Toddlers Involve Their Caregiver to Help Another Person in Need

Three experiments with 18‐ to 35‐month‐old children (n = 169) studied toddler–caregiver interactions when being confronted with another person in need. In particular, we explored whether toddlers would request their caregiver to help a needy other when they are not able to help themselves. Children observed another person who needed help to accomplish a task, but were either not able to provide help as the object was out of reach (Experiment 1) or because an obstacle prevented children from interacting with the other person (Experiments 2, 2b). The experiments revealed the same developmental trend with 2.5‐year‐olds selectively involving their caregiver to help the needy other. The results are interpreted in terms of toddlers’ motivation to see others helped and with respect to their developing ability to actively involve others to regulate their emotions.     

Productive Verbs Facilitate Action Prediction in Toddlers

Children can represent events in our everyday life in both non‐linguistic and linguistic formats. We aimed to investigate whether non‐linguistic representations are changed once children acquire their linguistic counterparts. In the present study, we explored whether and how language changes the perception of simple means‐end actions using an eye‐tracking paradigm. Children between 12 and 24 months of age heard a sentence containing a verb and subsequently watched an action video. Results show an interfering influence of language on action perception at 12 months and a facilitating influence at 24 months. However, this was only the case for verbs that are already in the toddlers' productive vocabulary but not for those that are acquired later. Taken together, the results suggest that a communication between non‐linguistic and linguistic representations starts early and develops in the second year of life. The successful facilitatory influence depends on the productive repertoire of the language in question.     

The Beginnings of Tool Use by Infants and Toddlers

Children (aged 9, 14, 19, and 24 months) were encouraged to use tools to achieve a demonstrated goal. Each tool was most efficiently applied when held by the handle with the thumb toward the head of the tool in a radial grip. The tools were presented at midline and oriented to the left and right on alternating trials, so the children who managed to grasp a tool in both orientations with the radial grip demonstrated planning of actions in advance. The tools included a spoon, hairbrush, toy hammer, and magnet; the goals were to feed one's self, feed another, brush one's hair, brush another's hair, hit pegs, and retrieve metal objects. Children were found to use more radial grips with the self‐directed tools (i.e., hairbrush‐to‐self and spoon‐to‐self), indicating that they could plan their actions better when directed toward the self than toward an external goal.     

Early Word Segmentation by Infants and Toddlers With Williams Syndrome

This study tested the ability of English infants and toddlers with Williams syndrome to segment, that is, to extract from fluent speech, bisyllabic nouns that had either a strong–‐weak stress pattern (predominant in English), or a weak–‐strong stress pattern. The testing procedure was the same for both types of words: Children were familiarized with instances of isolated nouns, and then tested on their recognition of these nouns embedded in passages. In English, typically developing infants start segmenting strong–‐weak nouns by 7.5 months of age, and weak–‐strong nouns by 10.5 months. Our clinical population was able to segment strong–‐weak nouns, but failed, despite chronological ages above 15 months, to segment weak–‐strong words. These results suggest that the development of word segmentation is seriously delayed in Williams syndrome. This deficit in early phonological processing may contribute to a fuller understanding of the late lexical onset in this population, a phenomenon that had hitherto only been explained in terms of cognitive and semantic deficits.     

Mental Health Risks to Infants and Toddlers in Foster Care

This paper describes mental health risks to the birth-to-three foster care population. The paper describes risks of a relational and contextual nature. Relational risk factors, which have been previously identified by foster care researchers and clinicians, include the following: 1. Poor attachment signaling by foster infants and toddlers; 2. Discomfort with infant and toddler dependency by some foster parents; and 3. Regulatory problems of foster infants and toddlers. Contextual risk factors include the following: 1. Lack of coordinated and coherent efforts to help foster infants and toddlers and; 2. Lack of support for the parent–child relationship during placement. A case example and discussion is offered to illustrate these risks.     

榜样的力量——身边的妇女创业故事

Given the vigorous support of the Chinese Government and women＇s federations, at all levels throughout China, there are many outstanding examples of women who have started their own businesses in various regions of the country. They have not only realized, through their painstaking efforts, their dreams of getting rich through hard work, they have also employed many women and helped some women start businesses. As a result, they have created tremendous social and economic benefits.     

