Beyond talk: Contributions of quantity and quality of communication to language success across socioeconomic strata

Infants from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households hear a projected 30 million fewer words than their higher-SES peers. In a recent study, Hirsh-Pasek et al. (Psychological Science, 2015; 26: 1071) found that in a low-income sample, fluency and connectedness in exchanges between caregivers and toddlers predicted child language a year later over and above quantity of talk (Hirsh-Pasek et al., Psychological Science, 2015; 26: 1071). Here, we expand upon this study by examining fluency and connectedness in two higher-SES samples. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we sampled 20 toddlers who had low, average, and high language outcomes at 36 months from each of 2 groups based on income-to-needs ratio (INR; middle and high) and applied new coding to the mother–toddler interaction at 24 months. In the high-INR group, the quality of mother–toddler interaction at 24 months accounted for more variability in language outcomes a year later than did quantity of talk, quality of talk, or sensitive parenting. These results could not be accounted for by child language ability at 24 months. These effects were not found in the middle-INR sample. Our findings suggest that when the quality of interaction, fluency and connectedness, predicts language outcomes, it is a robust relation, but it may not be universal.     

Neural Correlates of Conflicting Social Influence on Adolescent Risk Taking

Adolescence is often characterized by heightened risk‐taking behaviors, which are shaped by social influence from parents and peers. However, little is understood about how adolescents make risky decisions under conflicting influence. The valuation system in the brain may elucidate how adolescents differentially integrate conflicting social information. Twenty‐eight adolescents (M_age = 12.7 years) completed a social influence task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Behaviorally, adolescents took more risks only when their parent endorsed risky decisions but not when their peers endorsed risky decisions. At the neural level, adolescents showed enhanced vmPFC–striatum functional connectivity when they made risky decisions that followed their parents’ risky decisions. Results suggest that parents’ decisions may guide youths’ risk‐taking behavior under conflicting influence.     

Listening to Hidden Voices: Power, Domination, Resistance and Pleasure within Huronia Regional Centre

A great deal of material has been written regarding the effects of institutional living on people with learning difficulties. Much of this literature focuses on the negative aspects of institutionalization and views the individual as 'products' of these experiences. This paper argues that adults with learning difficulties are active participants in creating their own sense of cultural identity and community. Stories of four adults with learning difficulties, who have grown up in an institution in Ontario are used to explore how they envision a sense of their community through their shared experiences.     

WHITE, BLACK, AND HISPANIC FEMALE YOUTHS IN CENTRAL CITY LABOR MARKETS

Data from the 1% 1980 Census Public Use Sample are used to estimate the determinants of employment and wage rates for out-of-school female youths residing in central cities. Separate analyses are performed for white/Anglo, black, and Hispanic youths. Independent variables include individual, family background, and local labor market characteristics. The authors find that central city female youths have employment and wage rates substantially below their male counterparts. Their employment rates, however, are responsive to many of the same forces as for other sociodemographic groups in general, and central city male youths in particular. For Anglo females, wage rates are also responsive to many of the effects found for other groups, although they do not follow Anglo male youths in gaining from the "minority threat" effect. On the other hand, the wages for minority females are unresponsive to the usual variables. That is, these workers receive the minimum wage in an essentially undifferentiated manner. Thus, the triple disadvantage of being female, minority, and from a poor household is very much in evidence within 1980 census data.     

THE BODY, IDENTITY, AND SELF:

Serious chronic illness undermines the unity between body and self and forces identity changes. To explicate how the body, identity, and self intersect in illness, one mode of living with impairment, adapting, is explicated in this article. Adapting means altering life and self to accommodate to bodily losses and limits and resolving the lost unity between body and self. It means struggling with rather than against illness. The process of adapting consists of three major stages: (1) experiencing and defining impairment, (2) making bodily assessments and, subsequently, identity trade-offs, as ill people weigh their losses and gains and revise their identity goals, and (3) surrendering to the sick self by relinquishing control over illness and by flowing with the experience of it. Adapting seldom occurs only once. Rather chronically ill people are forced to adapt repeatedly as they experience new losses. The data consist of 115 interviews about experiencing chronic illness and 25 more focused interviews about the body in chronic illness. The strategies of grounded theory provided the methods for completing the analysis.     

