Explore the vast range of titles available.

With poverty and inequality on the rise and large achievement gaps remaining despite decades of school reform, Weiss and Reville make the case for a large-scale expansion of community-school partnerships in order to provide integrated student supports (ISS) from cradle to careers.-- Provided by publisher.

Background Children of parents with mental illness (COPMI) experience a range of emotional behavioral problems throughout their development, mainly due to family and environmental factors. Therefore, the current study investigated the role of parental acceptance/rejection and chaotic home environment in developing externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems among Pakistani children and adolescents affected by parental mental illness. Methods The study followed a cross-sectional research design. A purposive sample of 300 children and adolescents (51.3% girls; M age =14.31; SD age = 2.23), whose parents were diagnosed with mental illness (mainly major depressive disorder, 53.3%) at psychiatric care units of the public sector hospitals of Punjab, Pakistan, collected during May 2024 to December 2024. After providing consent, the participants completed the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, Confusion Hubbub and Order Scale, and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, along with a demographic information sheet. We also obtained a sample of 300 children and adolescents whose parents had no reported mental illness from public and private sector schools in Punjab for the sake of comparison. Data were collected from March 2024 to June 2024. Results Results of multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the children and adolescents of parents with mental illness who are exposed to higher levels of parental rejection (neglect, rejection & hostility) and chaotic home environments exhibit increased behavioral problems, particularly those with externalizing tendencies (conduct & hyperactivity). A significant interaction effect using two-way ANOVA across groups with and without parental mental illness (PMI) and gender reflected differences in externalizing and internalizing problems. Among children in the PMI group, boys exhibited higher levels of externalizing behavioral problems than girls, indicating that exposure to parental mental illness may have a stronger impact on boys’ outward behavioral difficulties. In contrast, within the without-PMI group, girls showed higher level of externalizing problems than boys. A similar trend was observed for internalizing behavioral problems. Boys in the PMI group displayed more internalizing symptoms than girls, whereas in the without-PMI group, girls reported higher internalizing problems than boys. This consistent pattern across both domains indicates that the presence or absence of parental mental illness may influence boys and girls differently in terms of emotional and behavioral adjustment. Conclusions These results emphasize the dire need for targeted interventions aimed at promoting emotional and behavioral stability in children and adolescents affected by PMI through family-focused support programs that address the demands of the parent-child relationship and the domestic environment in the context of parental mental illness. Clinical trial number Not applicable.

Healthcare is a field in which the benefits of virtual reality (VR), such as risk-taking without consequences, direct experience, and service outcome prediction, can be utilized. VR technology has been used to help clients face environmental barriers by implementing a home environment in virtual reality without a home visit by an expert. This scoping review was conducted to identify the areas and implementation methods of the home modification process supported by VR technology. Twelve studies met the research criteria. The following three types of tools supported by VR technology for the home modification process were identified: educational tools for clients or specialists, home environment measurement tools, and intermediaries for decision making and collaboration between clients and specialists. Most of the studies reported positive results regarding the usability and acceptability of the technology, but barriers have also been reported, such as technical problems, inappropriate population groups for technical use, cost-related issues, the need for training, and fear that the technology could replace home visits. Thus, VR technology has potential value in the home modification process. However, for future clinical applications, additional studies to maximize the benefits of these VR technologies and address the identified problems are required.

Background Children’s early literacy and mathematical competencies are very important predictors for their later success in school and their educational attainment in general. However, not all children are able to develop to their full potential and some are at risk of failing to reach sufficient competence levels. The project “App-based learning for kindergarten children at home” (Learning4Kids) is designed as a longitudinal intervention study that tests the potential impact of a computer tablet-based intervention for kindergarten children and their families before school entry. Here, the focus lies on both, potential short-term and long-term influences on children’s competencies development in kindergarten and school. Methods/design Learning4Kids uses a multi-method intervention approach and draws on expertise from different fields such as psychology, education, informatics, and didactics. It combines child test assessments with parental, educator, and teacher surveys and checklists, interviews as well as observations in the families to measure child competencies and their behaviour, and to assess family characteristics. The participating children and their families will be visited and assessed altogether seven times, starting in the second-last year of kindergarten until children are at the end of Grade 2. In cohort 1, 190 families participated in this project, whereas in cohort 2 another 310 families joined the Learning4Kids project. For the school assessments, standardized and curriculum-based tests will be used to assess children’s mathematical and literacy competencies. In addition, cognitive and non-cognitive child abilities will be assessed. Discussion Learning4Kids offers substantive advances for the scientific fields of psychology and education, and also provides implications for policy and practice in the long term. Improving young children’s learning trajectories and analysing these trajectories from kindergarten to primary school is both a social and economic imperative as it contributes to greater individual success and thus to societal prosperity.