Foreign Diplomats Help the Disabled

Charity sate stalls set up by foreign envoys were the most popular stands at this year's fundraising charity fair, an event initiated by Mme. Zhou Hanqiong, wife of Vice Premier and former minister of foreign affairs Qian Qichen. The fundraising activity has been held annually since 1996, thanks to the support of foreign diplomats in     

Prosody and the Acquisition of Hierarchical Structure in Toddlers and Adults

Though language manifests linearly, one word at a time, children must learn that words are embedded in constituents, which are in turn embedded in larger constituents. That is, they must learn that syntax is hierarchically structured. Prosody—speech melody and rhythm—is likewise hierarchically organized, with smaller prosodic constituents embedded in larger ones. This paper presents results showing that 20‐month‐olds (N = 40) can use modifier + clause prosody to learn constituents at multiple levels in a hierarchically structured artificial grammar, but that they fail to learn from clause + modifier prosody. We consider several explanations for this asymmetry, and suggest that it may be due to the frequency of the two constructions in the input. Two parallel experiments with adults suggest that older learners may not be able to learn the prosodically marked constituents. Instead, adult responses are likely based on perceptually prominent boundary words.     

Periodicals to Help You Understand China

DEAR EDITOR, I am a Nepalese woman and work in Hong Kong right now. Our organization, the Committee for Asian Women, is receiving your publication Women of China. Personally, however, I would like to get Beijing Review and Social     

Temporary Help Firms as Entrepreneurial Actors

Competing explanations of growth in the temporary help supply (THS) industry stress its role in meeting the needs and desires of workers vs. those of employers. Until now, less attention has been paid the growth agenda of the THS industry itself. Yet evidence from a study of THS firms in Wisconsin suggests that their entrepreneurial efforts may be an important, overlooked factor driving the industry's expansion. This paper examines the growth and geographic dispersal of Wisconsin's THS firms through a theoretical framework of entrepreneurial action. Data from in-depth interviews with their owners and managers reveal strenuous efforts to create new markets for THS services. THS firms' highly proactive stance is reflected in their decisions about where to locate, efforts to become part of local social networks, and innovative approaches to product development and marketing. Previous studies have implied that THS firms opportunistically and reactively respond to changes in labor supply or demand factors. This study finds THS firms actively promoting their own growth, intervening in labor markets to forge a role for themselves as employment intermediaries and gatekeepers to permanent jobs.     

Home Is Where the Help Is

Abstract

Policy regarding long-term care has been an issue of rising national concern. In this paper we examine the transition of Danish long-term care policy with special attention to Skævinge, the first community in Denmark to integrate institutional and community-based services for the elderly. Recent studies on the variation between costs and services in Danish communities and the results of U.S. studies on community-based care suggest that successful implementation of integrated institutional and community-based long-term care is feasible in the United States. Lessons from Denmark highlight conditions that will facilitate success in this endeavor.     

外国友人同举奥运圣火(英文)

博珍妮和迪尔德丽·史密斯来自不同国家,2008年,在北京.一种共同的荣耀将居住在中国多年的两人紧紧连在一起。经过长达一个月的网上公开投票.由联想集团与中国日报携手举办的火炬手选拔活动最终结果揭晓——博珍妮和迪尔德丽·史密斯自257名参与者中脱颖而出,进入在华传递圣火的八名外籍火炬手行列。她们期待着高擎火炬,共同庆祝属于全世界人民的体育盛事!     

Mutual Help Between Deaf and Blind

IN September of 1996, Zhou Tingting, a 16-year-old deaf girl, entered Liaoning Normal University to study in the Special Education Department. There she met another freshman, Wang Zheng, whose eyesight was so poor that she could barely see anything. To cope with the various     

Seeking Help for Same-Sex Relationship Abuses

Abstract

Four hundred ninety-nine ethnically diverse gay men, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people were surveyed regarding use of resources to stop same-sex relationship abuses. Just over half (54%) reported seeking help, and most resources, with the exception of police, shelter and crisis hotlines, were considered helpful. When asked about perceived services needed, most participants focused on intra-psychic solutions rather than use of community or macrosystem institutions. Perceived or actual homophobia is the biggest barrier to seeking help. Women and people of color expressed a statistically significant preference for caregivers of the same gender and ethnicity, respectively, but indicated that this would not stop them from seeking assistance.     

Predisposing Factors for Elevated Restricted and Repetitive Behavior in Typically Developing Toddlers

Little is known about the relation between levels of restricted and repetitive behavior (RRB) in infants and parent factors. The present study investigated maternal and psychosocial factors (depressive symptoms, socio‐economic status, social support) and mother–infant engagement factors (mind‐mindedness, sensitivity, and infant–mother attachment security) as predictors of children's RRB at age 26 months in a sample of 206 mothers and children. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted levels of sensory and motor repetitive behavior and rigid, routinized, and ritualistic repetitive behavior. Lower socioeconomic status also predicted independent variance in children's sensory and motor repetitive behavior. The relations between maternal depressive symptoms and both types of RRB were not mediated through observational measures of maternal sensitivity or mind‐mindedness at 8 months, or attachment security at 15 months. The results are discussed in terms of whether stress regulation, self‐stimulation, and genetic susceptibility can help explain the observed link between maternal depressive symptoms and RRB in the child.