The linguistic environment of the classroom is influential to young children's language development. To date, however, literature on the linguistic environment of child-care centers has largely ...examined teacher practices or children's aggregate environment, overlooking the child's first-person experiences and differentiated experiences within the classroom. In this study we used a new method in the educational setting that captures the learner's perspective: head-mounted cameras. Thirteen children in one preschool classroom wore a head-mounted camera to capture their first-person experiences in one morning session, including interactions with others and the features of the child-directed speech (CDS) addressed to them. Results revealed that, from children's personal view, the linguistic environment of the classroom is more dynamic from what previous studies have reported. Children interacted for longer with their teachers than their peers and heard more CDS from them, but for some children peers served as an additional source of language. Further, our analysis highlighted within-classroom variability in language experiences in terms of the properties of the CDS addressed to target children and how they were exposed to this input over time. Results are discussed with respect to peer influence on children's learning, heterogeneity in learning opportunities in classrooms, and the variability of the linguistic environment over time.
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer that affects women worldwide. It has been and remains the leading cause of cancer mortality among women in Ghana. Despite the fact that cervical cancer ...is preventable through early detection and treatment of precancerous lesions, anecdotal evidence from gynaecological clinics in Ghana indicates that most patients present with a late stage of the disease. This study assesses the cervical cancer screening practices among women in Ghana.
Data from the World Health Organization's (WHO) multi-country Study on AGEing and adult health (SAGE) wave 2 conducted between 2014 and 2015 in Ghana was used. We employed binary logistic regression models to analyse data on 2711 women to examine factors associated with having pelvic examination among women aged ≥18 years. Among those who had pelvic examination, we applied binary logistic regression models to analyse factors associated with receiving Pap smear test as a subgroup analysis.
Of the 2711 women aged 18 years or older surveyed, 225 (8.3%) had ever had a pelvic examination and only 66 (2.4%) of them reported ever having done a Pap smear test. For those who had pelvic examination, only 26.94% had Pap smear test. Ethnic group, marital status, father's educational level and difficulty with self-care were independently associated with undergoing pelvic examination. Only age and healthcare involvement were independently associated with pelvic examination within the past 5 years to the survey. Marital status, satisfaction with healthcare and healthcare involvement were independently associated with Pap smear test.
Even though cervical cancer is preventable through early detection of precancerous lesions using Pap smear test, the patronage of this screening test is still very low in Ghana. Factors influencing the low patronage in Ghana include the marital status of women, their level of satisfaction with healthcare as well as their level of involvement with healthcare. These may be the consequences of a weak health system and the lack of a national policy on cervical cancer screening.
Herein, loose nanofiltration membranes were prepared using non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method. In NIPS, the non-solvent controls the morphology of the skin layer of the asymmetric ...membranes formed, while the solvent tunes the morphology of the lower layer. The membranes were made from polyethersulfone in n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) with the addition of dicarboxylic acids (glutaric acid, azelaic acid). Aliphatic alcohols (1-butanol, 1-octanol) were added to the solvent to tailor the skin layer pore morphology. Cross-sectional electron microscope images revealed the acids created nano-voids and shorter micro-voids. The addition of alcohols extended the micro-voids and improved symmetry. Pore size distribution results showed that the addition of the alcohols did indeed reduce the pore size as hypothesised. The performance of the modified polyethersulfone membranes was greatly improved in terms of pure water flux and salt passage without sacrificing the dye rejection. The loose nanofiltration membranes prepared in this study showed good dye/salt separation capability compared to most of the results reported in literature. The membranes were compacted with de-ionised water at an applied pressure of 4 bar for 5 h and rejections tests were done at 2 bar. It is hereby reported that the membranes achieved a high salt passage (Na2SO4 rejection varying between <3% and ~12%), as well as sustainable high Congo red rejection of 97%.
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•PES/C5 and PES/C9 have NF characteristics.•Addition of 1-butanol produces loose NF membrane.•Prevention of crosslinking promotes pore distribution.•Size exclusion mechanism is dominant for rigid solutes.
