Child centered literacy orientation: a form of social capital?

Connecting information literacy and social capital to better utilise knowledge resources in the workplace

Human resources and intellectual capital are best utilised through an ongoing interaction between individual and social processes. Still there is a research gap of empirical multilevel studies, focusing both on individual and organisational aspects of knowledge processes. To fill this gap, this article reports on a quantitative study, where the relationship between information literacy and social capital, representing the individual and social contexts affecting organisational knowledge processes, is explored. Structural equation modelling-based analysis of 378 employees working in different companies in Finland demonstrated that information literacy supports all three dimensions of social capital at workplace. Strong information handling skills enable better access to knowledge beyond the resources of an individual, that is, social capital. The results of the study contribute to a better understanding of how to manage human resources and the information and knowledge processes that employees are expected to be involved in.

Literacy Promotion Training and Implementation in Pediatric Continuity Clinics

BACKGROUND

Despite endorsement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are no national data on literacy promotion (LP) training and behaviors.

OBJECTIVE

To describe LP training experiences and behaviors of pediatric and internal medicine/pediatrics residents and faculty nationally, and the association between LP training and behaviors.

METHODS

The Academic Pediatric Association's Continuity Research Network and Reach Out and Read National Center sent an online survey to faculty and residents at participating Continuity Research Network clinics. Respondents were asked about LP training experiences and behaviors. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression modeling.

RESULTS

473 faculty and 1216 residents at 42 institutions participated. More faculty than residents reported completing online Reach Out and Read training (63% vs 45%, P < .0001). More residents reported learning in clinic from others (92% vs 89%, P = .04). Training experiences did not differ otherwise. More faculty reported providing anticipatory guidance (87% vs 77%, P < .0001); modeling shared reading (69% vs 45%, P < .0001); and using books for developmental assessment (80% vs 62%, P < .0001). Both groups (97%) reported distributing books. The training modality most often endorsed as "very/extremely influential" was learning in clinic from others. Some LP behaviors were associated more strongly with online training while others were associated more strongly with in-person training.

CONCLUSIONS

Online training and in-person training are both associated with high quality delivery of LP. Faculty members are more likely to have completed online training and to report engaging in the full range of recommended LP behaviors. These data have implications for LP training.

Characteristics and influence of home literacy environment in early childhood-centered literacy orientation

Background:

The home literacy environment (HLE) and joint parent–child book reading are key factors in children’s language and literacy acquisition. Child-centered literacy orientation (CCLO) refers to the child’s level of engagement in literacy events.

Aim:

To describe the HLE and identify demographic and HLE variables associated with a poor CCLO at 12 months of age.

Methods:

Parents of Singaporean children enrolled in the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO; n = 1152, birth cohort 2009–2010) completed a childhood literacy questionnaire at 12 months to obtain scores on HLE (0–17) and CCLO (0–6). Logistic regression analyses were employed to identify predictors of low CCLO.

Results:

Parents of 525 children completed the questionnaire. Mothers were the main caregivers in half the households. Mandarin was the main language (34%). Majority of the respondents had a library card that was used less than weekly, and had fewer than 10 children’s books. 18% of parents read to the child daily, of whom one-quarter read at bedtime. Amongst half of the families who had a CCLO score of 0, two-thirds had the lowest HLE scores (0–2). Correlational analyses indicated significant association between HLE with CCLO at 12 months ( p < 0.001). Non-English speaking caregivers and mothers who had only completed primary education were at high risk of a poor 12-month CCLO.

Conclusion:

A literacy-rich home environment is associated with 12-month child-centered literacy orientation. Pediatricians and early years’ professionals may be able to promote benefits of literacy related activities to families at risk of poor child-centered literacy orientation.

Social Capital as a Communicative Paradigm

This paper discusses the relationship between information culture and social capital, a phenomenon which has lately been brought forth as a decisive factor in human health and wellbeing. The phenomenon may be seen as an umbrella concept for all the advantages an individual can get from social support. It has been studied especially by researchers in social and health sciences, whereas information and communication sciences have paid considerably less attention to it, although it has implicitly been a generally accepted fact that the single individual is formed by his or her social environment. The power of the social environment and communication on the members in a collective particularly stresses the social malleability of the individual. The importance of information culture in this process is brought up for discussion in this paper.

Childhood language skills and adult literacy: a 29-year follow-up study

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to assess the longitudinal trajectory of childhood receptive language skills and early influences on the course of language development.

METHODS

Drawing on data collected for a nationally representative British birth cohort, the 1970 British Cohort Study, we examined the relationship between directly assessed early receptive language ability, family background, housing conditions, early literacy environment, and adult literacy skills. A sample of 11349 cohort members who completed the English Picture Vocabulary Test at 5 years of age were studied again at 34 years of age, when they completed a direct assessment of their basic literacy skills. We contrasted experiences of individuals with language problems at age 5 against the experiences of those with normal language skills at that age, assessing the role of socioeconomic family background and early literacy environment in influencing the longitudinal course of developmental language problems. Statistical comparisons of rates with chi(2) tests at P values of .001, .01, and .05 were made, as well as multivariate logistic regressions.