Background: Children's literacy and mathematical competencies are a critical platform for their successful functioning as individuals in society. However, many children, in particular those with low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds who may not receive the home support needed to develop to their full potential, are at risk of not reaching sufficient competence levels. The overall aim of this project is to develop innovative computer tablet applications ('apps') and test whether the apps support parents in the provision of high-quality home learning environments (HLEs) and impact positively on the short- and long-term development of children's competencies. Altogether, \"App-based learning for kindergarten children at home\" (Learning4Kids) is a 5-year longitudinal study funded by the EU and designed to assess the potential impact of a tablet-based family intervention on children's learning, development, social inclusion and well-being. Methods/design: This study uses a multi-method intervention approach and draws on expertise from psychology, education, informatics, and didactics to evaluate the effectiveness of learning apps and the intervention approach. It also exploits new technological possibilities afforded by tablet computers that are very common nowadays in families. Learning4Kids sets out to measure the quality of the HLE, children's early mathematical, literacy, and cognitive competencies and their behavior. Here, data will be gathered via standardized tests, observations, and parental and educator surveys and checklists. Data collection also includes the assessment of app usage times via mobile sensing. In cohort 1, 190 families are assigned to one of four groups. One business-as-usual group will only participate in the child assessments, whereas the three remaining groups are provided with tablets for about 10 months. Two intervention groups will receive mathematical or literacy learning apps as well as parental information about these topics and the tablet-control-group will receive similar apps and information that focus on general child development, but not on mathematics or literacy. Discussion: Whilst offering substantive advances for the scientific fields of psychology and education, the Learning4Kids study also has broad societal implications. Improving young children's learning trajectories is both a social and economic imperative as it equips them to achieve greater individual success and to contribute to societal prosperity. (ZPID).

This study evaluated changes over time in the quality of children’s home environment, using the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment (HOME). Longitudinal increases in HOME scores were predicted by both theory and past empirical results. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Children data (N = 5715, aged 0–14) suggested that HOME scores have been increasing, and that the increase is a family-level phenomenon. The data were a sample of children born to mothers who were approximately representative of the United States in 1979. An increase in HOME scores occurred primarily for the three age categories younger than ten. Effect sizes were of approximately the same magnitude as the Flynn effect for intelligence. These results have implications for policy and future research regarding the home environment.HighlightsThis study examined changes in the home environment using a large representative U.S. sample, trends were found spanning 30 yearsThe trends discovered were consistent with other secular trends associated with the Flynn effectMaternal age at first birth was a particularly important predictor of children’s home environment

Background Recent literature has suggested that associations and interactions between family socioeconomic status (SES) and home food environment influence children’s diet, but little is known about the mediation roles of parental role-modeling and food availability in the socioeconomic inequalities of children’s diet. This study aimed to determine the associations between family SES and children’s fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and to assess the mediation roles of parental role-modeling and food availability in the above associations. Methods Cross-sectional data of 574 Finnish children (aged 3 to 6) were analyzed. Parents completed an FFQ assessing their children’s FV consumption frequency and a questionnaire assessing SES and home food environment. Two exposure variables: parental educational level (“low”, “middle”, and “high”) and the relative family income tertiles of the family were used. The frequencies of parental role-modeling of FV and sugary food and drink (SFD) consumption, and the availability of FV and SFD at home were calculated. Single- and multiple-mediator models were created using IBM SPSS 27.0. Results The positive association between high parental educational level and children’s FV consumption (direct effect coefficient: 2.76, 95% CI: 0.51–4.86) was partially mediated by more frequent parental role-modeling of FV consumption (indirect effect coefficient: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.10–1.76), higher availability of FV (indirect effect coefficient: 1.00, 95% CI: 0.35–1.77), and lower availability of SFD (indirect effect coefficient: -0.30, 95% CI: -0.72 – -0.01). The relative family income was not directly associated with the outcome. However, the higher relative family income level indirectly predicted the Children’s FV consumption (full mediation) through more frequent parental role-modeling of FV consumption (indirect effect coefficient: 0.91, 95% CI: 0.06–1.83) and higher availability of FV (indirect effect coefficient: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.40–1.67). Parental role-modeling on SFD consumption did not mediate any of the above associations. Conclusions Parental educational level showed more associations with children’s FV consumption than relative family income. Our findings suggest that reducing the availability of SFD is as important as increasing the availability of FV to enhance children’s FV consumption. Future interventions to improve children’s dietary behaviors should pay greater attention to the lower SES segments of society. Longitudinal studies and intervention studies supporting these findings are needed for making meaningful recommendations for health promotion.