The current study investigated gender differences in perceived social support and posttraumatic growth for survivors of intimate partner violence. Participants for this study included 86 ...undergraduate students who indicated at least one instance of partner abuse (consisting of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and harassment). Participants were predominantly female (68%), White/Caucasian (62%), and between 18 and 21 years of age (84%). Participants responded to the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Composite Abuse Scale, and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. Mean differences and correlational analyses were utilized to investigate potential gender differences in the study variables as well as the relationships among them. The prevalence of intimate partner violence was comparable to those found in other studies, with 59% of men and 57% of women indicating experiencing abuse from a partner. Although the prevalence rates were similar, women indicated higher overall partner abuse victimization than did men. Moreover, women indicated statistically significantly higher scores than men in three of the four Composite Abuse Scale subscales, reflecting higher levels of victimization for all forms of abuse except for partner harassment. Further, perceived social support scores were similar for men and women, with the only significant gender difference to emerge being that men indicated higher levels of familial support than did women. No statistically significant gender differences emerged for overall posttraumatic growth or for any of its domains. Finally, social support was correlated with posttraumatic growth for women but not for men. The current study, therefore, suggests that men and women may experience similar levels of personal growth in the aftermath of partner abuse. Moreover, these results imply that the relationship between social support and posttraumatic growth may vary according to the gender of the survivor.
The present study explored whether a tool for automatic detection and recognition of interactions and child-directed speech (CDS) in preschool classrooms could be developed, validated, and applied to ...non-coded video recordings representing children's classroom experiences. Using first-person video recordings collected by 13 preschool children during a morning in their classrooms, we extracted high-level audiovisual features from recordings using automatic speech recognition and computer vision services from a cloud computing provider. Using manual coding for interactions and transcriptions of CDS as reference, we trained and tested supervised classifiers and linear mappings to measure five variables of interest. We show that the supervised classifiers trained with speech activity, proximity, and high-level facial features achieve adequate accuracy in detecting interactions. Furthermore, in combination with an automatic speech recognition service, the supervised classifier achieved error rates for CDS measures that are in line with other open-source automatic decoding tools in early childhood settings. Finally, we demonstrate our tool's applicability by using it to automatically code and transcribe children's interactions and CDS exposure vertically within a classroom day (morning to afternoon) and horizontally over time (fall to winter). Developing and scaling tools for automatized capture of children's interactions with others in the preschool classroom, as well as exposure to CDS, may revolutionize scientific efforts to identify precise mechanisms that foster young children's language development.
Mindset is a term commonly used to represent an individual’s beliefs about the role of ability and effort in learning. In this study, we assessed parental mindset—ability mindset and effort ...mindset—for 497 parents in two countries (United States and Denmark), all of whom had at least one child between 3 and 5 years of age. Of primary interest was assessing the relations between parental mindset and home-learning activities of four types: family learning activities, learning extensions, parental time investment, and parental school involvement. Findings showed that parents in the United States and Denmark held similar ability and effort mindsets, but differed significantly in home-learning activities, with US parents providing significantly more family learning activities, learning extensions, and parental time investment than Danish parents, although the latter had significantly higher levels of school investment. Furthermore, findings showed that parents’ effort mindset was a significant predictor of family learning activities and parental time investment and that country moderated the relations between effort mindset and parental time investment. For US parents, higher levels of effort mindset were associated with higher levels of parental time investment, but this was not the case for Danish parents. We call for experimental work to determine the causal relations between parental mindset and home-learning activities, and rigorous cross-cultural research to explore the universality of parental mindset in distinctive cultural settings.
Background and Aims
Understanding healthcare utilization during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic is crucial to inform policy and to prepare health systems for future pandemics. We ...examined self‐reported healthcare utilization and associated factors, including public health preventive practices, perceptions, and coping strategies among the general public in Ghana during the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Methods
We adopted a cross‐sectional study design using a public survey to recruit 643 respondents between May 23, and July 11, 2020 during the first wave of confirmed COVID‐19 cases and after the fifth week of a partial lockdown in Ghana. Descriptive, bivariate, and binary logistic regression analyses were carried out in Stata version 15.