RESULTS

Cohort members with receptive language problems at age 5 had a relatively disadvantaged home life in childhood, both in terms of socioeconomic resources and the education level of their parents, but also regarding their exposure to a stimulating early literacy environment. Although there is significant risk for poor adult literacy among children with early language problems, the majority of these children develop competent functional literacy levels by the age of 34. Factors that reduce the risk for persistent language problems include the child being born into a working family, parental education beyond minimum school-leaving age, advantageous housing conditions, and preschool attendance.

CONCLUSION

Effective literacy-promoting interventions provided by pediatric primary care providers should target both children and parents.

Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children in relation to demographic factors, mother and child characteristics, communication style and shared reading

BACKGROUND

Previous research has elucidated the associations between children's language development and reading habits, and maternal education, communication style, gender and birth order. Research including maternal age and child temperament is more scarce. We studied the associations of all these factors with children's expressive vocabulary and reading habits. We also analysed the relationships of reading with expressive vocabulary, and effect sizes associated with frequent reading.

METHODS

Questionnaires were completed by mothers of 1091 children aged 17-19 months visiting the Swedish Child Health Services. Expressive vocabulary was assessed by the Swedish Communication Screening at 18 months, a screening version of McArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Mother's perception of ability to communicate was measured by a scale constructed ad hoc from the International Child Development Programmes, a parent education curriculum. Bates' 'difficultness' scale was used to assess temperament.

RESULTS

Good communication, low maternal age, female gender and frequent reading were significantly associated with expressive vocabulary. High maternal education, good communication, higher maternal age, female gender and being a first-born child were significantly associated with frequent reading. Reading at least 6 times/week added more than 0.3 SD in vocabulary regardless of gender and communication.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings support the importance of reading and communication quality to early language development. Knowledge of the relationship between children's vocabulary and book reading in a context of joint attention is both theoretically and practically valuable to speech and language pathologists, pre-school teachers, child health workers and other professionals.

Early literacy interventions: reach out and read

Linkages between literacy attainment and poverty have been well documented in the literature. This article reviews the literacy challenges for low-income children and the need for child health practitioners to be informed about children's literacy environments. The authors define literacy and emphasize that literacy is a continuous developmental process that includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Read Out and Read is a national model that has demonstrated its effectiveness to improve receptive and expressive language development in children. Pediatricians are uniquely positioned to address early child's literacy development because they are often the only practitioner regularly encountering parents, infants, and children during the preschool years.

Caregiver health literacy and the use of child health services

OBJECTIVES

Eighty million US adults have low health literacy, a risk factor for increased health care use among adults. The purpose of this work was to assess the association between caregiver health literacy and the use and cost of child health services.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study of caregiver-child dyads from a sample of children aged 12 months to 12 years presenting to the pediatric emergency department of an urban, public hospital. Caregiver health literacy was measured by the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in their preferred language (English or Spanish). Child health care use was measured by a 12-month retrospective review of the public hospital system's electronic database and of state Medicaid billing records for 4 types of visits: preventive care, urgent care, emergency care, and hospital care. Cost of child health care use was provided by Medicaid billing records. Multivariate analysis included caregiver education, age, and language proficiency, as well as child age, special health care needs, ethnicity, and health-insurance coverage.

RESULTS

A total of 290 dyads were enrolled in the study. Twenty-two percent of caregivers had low (inadequate or marginal) health literacy. Caregivers with low health literacy were more likely to have less than a high school education, to have limited English proficiency, and to have been born outside the United States. There were no differences in health care use or cost between children of caregivers with low health literacy and children of caregivers with adequate health literacy. Three caregiver characteristics were associated with increased use of child health care services: born outside the United States, age at child's birth <24 years, and limited English proficiency.

CONCLUSIONS

One in 5 caregivers of young children has low health literacy. Caregiver health literacy, however, was not associated with disparities in the use of child health services in this inner-city, ethnic minority population.

Social capital, family violence, and neglect

BACKGROUND

Social capital includes collective efficacy, psychological sense of community, neighborhood cohesion, and parental investment in the child. It has been shown to be associated with a variety of health and welfare outcomes and may be useful in understanding and preventing parenting behaviors on the continuum of child abuse and neglect.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this research was to evaluate low social capital as a risk factor for harsh physical punishment, neglectful parenting, psychologically harsh parenting, and domestic violence.

METHODS

This study is an analysis of cross-sectional telephone survey data of mothers in North and South Carolina (n = 1435). We constructed a 4-point social capital index reflecting survey responses to items ascertaining neighborhood characteristics, willingness to take personal action, the presence of 2 adults in the household, and regular religious service participation. We assessed the relationship of social capital to inventories of self-reported parenting behaviors and in-home violence.

RESULTS

In adjusted analysis, we found that each 1 point increase in a 4-point social capital index was associated with a 30% reduction in the odds of neglectful parenting, psychologically harsh parenting, and domestic violence. There was no relationship between social capital and harsh physical punishment.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that increasing social capital decreases the odds of neglectful parenting, psychologically harsh parenting, and domestic violence but not harsh physical punishment. This supports further investigation into developing social capital as a resource for families.

