Diana Messer
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 230487 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Diana Messer |
| NOMBRES | Diana |
| APELLIDO | Messer |
| FIRMA | MESSER D |
| AFILIACIONES | The Open University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9332-1265 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 49 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1980 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Developing Computational Thinking Abilities in the Early Years Using Guided Play Activities
While researchers of children in early years education promote the development of computational thinking (CT) abilities, many teachers are unaware of, or resistant to, the idea of teaching CT to such young children. This study explored the possibility of utilising everyday items and topics to develop CT abilities in a class of 24 four-to-five-year-old children. Over six weekly sessions, the children took part in innovative guided play activities …
Cognitive and Language Abilities Associated With Reading in Intellectual Disability
Cognitive and language abilities influence literacy outcomes in individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The aim of this study was to investigate abilities associated with decoding and reading comprehension in individuals with ID with a systematic review and a correlational meta-analysis. A total of 26 studies with 27 samples and 1,137 participants were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed that reading comprehension was signifi…
The complexity of student-led research
Preparing young people to meet emerging contemporary challenges has become a global imperative. Over two decades, there has been a call for students’ active participation in the life of school and society, and an important feature of this call is student-led research (SLR). However, this pedagogical and empowering call with many potential benefits is not unproblematic. There are far-reaching differences between various conceptions and use of stud…
Enhancing Pragmatic Language skills for Young children with Social communication difficulties (E-PLAYS-2) trial
v1.1 19th June 2023
“We can make our words powerful”
Previous research suggests that students can use exploratory talk to support their thinking and learning. However, students’ own perspectives on such talk, and whether/how they value it, are rarely sought. Thirty 12-year-olds and their teacher used Talk Factory on an interactive whiteboard and iPads to support exploratory talk in English lessons twice/week for five weeks. Four focal students took photographs and chose words that described their f…
See and Eat! The impact of repeated exposure to vegetable ebooks on young children's vegetable acceptance
Vegetable consumption in young children in the UK is well below the recommended five child-sized portions per day. Effective and practical strategies are therefore needed to encourage vegetable consumption in young children. In this exploratory study, we examine the effects of visual familiarization to foods via See & Eat ebooks, which show vegetables on their journey from 'field to fork'. As part of a larger study, in which 242 British families …
The Role of Forensic Anthropologists at the Fatal Fire Recovery
A retrospective review of 1,760 forensic cases processed by Mercyhurst University personnel between 1983 and 2020was performed for medicolegal investigations of fatal fires. This research examines trends in the role of forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology at fatal fire scenes. A total of 218 forensic archaeological searches and/or recoveries were conducted over the 38-year period. Of these, 36 were categorized as fire cases for which th…
Steven A. Symes
Steven A. Symes is primarily known for his scholarly work on skeletal trauma analysis and for his applied casework and frequent courtroom appearances providing forensic anthropology testimony. However, many may not know that throughout his career Steve has also been a proponent of photography and microscopy. This biography serves to introduce some and enlighten others as to how Steve ended up in forensic anthropology, highlighting aspects of Stev…
A Randomized Clinical Trial of Online Stress Inoculation for Adult Children of Divorce
Interventions for helping young adults cope with the stress produced by their parents’ divorce are rarely described or evaluated. Transitions, derived from a stress inoculation framework, was designed to foster stress-coping and parent–young adult relationship skills via the Internet. Participants (95 young adult college students who had experienced parental separation or divorce within the past year) were randomly assigned to experimental and de…
The relation between executive functioning, reaction time, naming speed, and single word reading in children with typical development and language impairments
BackgroundFew investigations have examined the relationship between a comprehensive range of executive functioning (EF) abilities and reading.AimsOur investigation identified components of EF that independently predicted single word reading, and determined whether their predictive role remained when additional variables were included in the regression analyses. This provided information about the EF processes that are related to reading, and the …
Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition
This study examines whether books that contain personalized content are better facilitators of young children’s word acquisition than books which are not personalized for a child. In a repeated-measures experimental design, 18 children (mean age 3;10) were read a picture book which contained both personalized and non-personalized sections, with unknown, real, target words embedded in each section. The book was read to the children on two occasion…
New directions for early literacy in a digital age
In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month…