Results
Overall, there was a high level of compliance with COVID‐19 public health preventive measures. In terms of perception, 357 (55.5%) of respondents stated unnecessary worry was created about the disease. In relation to coping strategies, 376 (58.5%) of respondents stayed home for more than 6 h, while 35 (5%) reported drinking alcohol to overcome the fear created by the disease. The results showed that 176 (27.4%) of the respondents utilized healthcare while 44 (9.4%) did not utilized healthcare for fear of contracting the disease at the health facility. Marital status (adjusted odds ratio aOR = 0.63; 95% confidence interval CI = 0.409, 0.963), religion (aOR = 2.34; 95% CI = 1.10, 4.98), and possession of valid health insurance (aOR = 1.51; 95% CI = 1.020, 2.235) were associated with healthcare utilization.
Conclusion
There was low healthcare utilization coupled with fear of contracting the COVID‐19 disease at the health facilities among the respondents. The findings suggest the need for effective public education that ensures that future pandemics' prevention information and recommendations are easily understandable by the general public. Additionally, investment in health insurance coverage may contribute to healthcare utilization during future pandemics.
Media use is a pervasive aspect of children’s home experiences but is often not considered in studies of the home learning environment. Media use could be detrimental to children’s language and ...literacy skills because it may displace other literacy-enhancing activities like shared reading and decrease the quantity and quality of caregiver–child interaction. Thus, the current study asked whether media use is associated with gains in children’s language and literacy skills both at a single time point and across a school year and whether age moderates any association. Children (
N
= 1583) were from preschool through third grade classrooms and language and literacy skills were measured in the fall and spring of the school year. Parents reported how much time their child spends using media on a typical school day. Regression analyses showed that using 4 h or more of media was related to lower literacy gains, but not to language gains. Multilevel models conducted as a robustness check showed that this effect did not hold when accounting for classroom. In neither set of models was there an interaction between age and media use. Single-time-point models did show some associations that did not manifest in more stringent models, highlighting the limitations of correlational designs that do not have measures of children’s skills over time. Given the concern and popular press coverage around children’s media use, it is important to acknowledge non-significant effects in this domain. These non-significant associations suggest that societal fears around children’s media use may be exaggerated. Notably, however, characteristics of children’s media use, like educational content or adult co-use, may moderate any effects. The relation between media use and language and literacy growth did not differ across the age range investigated suggesting that, within this range, younger children are not more vulnerable to detrimental effects.
“Early intervention” has been a mantra in recent debates about human capital investment. Strong theoretical models motivate this focus by predicting that investment in children is most cost‐effective ...when they are young. The “Heckman curve” summarizes this idea visually (Heckman, 2006). However, hardly any reviews scrutinize this hypothesis empirically in modern welfare states such as those in Scandinavia that already invest heavily during early childhood. Any such review is ideally based on interventions conducted as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), set in the same welfare state, and comparable across ages through cost‐standardized effects. This meta‐analysis assembles cost‐standardized effect estimates from 10 RCTs, including a total of 18 intervention arms and 30,578 participants (aged 1.5–24 years), conducted by the same research center in the Scandinavian welfare state of Denmark. These interventions show significant effects relative to their costs, despite the large baseline investment level. Interventions targeted at younger children tend to produce larger effects, consistent with the Heckman curve. However, variation in the effect size within age groups is as large as it is across age groups. This indicates that both the quality and timing of investments matter and that “early interventions” are not necessarily superior to later interventions.
The cranial vault in humans is highly variable, clinically relevant, and heritable, yet its genetic architecture remains poorly understood. Here, we conduct a joint multi-ancestry and admixed ...multivariate genome-wide association study on 3D cranial vault shape extracted from magnetic resonance images of 6772 children from the ABCD study cohort yielding 30 genome-wide significant loci. Follow-up analyses indicate that these loci overlap with genomic risk loci for sagittal craniosynostosis, show elevated activity cranial neural crest cells, are enriched for processes related to skeletal development, and are shared with the face and brain. We present supporting evidence of regional localization for several of the identified genes based on expression patterns in the cranial vault bones of E15.5 mice. Overall, our study provides a comprehensive overview of the genetics underlying normal-range cranial vault shape and its relevance for understanding modern human craniofacial diversity and the etiology of congenital malformations.
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