Perception of Similar and Dissimilar Lexical Tones by Non‐Tone‐Learning Infants

This study examined the perception of Mandarin lexical tones by non‐tone‐learning infants. We tested French‐learning 4‐, 8‐, and 11‐month‐olds on Tone 2 (rising) versus Tone 3 (dipping), the most acoustically similar contrast in Mandarin, and on Tone 1 (high) versus Tone 4 (falling), acoustically more dissimilar contrast. We hypothesized that sensitivity should decline with age for the similar contrast, and the dissimilar contrast should remain more discriminable. Infants were habituated to one tone and tested with the same tone versus the contrastive tone. Results showed that the dissimilar T1–T4 contrast was consistently discriminated by all three ages, whereas the discrimination of the similar T2–T3 contrast revealed a tendency to decline over the ages. These results suggest that relative to consonants and vowels, perceptual sensitivity to lexical tones remains stronger in non‐tone‐learning infants. Discrimination of lexical tones is affected by both acoustic salience and perceptual attunement to the native‐language phonology.     

A simple two-stage design for quantitative responses with application to a study in diabetic neuropathic pain

Two-stage designs offer substantial advantages for early phase II studies. The interim analysis following the first stage allows the study to be stopped for futility, or more positively, it might lead to early progression to the trials needed for late phase II and phase III. If the study is to continue to its second stage, then there is an opportunity for a revision of the total sample size. Two-stage designs have been implemented widely in oncology studies in which there is a single treatment arm and patient responses are binary. In this paper the case of two-arm comparative studies in which responses are quantitative is considered. This setting is common in therapeutic areas other than oncology. It will be assumed that observations are normally distributed, but that there is some doubt concerning their standard deviation, motivating the need for sample size review. The work reported has been motivated by a study in diabetic neuropathic pain, and the development of the design for that trial is described in detail.     

Towards the elsewhere: discourses on migration and mobility practices between Morocco and Italy

The objective of this article is to analyse the preparation process of young Moroccan migrants intended to migrate to Italy. My focus is on the personal and collective formulation of their desire to leave and on concomitant action taken to bring about these aspirations; highlighting the complexity of the imagination, which migration – and expected return – entails. A second point of interest is the agency exerted by such youth, as they prepare for departure; even when they have not yet physically left the country. In addition, my observation is focussed on networks emerging as a result of having to deal with state-imposed, migration restrictions, as well as with the politics of humanitarian agencies and NGOs. I argue that these aspiring migrants project themselves into the future and act in accordance with what they long to become. They shape themselves as mobile subjects through a process of self-making to overcome the above-mentioned constraints.     

Potentials of care: The uncertain politics of social and emotional ability and difference in American childhood

This article examines middle class children's and parents' complex engagements with contemporary practices of cultivation, care and surveillance focused on children's social and emotional capacities and differences. Emblematic of a sociality and emotion-focused biopolitics of childhood, such care provokes moments of spontaneous connection and self-expression for children even as they engage dynamics of disciplining control and normalisation, an outcome that may work against and towards the objectives of care. Moreover, parental investments in social–emotional care reveal adults' conflicted implication in dynamics of child normalisation, and the potential of this form of caretaking to generate politically valuable empathic insight.     

Multimedia Biographies: A Reminiscence and Social Stimulus Tool for Persons with Cognitive Impairment

The multimedia biography tells the story of the life of an elderly person with a cognitive impairment in motion picture format. The multimedia biography combines family photographs, film clips, audio narration, and music. It is intended to be screened on an ongoing basis to provide spaces for reminiscence and communication between cognitively impaired persons and their families. Using a production process in which we collaborated with family caregivers, we created 12 multimedia biographies for persons having Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. This article describes our production and screening processes. We also share lessons learned from the multimedia biography research to assist practitioners, families, or researchers who wish to use similar technologies and processes for eliciting and sharing life stories.     

Righteous Dopefiend and AIDS,Sex, and Culture: Global Politics and Survival in Southern Africa

This essay offers a comparative reading of two ethnographies, Ida Susser's AIDS, Sex, and Culture: Global Politics and Survival in Southern Africa (2009 Susser, I. 2009. AIDS, Sex, and Culture: Global Politics and Survival in Southern Africa, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), a multisited text focused on community responses to dynamics of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Southern Africa, and Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg's Righteous Dopefiend (2009 Bourgois, P. and Schonberg, J. 2009. Righteous Dopefiends, Berkeley: University of California Press.  [Google Scholar]), a photo-ethnographic exploration of lumpen subjectivity within an encampment of homeless drug addicts in San Francisco. Pointing out these texts' common focus on circumstances of the precarious and marginal poor under conditions of neoliberalization, social conditions shaping dynamics of HIV prevention, and poor people's negotiations of affliction and structural violence, this essay highlights the theoretical and practical effects of these books' divergent methodologies, scopes of analysis, and differing degrees of emphasis on subjective experience as well as women's experiences. It also considers a key commonality across these texts: their attention to the role of historical experience and political-economic context in shaping responses to affliction and structural violence.     

Responding to children’s ‘emotion talk’: a conversation analysis of a therapeutic encounter between a social worker and two siblings using child-centred play therapy

ABSTRACT

Reflection of feelings is a hallmark strategy of non-directive child-centred play therapy that enhances children’s emotional awareness and equips them with emotionally expressive words. The case presented here describes the application of child-centred play therapy by a social worker with two young children (aged four and six) with sibling rivalry issues. One of the sessions was videotaped, which enabled the use of conversation analysis to dissect the language patterns used by both the clients and the social worker. This in-depth verbal analysis illuminated subtle nuances in the children’s interactions and behaviour while also providing the social worker with the opportunity to reflect on practice. This case discussion presents a snapshot of that session and allows readers to understand how such therapy occurs.