The effects of personalisation on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading
Children with word finding difficulties
Word finding difficulties (WFDs) occur in more than a quarter of children who are receiving speech and language therapy. This study provides the first investigation of the continuity in WFDs and investigates whether WFDs are associated with phonological or semantically related abilities. Thirty-eight children with WFDs were seen at age 7;0 and at 9;8. Standardized assessments of word finding, language and literacy were administered. The children’…
Morphosyntax in children with word finding difficulties
Children with word finding difficulties (CwWFDs) are slower and less accurate at naming monomorphemic words than typically developing children (Dockrell, Messer & George, 2001), but their difficulty in naming morphologically complex words has not yet been investigated. One aim of this paper was to identify whether CwWFDs are similar to typically developing children at producing inflected (morphologically complex) words. A second aim was to invest…
More gestures than answers
This research extends the range of domains within which children's gestures are found to play an important role in learning. The study involves children learning about balance, and the authors locate children's gestures within a relevant model of cognitive development--the representational redescription model (A. Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). The speech and gestures of children explaining a balance task were examined. Approximately one third of the chi…
A connectionist account of Spanish determiner production
Evidence from experimental studies of Spanish children's production of determiners reveals that they pay more attention to phonological cues present in nouns than to natural semantics when assigning gender to determiners (Pérez-Pereira, 1991). This experimental work also demonstrated that Spanish children are more likely to produce the correct determiner when given a noun with phonological cues which suggest it is masculine, and more likely to as…
Prospective memory in children
Prospective memory (PM), remembering to carry out a task in the future, is highly relevant to children's everyday functioning, yet relatively little is known about it.For these reasons the effects of age and task interruption on PM were studied in 3 experiments.Children, aged 4-, 5-, and 7-years, were asked to name pictures in stacks of cards (the ongoing task) and to remember to do something when they saw a target picture (the PM task).Significa…
The teachability of children with naive theories
Background. The Representational Redescription model of cognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992) identified a level when a child's representation of a task may be incorrect but difficult to access or change. On the balance beam task children at this level have been found to hold a fixed belief that all objects must balance at their geometric centre, even those which have more weight at one end and actually balance off-centre.Aims. In this st…
Influences on the effectiveness of peer interaction
Studies of peer interaction among children have generally shown that this experience aids performance, or at the very least does not result in poorer performance in relation to control conditions. Furthermore, working with a more able partner has been found to be a particularly effective form of peer interaction. In contrast, a model proposed by Karmiloff‐Smith suggests that at certain phases of cognitive development children may ignore feedback …
G. E. Speidel & K. E. Nelson, The many faces of imitation in language learning. New York
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A test of the 'specificity hypothesis' in children with Down's syndrome
How organized is pre-verbal interaction
Assessment of mastery behavior at 30 months
Adult-Child Relationships and Language Acquisition
This paper concerns social relationships and language development and it attempts to show that the consideration of the totality of communication within the adult-child relationship is necessary if we are to understand the process of language acquisition. Non-linguistic communication may play a part in developing skills necessary to regulate conversations, contribute to the development of communicative intentions and provide information which aid…
New directions for early literacy in a digital age
In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month…
More gestures than answers
This research extends the range of domains within which children's gestures are found to play an important role in learning. The study involves children learning about balance, and the authors locate children's gestures within a relevant model of cognitive development--the representational redescription model (A. Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). The speech and gestures of children explaining a balance task were examined. Approximately one third of the chi…
Prospective memory in children
Prospective memory (PM), remembering to carry out a task in the future, is highly relevant to children's everyday functioning, yet relatively little is known about it.For these reasons the effects of age and task interruption on PM were studied in 3 experiments.Children, aged 4-, 5-, and 7-years, were asked to name pictures in stacks of cards (the ongoing task) and to remember to do something when they saw a target picture (the PM task).Significa…
Relation between mastery behavior in infancy and competence in early childhood
The failure of developmental tests in infancy to predict later competence may be because the tests ignore important dimensions of infant functioning. Yarrow and Pedersen (1976) have suggested that one such dimension could be mastery behavior, which involves persistence and investigation. Fifty-three infants were observed at 6 and 12 months during two 24-min play sessions. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were given at 6 and 12 months, and …
