A total of 104 six-year-old children belonging to 4 groups (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals) were compared on 3 verbal tasks ...and 1 nonverbal executive control task to examine the generality of the bilingual effects on development. Bilingual groups differed in degree of similarity between languages, cultural background, and language of schooling. On the executive control task, all bilingual groups performed similarly and exceeded monolinguals; on the language tasks the best performance was achieved by bilingual children whose language of instruction was the same as the language of testing and whose languages had more overlap. Thus, executive control outcomes for bilingual children are general but performance on verbal tasks is specific to factors in the bilingual experience.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
► Children in immersions programs tested on metalinguistic and executive control tasks. ► Children had diverse backgrounds and language experiences. ► Metalinguistic outcomes predicted by vocabulary; ...executive control by degree of bilingualism. ► Points to different mechanisms for linguistic and cognitive outcomes of bilingualism.
The present studies revealed different factors associated with the reported advantages found in fully bilingual children for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Participants were 100 children in Study 1 and 80 children in Study 2 in the process of becoming bilingual by attending immersion programs. In both studies,
level of proficiency in the language of testing was related to performance on metalinguistic tasks and
length of time in the immersion program was related to performance on executive control tasks. This dissociation is consistent with models of lifespan development that distinguish between representational structure and executive control.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK
Researchers have designed training methods that can be used to improve mental health and to test the efficacy of education programs. However, few studies have demonstrated broad transfer from such ...training to performance on untrained cognitive activities. Here we report the effects of two interactive computerized training programs developed for preschool children: one for music and one for visual art. After only 20 days of training, only children in the music group exhibited enhanced performance on a measure of verbal intelligence, with 90% of the sample showing this improvement. These improvements in verbal intelligence were positively correlated with changes in functional brain plasticity during an executive-function task. Our findings demonstrate that transfer of a high-level cognitive skill is possible in early childhood.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
There has always been a common-sense view that the number of languages that children learn, whether through natural exposure or educational intervention, has consequences for their development. The ...assumption was that these consequences were potentially damaging. Even now, after approximately 50 years of research on the topic, parents remain concerned about their children's development when it includes a bilingual experience. It is now clear that although parents were correct that speaking more than one language has consequences, the assumption about the nature of these consequences is not: the outcome of the experience is in fact the opposite of what many early researchers claimed and what many contemporary parents intuitively believe. In contrast to early warnings about negative consequences, bilingualism turns out to be an experience that benefits many aspects of children's development. Although there are documented delays in acquiring some formal aspects of each language, such as vocabulary (Bialystok 2010), bilingualism has either no effect (intelligence) or positive effects (metalinguistic awareness, cognitive development) on development.
This study examined executive control in sixty-two 5-year-old children who were monolingual or bilingual using behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures. All children performed ...equivalently on simple response inhibition (gift delay), but bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on interference suppression and complex response inhibition (go/no-go task). On the go/no-go task, ERPs showed larger P3 amplitudes and shorter N2 and P3 latencies for bilingual children than for monolinguals. These latency and amplitude data were associated with better behavioral performance and better discrimination between stimuli for bilingual children but not for monolingual children. These results clarify the conditions that lead to advantages for bilingual children in executive control and provide the first evidence linking those performance differences to electrophysiological brain differences in children.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Leading children's hospitals in high-income settings have become heavily engaged in international child health research and educational activities. These programs aim to provide benefit to the ...institutions, children and families in the overseas locations where they are implemented. Few studies have measured the actual reciprocal value of this work for the home institutions and for individual staff who participate in these overseas activities. Our objective was to estimate the perceived reciprocal value of health professionals' participation in global child health-related work. Benefits were measured in the form of skills, knowledge and attitude strengthening as estimated by an adapted Global Health Competency Model.
A survey questionnaire was developed following a comprehensive review of literature and key competency models. It was distributed to all health professionals at the Hospital for Sick Children with prior international work experience (n = 478).
One hundred fifty six health professionals completed the survey (34%). A score of 0 represented negligible value gained and a score of 100 indicated significant capacity improvement. The mean respondent improvement score was 57 (95% CI 53-62) suggesting improved overall competency resulting from their international experiences. Mean scores were >50% in 8 of 10 domains. Overall scores suggest that international work brought value to the hospital and over half responded that their international experience would influence their decision to stay on at the hospital.