The privileging of communitarian ideas: citation practices and the translation of social capital into public health research

The growing use of social science constructs in public health invites reflection on how public health researchers translate, that is, appropriate and reshape, constructs from the social sciences. To assess how 1 recently popular construct has been translated into public health research, we conducted a citation network and content analysis of public health articles on the topic of social capital. The analyses document empirically how public health researchers have privileged communitarian definitions of social capital and marginalized network definitions in their citation practices. Such practices limit the way public health researchers measure social capital's effects on health. The application of social science constructs requires that public health scholars be sensitive to how their own citation habits shape research and knowledge.

Pediatric interventions to support reading aloud: how good is the evidence?

Pediatricians and family practitioners increasingly provide free picture books and anticipatory guidance about reading aloud as part of routine health supervision for infants and young children, and arrange for volunteers to read aloud to children in the waiting rooms. These interventions comprise the Reach Out and Read (ROR) model, which has been adopted by more than 2000 clinical sites nationally. To date, 12 published studies have evaluated ROR and its variations, including three prospective, controlled trials. All but one have shown associations between ROR and increased reading aloud; additionally, four studies have linked program exposure to clinically meaningful increases in child language. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence of efficacy is lacking. This article provides a systematic, critical review of the literature, focusing on theoretical assumptions, issues of study design and measurement, and directions for future research.

What is social capital and how does it relate to health?

During the last 25 years, a new term has cropped up in social sciences, social capital. In the last 10 years, this term acquired a new dimension which relates it to health. Following an analysis of theoretical issues surrounding social capital and social support, recent research is used to illustrate how these are affecting health. It is argued that more theoretical development is needed before social capital can be used to form a new community nursing practice. Until then, the ideas of social capital (social contact, companionship, etc.) may guide our mode of operation during nursing interventions.

The impact of early literacy guidance on language skills of 3-year-olds

The objective of this prospective study was to determine the impact of early literacy anticipatory guidance (AG) with provision of books on language development in 3-year-olds in an early literacy program at a University-affiliated inner-city pediatric clinic. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III) and the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT-R) were administered to 33-39-month-old children exposed to an early literacy program, which included AG and provision of an age-appropriate book at each well-child visit starting at 2 months old. Children with developmental delays were excluded. Parental surveys on literacy and demographic data were obtained. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. Sixty-four children were evaluated; 88% African American, 89% Medicaid recipients. Fifty-eight percent of families reported family-centered literacy orientation. The PPVT-III scores directly correlated with the number of AG visits with book given x number of books purchased (r2 = 0.025, p = 0.0006). Higher scores in EOWPVT-R were predicted by race and the number of visits with books given x number of books purchased (r2 = 0.182, p = 0.0009). All families reported reading together, half reporting positive family-centered literacy. Given the same number of books purchased for each child, the outcome scores were higher the greater the number of clinic visits wherein AG included early literacy and provision of books.

Baby and the brain: advances in child development

As child morbidity and mortality declined during the twentieth century, a corresponding increase occurred in the relevance of child psychological well-being to public health. Evidence of this trend is the proliferation of programs intended to ameliorate conditions that place children in jeopardy of poor developmental outcome. Most recently, neurobiologic information on brain function and structure has been used to promote strategies for optimizing child development. This review will evaluate the current state of knowledge relating early child development to brain research and illustrate the potential misuse of this information. It will also suggest the following: (a) the extrapolation of neuroscience results to early academic and social enrichment programs obscures the magnitude of potential effects of these programs relative to the vast burden of risk imposed by poverty, and (b) an emphasis on intellectual functioning misses the most compelling evidence on the role of the early social environment in mediating establishment of neural networks that regulate a child's response to stress and capacity for self-control.

Social capital and health promotion: a review

Interest in social capital and health has emerged at an exciting time. In public health, there is a renewed interest in mechanisms that link social inequalities and health. In epidemiology, there has been a critical interrogation of methods and a call for a more explicit use of theory. In health promotion over the last 20-30 years, social health interventions have been somewhat marginalised in an era dominated by interest in traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors. Now that social hypotheses are being reborn in health, there is a risk that the sophistication that has developed in social health promotion and the literatures that have informed it could be overlooked. In this paper, we present a brief history of social capital and how it has come into recent prominence through the debate linking income inequality and health. We present the background to this, the earlier literatures on social environmental influences on health and the possible processes thought to underlie this relationship. Social capital has relational, material and political aspects. We suggest that, although the relational properties of social capital are important (eg, trust, networks), the political aspects of social capital are perhaps under recognised. The paper also reviews how complex social processes at the community level have come to be operationalised by social theorists and intervention agents in other fields. We suggest that social capital research so far has inadequately captured the underlying constructs, in particular the qualitative difference between the macro/context level and the micro/individual level. While being cautious about the science, we conclude that social capital's power as rhetoric and as a metaphor may be of value. We conclude by suggesting that the coalescence of interests in context-level influences on health now invites a revitalisation of theories and interventions inspired by diverse fields, such as geography and ecological community psychology.