How do the billions of connections between neurons in our brain change as we learn and remember? This is the story of the discovery and the discoverer of synaptic pruning, the process of synapse elimination central to making us who we are. Taking the reader from Professor Peter Huttenlocher's childhood in wartime and post-war Germany to his emigration to the US to reunite with his mother and the launch and progress of a career in medicine and research, we uncover the motivations and process of scientific discovery that led to an unexpected leap in our understanding of the human brain. Decades after the discovery, the importance of synaptic pruning to early learning, autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and other conditions are now in the process of being uncovered.
This is a stimulating book with much to interest, inspire and challenge students undertaking early childhood studies courses and existing early years practitioners ... the links made to current and possible future policy in the early years field are particularly informative at this current time of change." Early Years Update, March 2012 Reflective practice is a vital aspect of working with young children and enables a deeper understanding of their learning and development. There is a long tradition among early childhood practitioners of closely observing children's learning, so as to nurture and stimulate their development. They are also increasingly expected to reflect on their own practice in a variety of ways, in order to enhance their professional development and improve their practice. This book supports early years' practitioners in articulating and understanding their own practice in greater depth, exploring ways in which they can be encouraged to engage in reflecting on their practice. The authors introduce ideas around creativity, inclusion, children's well being, partnership with parents and multidisciplinary team working, which will enable you to develop and explore the role of the early years' practitioner in further detail. This second edition is refreshed and expanded to include: Updated and revised throughout to reflect latest policy changes and documents The role of the early years professional Reference to Children's Plan and Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for Children's Work Force New reflective questions and extended case studies Reference to safeguarding and child protection through joint-working Developing Reflective Practice in the Early Years, second edition, is essential reading for all early years' practitioners working in early years settings for children aged 0-8 years, including nurseries, children's centres and schools. Contributors: Naima Browne (freelance early years consultant), Anna Craft (University of Exeter & Open University), Michael Craft (an experienced public health and health promotion professional), Caroline Jones (consultant, University of Warwick), Alice Paige-Smith (Open University), Linda Pound (assessor for the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership), Michael Reed (University of Worcester), Jonathan Rix (Open University) and Elizabeth Wood (University of Exeter)
This book presents the most effective instructional strategies for promoting vocabulary growth in the early grades, when the interdependence of word learning and oral language development is especially strong. The authors guide teachers in choosing the best materials and in fostering home-school connections, and share six key principles for building vocabulary. Included are guiding questions; text boxes connecting vocabulary to the Common Core State Standards; examples from real teachers; reproducible checklists, rubrics, and other tools; and an appendix of additional vocabulary resources. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.
Anna Odrowąż-Coates shows that English, as a language of European integration and communication, has become an element of social status. In privileged social groups, its position has changed from a foreign language to a second language, which demonstrates a linguistic shift with long-term consequences. Socio-educational Factors and Soft Power of Language critically examines the cultural and individual implications of this phenomenon in the context of field study in Poland and Portugal. Odrowąż-Coates uses institutional ethnography with a combination of theoretical constructs, including “soft power” and “positioning theory,” to examine evidence of English as a new tool for social stratification and its effect on language policies as well as the ways in which it impacts people's lives and their opportunities. Whilst critical of the neoliberal, neo-colonial, and imperialistic dimensions of English language hegemony, Odrowąż-Coates argues for a gendered perspective of English as a language of opportunity, inclusion, and empowerment. She focuses on discourses that are shown to be products of and the makers of the material aspects of language. Using an ethical imperative not only to question, but also to participate in the existing power structures in order to change the power dynamic, Odrowąż-Coates argues that language choices are not necessarily individually driven but are instead institutionally driven.
New edition of this effective toolbox for treating trauma survivors is even more comprehensive This popular, practical resource for clinicians caring for trauma survivors has been fully updated and expanded. It remains a key toolkit of cognitive behavioral somatic therapy (CBST) techniques for clinicians who want to enhance their skills in treating trauma. Baranowsky and Gentry help practitioners find the right tools to guide trauma survivors toward growth and healing. Reinforcing this powerful intervention is the addition of a deeper emphasis on the preparatory phase for therapists, including the therapists' own ability to self-regulate their autonomic system during client encounters. Throughout the acclaimed book, an effective tri-phasic model for trauma treatment is constructed (safety and stabilization; working through trauma; reconnection with a meaningful life) as guiding principle, enabling a phased delivery that is fitted to the survivor's relational and processing style. The authors present, clearly and in detail, an array of techniques, protocols, and interventions for treating trauma survivors (cognitive, behavioral, somatic, and emotional/relational). These include popular and effective CBST techniques, approaches inspired by research on neuroplasticity, and interventions informed by polyvagal theory. Many techniques include links to video or audio material demonstrating how to carry-out the intervention. Further sections are devoted to forward-facing trauma therapy, a safe, effective, and accelerated method of treating trauma, and to clinician self-care. Over 40 video and audio demonstrations of many of the techniques are available for download. There are also 36 handouts for clients that can be downloaded and printed for clinical use.