Meeting the Needs of the Adoption Triangle Through Open Adoption: The Birthmother

Open adoption is a relatively new and controversial practice. However, in many cultures this practice is traditional. In this first of a series of articles, the affect of open adoption upon birthparents is discussed. The open process facilitates appropriate grieving, enables decision making and furthers the growth of the birthmother.     

Stuck in a Loop: Individual and System Barriers for Job Seekers With Disabilities

Research conducted within Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) and Workforce Investment Act of 1998 systems indicates pervasive issues hindering program effectiveness for job seekers with disabilities. This population frequently experiences employment barriers beyond those of able‐bodied job seekers, including significantly lower self‐esteem. Service providers need and want information about disability but do not know how to obtain it. Program staff and job seekers with disabilities get stuck in a loop wherein each questions their ability and neither feels empowered to make meaningful changes to improve outcomes. Career counselors may need to expand their role to be more culturally relevant for these clients.     

The influence of organizational social responsibility on involvement behavior in community sport membership associations

Membership‐based associations are critical to their local communities and the overall social impact of the nonprofit sector. This study examines how organizational social responsibility within nonprofit membership associations influences positive member involvement behaviors, including volunteering, speaking positively about the club, and member loyalty. Self‐administered online questionnaires were completed by 735 members within seven grassroots membership associations in Ontario, Canada offering community‐based sport programs. Results show that members are somewhat aware of and felt positively about their organization's socially responsible efforts. Awareness of these efforts had a positive direct effect on the involvement behaviors of members, including intention to stay involved with their club and speaking positively about their club to others (i.e., word of mouth). Members' level of social consciousness was found to have a positive direct effect on word of mouth. Furthermore, members' positive evaluation of sport clubs' socially responsible initiatives was found to partially mediate the positive relationship between social consciousness and involvement behavior, as well as partially mediate the positive relationship between awareness of those efforts and involvement behavior. Results of this research provide grassroots membership associations with an in‐depth understanding of how their organization's efforts toward social responsibility influence member perceptions and behaviors, which may help them focus their efforts and more effectively manage their social change agenda moving forward.     

Book Reviews

W.A. Czumer, Recollections about the Life of the First Ukrainian Settlers in Canada (1981). Pp. 176.

M. R. Lupul (ed.), Ukrainian Canadians, Multiculturalism and Separatism ‐ An Assessment (1978). Pp. 177.

W. R. Petryshyn (ed.), Changing Realities ‐ Social Trends Among Ukrainian Canadians (1980). Pp. 249.

F. Swyripa, Ukrainian Canadians — A Survey of Their Portrayal in English Language Works (1978). Pp. 169.

David Eltis and James Walvin (eds.), The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa and the Americas (Madison and London, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981). Pp.xiii + 314. £12.70.

Michael H. Tepper (ed.), Passenger Arrivals at the Port of Baltimore, 1820–1834, From Customs Passenger Lists (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1982). Pp. xxiii + 768. $38.50.

David L. Brye (ed.), European Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States and Canada: A Historical Bibliography (Santa Barbara, California and Oxford, ABC/Clio Press, 1983). Pp. viii + 458. £42.50.

Ruth First, 117 Days (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1982). Pp. 144. £1.95.

Hugh Beach and Lars Ragvald, A New Wave on a Northern Shore: The Indochinese Refugees in Sweden (Norrkoping, Statens Invandrarverk, 1982). Pp. v + 163. NP.

Stuart A. Cohen, English Zionists and British Jews: The Communal Politics of Anglo‐Jewry, 1895–1920 (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1982). Pp. xv + 349. £28.20.

Sandra Wallman and Associates, Living in South London: Perspectives on Battersea 1871–1981 (Aldershot, Gower, 1982). Pp. ix + 229. £13.50.