human mirror system (e.g., Brass, Bekkering, Wohlschlager, & Prinz, 2000; Heyes, Bird, Johnson, & Haggard, 2005; Kilner, Paulignan, & Blakemore, 2003). However, the use of imitative…

In this paper, we take a designer's look at how the activities and data of learning and assessment can be structured in immersive virtual game environments called Massively Multi-Player Online Games (MMOG). In doing so, we examine the channels of evidence through which learning and assessment activities are derived in MMOGs, offering examples of…

In this paper, we present the design and application of a teaching scenario appropriate for 12-years-old pupils in the primary school aiming to a better understanding of scientific concepts and scientific methods, linking the development of individual thinking with the development of scientific ideas and facilitating a better understanding of the…

Children are ubiquitous imitators, but how do they decide which actions to imitate? One possibility is that children rationally combine multiple sources of information about which actions are necessary to cause a particular outcome. For instance, children might learn from contingencies between action sequences and outcomes across repeated…

Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant to those hypotheses. Here we looked at whether preschoolers (mean: 54 months) recognize "action possibilities" (affordances) in the environment that allow them to…

This article offers a blueprint for modernizing the delivery of high-quality behavioral health care and for improving access to care by a public sorely in need of psychological services. The blueprint brings together disparate elements of psychology practice into a more unified structure, an updated house, based upon advances in the essential…

Dichotic listening originally was a means of studying attention. Half a century ago Doreen Kimura parlayed the dichotic method into a noninvasive indicator of lateralized cerebral language representation. The ubiquitous right-ear advantage (REA) for verbal material was accepted as a concomitant of left-sided language lateralization and…

This report presents evidence for changes in dichotic listening asymmetries across the menstrual cycle, which replicate studies from our laboratory and others. Increases in the right ear advantage (REA) were present in women at phases of the menstrual cycle associated with higher levels of ovarian hormones. The data also revealed correlations…

The Bercow Report (Bercow, 2008) commissioned by the UK government provided a high status impetus to improve services for children and young people with the full range of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). A research study commissioned to provide evidence to Bercow (2008) identified both limitations and potential benefits regarding…