The Interactional Instinct explores the evolution of language from the theoretical view that language could have emerged without a biologically instantiated Universal Grammar. In the first part of the book, the authors speculate that a hominid group with a lexicon of about 600 words could combine these items to make larger meanings. Combinations that are successfully produced, comprehended, and learned become part of the language. Any combination that is incompatible with human mental capacities is abandoned. The authors argue for the emergence of language structure through interaction constrained by human psychology and physiology. In the second part of the book, the authors argue that language acquisition is based on an "interactional instinct" that emotionally entrains the infant on caregivers. This relationship provides children with a motivational and attentional mechanism that ensures their acquisition of language. In adult second language acquisition, the interactional instinct is no longer operating, but in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved. The Interactional Instinct presents a theory of language based on linguistic, evolutionary, and biological evidence indicating that language is a culturally inherited artifact that requires no a priori hard wiring of linguistic knowledge.
Little by little we are being provided with an arsenal of operative instruments of a non-numerical nature, in the shape of models and algorithms, capable of providing answers to the “aggressions” which our economics and management systems must withstand, coming from an environment full of turmoil. In the work which we are presenting, we dare to propose a set of elements from which we hope arise focuses capable of renewing those structures of economic thought which are upheld by the geometrical idea. The concepts of pretopology and topology, habitually marginalized in economics and management studies, have centred our interest in recent times. We consider that it is not possible to conceive formal structures capable of representing the Darwinism concept of economic behaviour today without recurring to this fundamental generalisation of metric spaces. In our attempts to find a solid base to the structures proposed for the treatment of economic phenomena, we have frequently resorted to the theory of clans and the theory of affinities with results which we believe to be satisfactory. We would like to go further, establishing, if possible, the connection between their axiomatics at the same time as developing some uncertain pretopologies and topologies capable of linking previously unconnected theories, at the same time easing the creation of other new theories.
The book addresses the debate on whether the representational content of perceptual experience is conceptual or non-conceptual, by bringing out the points of comparison between Kant’s conception of intuition and the contemporary accounts of non-conceptual content, encountered in the writings of G. Evans, Ch. Peacocke, F. Dretske, T. Crane, M. G. F. Martin, and others. Following R. Aquila’s reading of Kant’s conception of representation, the author argues that intuition (Anschauung, intuitus) provides the most basic form of intentionality – pre-conceptual reference to objects, which underlies the acts of conceptualization and judgment. The book advances an interpretation of Kant’s theory of experience in the light of such questions as: Does conscious perceptual experience of objects require that subjects possess concepts of these objects? Do the contents of experience differ from the contents of beliefs or judgments? And if they do, what accounts for this difference? These questions take us to the most puzzling philosophical topic of the relation between mind and world. Anna Tomaszewska argues that this relation does not involve conceptual capacities alone but also, on the most basic level of perceptual experience, pre-cognitive “sensible intuition,” enabling relatedness to objects that remains uninformed by concepts. In a nutshell, on her interpretation, Kant can be taken to subscribe to the view that perceptual cognition does not have rational underpinnings.
This volume looks at the associative mechanisms of the brain, particularly of the cortico-limbic and diencephalic systems, and also at the macromolecular effects on them, by integrating the contributions of various disciplines converging on one subject and from different points of view. It addresses the question of how so many different activity levels — the biochemical, physiological, and psychological ones — interact in integrative processes. The topics treated include brain reverberating systems and associative phenomena; long-term potentiation, learning, and memory; gene activity and brain activity; and gene expression and information processing during sleep.
The book suggests a transition from a relational worldview premised on the socio-political ethos of adaptation towards a transformative worldview premised on the ethos of solidarity and equality. Expansively developing Vygotsky's revolutionary project, the Transformative Activist Stance integrates insights from a vast array of critical and sociocultural theories and pedagogies and moves beyond their impasses to address the crisis of inequality. This captures the dynamics of social transformation and agency in moving beyond theoretical and political canons of the status quo. The focus is on the nexus of people co-creating history and society while being interactively created by their own transformative agency. Revealing development and mind as agentive contributions to the 'world-in-the-making' from an activist stance guided by a sought-after future, this approach culminates in implications for research with transformative agendas and a pedagogy of daring. Along the way, many key theories of mind, development and education are challenged and radically reworked.
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