Home Literacy Environment and Children's English Language and Literacy Skills in Hong Kong.

Emerging evidence has shown a positive association between the home literacy environment (HLE) and monolingual children's language and literacy development. Yet, far fewer studies have examined the impact of the HLE on second language development. This study examined relations between the HLE and children's development of English as a second language in Hong Kong. Participants were 149 ethnic Chinese children (80 girls; M age = 59 months, SD age = 10 months) and one of their caregivers. Caregivers completed questionnaires about their family backgrounds and HLE and children were assessed on their English language and literacy skills. Findings revealed considerable variability in the types of literacy activities that caregivers were engaged in at home with their children. A series of multilevel regressions demonstrated that the HLE was differentially associated with English vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and word reading skills after controlling for child and family characteristics. Results highlight the importance of a literacy-rich home environment for children's development of English as a second language and the need to support caregivers in providing a range of home literacy activities to facilitate different language and literacy skills.

Caring for children with autism spectrum condition in paediatric emergency departments.

The needs of children with autism spectrum condition (ASC) in paediatric emergency departments (EDs) can often be overlooked. EDs are high-stress environments for children with ASC, which can result in meltdowns, making the diagnostic process challenging. There should be provision for children with ASC, who can have sensory, behavioural and communication needs, in the same way that analgesia is provided for children in pain. This article promotes a multi-strategy approach to making reasonable adjustments to help meet the needs of these children and provide them with a positive hospital experience.

Attitudes, order and quantity: deterministic and direct probabilistic tests of unidimensional unfolding.

This article is the final in the series on unidimensional unfolding. The investigations of Kyngdon (2006b) and Michell (1994) were extended to include direct probabilistic tests of the quantitative and ordinal components of unfolding theory with the multinomial Dirichlet model (Karabatsos 2005); and tests of the higher order axiomatic conjoint measurement (ACM, Krantz, Luce, Suppes and Tversky (KLST) 1971) condition of triple cancellation. Strong Dirichlet model support for both the ordinal and quantitative components of unfolding was only found in datasets that satisfied at least double cancellation. In contrast, the Item Response Theory (IRT) simple hyperbolic cosine model for pairwise preferences (SHCMpp, Andrich 1995) fitted all datasets. The paper concluded the SHCMpp is suited to the instrumental rather than scientific task (Michell 2000) of psychological measurement; with the caveat of the problematic chi square fit statistic. The paper also presents original work by the second author on coherent tests of triple cancellation.