Background In-home unintentional injuries (IUIs) seriously threatened children’s safety. Three factors, including risky behaviors, parental supervision, and home environmental risks, have been identified as major causes for IUIs. Studies considering the interrelations between the three were limited and no relative studies has been carried out among Chinese children. The purpose of this study is to fully explore the influences of behavioral, supervisory and environmental risk factors on IUIs and their associations among Chinese children on the bases of our self-developed scales. Methods Through stratified cluster sampling, a cross-sectional survey was conducted with 798 parents of children aged 0 ~ 6 years in Changsha, China. Social demographics and IUIs history in the past year were collected by self-administered questionnaires. Three IUI-related scales, which had been developed and validated by our team, aimed to measure risks from children behavior, parental supervision and in-home environment. Structural equation models were constructed to analyze the relationship of these factors and their influences on IUIs using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 22.0. Results Seven hundred ninety-eight parents were surveyed in total, and 33.58% of them reported with IUIs history of their children. X 2 /df, goodness-of-fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) and the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) for the model of the whole children were 4.832, 0.879, 0.856 and 0.069 respectively, indicating an acceptable level of model fit. Direct influences were discovered between risky behaviors and children’s IUIs. Home environmental risks indirectly exerted impacts on IUIs by the mediating effect of risky behaviors, while the significant effect of parental supervision only existed in children aged 4-6 and girls. Conclusions Risky behaviors played a mediating role in IUIs among children. Supervision and environmental risks affected IUIs indirectly by the exposure to risky behaviors. Parental supervision may not be able to offset the risks posed by the environmental and behavioral factors, so effective IUIs prevention strategies should focus on behavioral and environmental interventions, with appropriate supervision strategies based on the age and sex characteristics of the child.

Under the trend of increasing global aging, this study is based on the theory of mental model to conduct a study on the design of living environments for demented elderly, which is dedicated to meeting the special needs of this special group of demented elderly, improving their quality of life and self-care ability, and reducing the dependence on social medical and nursing resources to achieve the goal of social sustainability. The field research method was used to observe and record the behavior of elderly people with dementia in their homes, which included 20 elderly people aged 60–94 years with mild dementia; the ratio of male to female is 1:1. The Kawakita Jiro (KJ) method is used to extract a mental model of elderly people with dementia, obtain their subjective needs for the home environment, and propose related design principles. The research indicates that the mental space of elderly people with dementia regarding the home environment is mainly composed of three parts: information perception, environmental cognition, and environmental shaping. Based on this mental model, design principles of the home environment of elderly people with dementia are designed, aiming to improve their living experience via environmental information perception design, the enhancement of environmental cognition, and the reduction in the difficulty of shaping the environment.

Background The home environment is thought to influence children’s weight trajectories. However, few studies utilise composite measures of the home environment to examine associations with energy balance behaviours and weight. The present study aimed to adapt and update a comprehensive measure of the obesogenic home environment previously developed for pre-schoolers, and explore associations with school-aged children’s energy balance behaviours and weight. Methods Families from the Gemini cohort ( n  = 149) completed the Home Environment Interview (HEI) via telephone when their children were 12 years old. The HEI comprises four composite scores: one for each domain (food, activity and media) of the environment, as well as a score for the overall obesogenic home environment. The primary caregiver also reported each child’s height and weight (using standard scales and height charts), diet, physical activity and sedentary screen-based behaviours. A test-retest sample ( n  = 20) of caregivers completed the HEI a second time, 7–14 days after the initial interview, to establish test-retest reliability. Results Children ( n  = 298) living in ‘higher-risk’ home environments (a 1 unit increase in the HEI obesogenic risk score) were less likely to consume fruits (OR; 95% CI = 0.40; 0.26–0.61, p  < 0.001), and vegetables (0.30; 0.18–0.52, p  < 0.001), and more likely to consume energy-dense snack foods (1.71; 1.08–2.69, p  = 0.022), convenience foods (2.58; 1.64–4.05, p  < 0.001), and fast foods (3.09; 1.90–5.04, p  < 0.001). Children living in more obesogenic home environments also engaged in more screen-time ( β (SE)  = 4.55 (0.78), p  < 0.001), spent more time playing video games ( β (SE)  = 1.56 (0.43), p  < 0.001), and were less physically active (OR; 95% CI = 0.57; 0.40–0.80, p  < 0.01). Additionally, there was a positive association between higher-risk overall home environment composite score and higher BMI-SDS (β (SE) = 0.23 (0.09), p < 0.01) . This finding was mirrored for the home media composite ( β (SE) = 0.12 (0.03), p  < 0.001). The individual home food and activity composite scores were not associated with BMI-SDS. Conclusion Findings reveal associations between the overall obesogenic home environment and dietary intake, activity levels and screen-based sedentary behaviours, as well as BMI in 12 year olds. These findings suggest that the home environment, and in particular the home media environment, may be an important target for obesity prevention strategies.