The findings offer tangible examples of how global child health work conducted outside of one's home institution impacts staff and health systems locally.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
•We critically reviewed the literature on cognitive development in bilingual children between 0 and 6 years of age.•Consistent findings in non-verbal executive control and theory of mind with ...bilinguals outperforming monolinguals, starting in the first year of life.•Inconsistent findings in metalinguistic awareness, performance influenced by factors such as language proficiency and typological distance between languages.•Memory abilities, intelligence, and processing speed received little attention and thus no firm conclusions can be drawn.•Experience with two linguistic systems, no matter how short and regardless of the language pairs involved, changes brain function.
Dual language exposure and bilingualism are relatively common experiences for children. The present review set out to synthesize the existing research on cognitive development in bilingual children and to identify the gaps and the methodological concerns present in the existing research. A search of major databases for research conducted with typically developing, preschool-age dual language learners between 2000 and 2013 yielded 102 peer-reviewed articles. The existing evidence points to areas of cognitive development in bilingual children where findings are robust or inconclusive, and reveals variables that influence performance. The present review also identifies areas for future research and methodological limitations.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK
Significant resources are invested in the production of research knowledge with the ultimate objective of integrating research evidence into practice. Toolkits are becoming increasingly popular as a ...knowledge translation (KT) strategy for disseminating health information, to build awareness, inform, and change public and healthcare provider behavior. Toolkits communicate messages aimed at improving health and changing practice to diverse audiences, including healthcare practitioners, patients, community and health organizations, and policy makers. This scoping review explores the use of toolkits in health and healthcare.
Using Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework, health-based toolkits were identified through a search of electronic databases and grey literature for relevant articles and toolkits published between 2004 and 2011. Two reviewers independently extracted data on toolkit topic, format, target audience, content, evidence underlying toolkit content, and evaluation of the toolkit as a KT strategy.
Among the 253 sources identified, 139 met initial inclusion criteria and 83 toolkits were included in the final sample. Fewer than half of the sources fully described the toolkit content and about 70% made some mention of the evidence underlying the content. Of 83 toolkits, only 31 (37%) had been evaluated at any level (27 toolkits were evaluated overall relative to their purpose or KT goal, and 4 toolkits evaluated the effectiveness of certain elements contained within them).
Toolkits used to disseminate health knowledge or support practice change often do not specify the evidence base from which they draw, and their effectiveness as a knowledge translation strategy is rarely assessed. To truly inform health and healthcare, toolkits should include comprehensive descriptions of their content, be explicit regarding content that is evidence-based, and include an evaluation of the their effectiveness as a KT strategy, addressing both clinical and implementation outcomes.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite the push to implement evidence-based treatment (EBT) in child and youth mental health service settings, few studies have focused on the optimal processes for adopting and sustaining EBTs in ...these contexts. There is even less evidence regarding practitioner perspectives on the optimal processes for sustaining fidelity to EBTs in practice, despite unequivocal evidence linking the importance of practitioner fidelity to intervention outcomes. Following the principles of inductive qualitative inquiry, this study examined practitioner perspectives of fidelity monitoring processes within the context of implementing motivational interviewing (MI) in four community-based child and youth mental health organizations. MI is a widely disseminated EBT that supports behavior change among adolescents and adults living with psychological, alcohol, and substance use challenges. Practitioners (n = 22) completed semi-structured, qualitative focus groups that elicited their perceptions of the processes and supports provided to support fidelity to MI practice throughout the implementation project. Conventional content analysis revealed a number of important contextual, practitioner, and client factors that have the potential to support or deter the embedding of fidelity processes on the front lines. In addition, practitioners spoke of the importance of using a brief, straightforward fidelity-checking tool to support practitioner learning and practice in relation to MI. Findings have implications for supporting sustained practitioner fidelity to EBTs in settings where MI may constitute one of many possible treatments offered by practitioners in community-based mental health services. Findings also have implications for sustaining practitioner fidelity to EBTs more broadly.
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