Assessment of mastery behavior at 30 months
The effects of personalisation on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading
The teachability of children with naive theories
Background. The Representational Redescription model of cognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992) identified a level when a child's representation of a task may be incorrect but difficult to access or change. On the balance beam task children at this level have been found to hold a fixed belief that all objects must balance at their geometric centre, even those which have more weight at one end and actually balance off-centre.Aims. In this st…
The identification of names in maternal speech to infants
The relation between executive functioning, reaction time, naming speed, and single word reading in children with typical development and language impairments
BackgroundFew investigations have examined the relationship between a comprehensive range of executive functioning (EF) abilities and reading.AimsOur investigation identified components of EF that independently predicted single word reading, and determined whether their predictive role remained when additional variables were included in the regression analyses. This provided information about the EF processes that are related to reading, and the …
The episodic structure of maternal speech to young children
An investigation was made of the episodic structure of maternal speech to young children during a free-play session. The findings indicate that maternal speech was organized so as to provide a high degree of redundancy with regard to the referential component of speech. The beginning of episodes, in which the same object was repeatedly referred to, was clearly marked; furthermore speech inside episodes with a common referent was highly repetitive…
The identification of names in maternal speech to infants
Adult-Child Relationships and Language Acquisition
This paper concerns social relationships and language development and it attempts to show that the consideration of the totality of communication within the adult-child relationship is necessary if we are to understand the process of language acquisition. Non-linguistic communication may play a part in developing skills necessary to regulate conversations, contribute to the development of communicative intentions and provide information which aid…
Relation between mastery behavior in infancy and competence in early childhood
The failure of developmental tests in infancy to predict later competence may be because the tests ignore important dimensions of infant functioning. Yarrow and Pedersen (1976) have suggested that one such dimension could be mastery behavior, which involves persistence and investigation. Fifty-three infants were observed at 6 and 12 months during two 24-min play sessions. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were given at 6 and 12 months, and …
Assessment of mastery behavior at 30 months
How organized is pre-verbal interaction
G. E. Speidel & K. E. Nelson, The many faces of imitation in language learning. New York
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A test of the 'specificity hypothesis' in children with Down's syndrome
Influences on the effectiveness of peer interaction
Studies of peer interaction among children have generally shown that this experience aids performance, or at the very least does not result in poorer performance in relation to control conditions. Furthermore, working with a more able partner has been found to be a particularly effective form of peer interaction. In contrast, a model proposed by Karmiloff‐Smith suggests that at certain phases of cognitive development children may ignore feedback …
The teachability of children with naive theories
Background. The Representational Redescription model of cognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992) identified a level when a child's representation of a task may be incorrect but difficult to access or change. On the balance beam task children at this level have been found to hold a fixed belief that all objects must balance at their geometric centre, even those which have more weight at one end and actually balance off-centre.Aims. In this st…
Prospective memory in children
Prospective memory (PM), remembering to carry out a task in the future, is highly relevant to children's everyday functioning, yet relatively little is known about it.For these reasons the effects of age and task interruption on PM were studied in 3 experiments.Children, aged 4-, 5-, and 7-years, were asked to name pictures in stacks of cards (the ongoing task) and to remember to do something when they saw a target picture (the PM task).Significa…
A connectionist account of Spanish determiner production
Evidence from experimental studies of Spanish children's production of determiners reveals that they pay more attention to phonological cues present in nouns than to natural semantics when assigning gender to determiners (Pérez-Pereira, 1991). This experimental work also demonstrated that Spanish children are more likely to produce the correct determiner when given a noun with phonological cues which suggest it is masculine, and more likely to as…
More gestures than answers
This research extends the range of domains within which children's gestures are found to play an important role in learning. The study involves children learning about balance, and the authors locate children's gestures within a relevant model of cognitive development--the representational redescription model (A. Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). The speech and gestures of children explaining a balance task were examined. Approximately one third of the chi…
Morphosyntax in children with word finding difficulties
Children with word finding difficulties (CwWFDs) are slower and less accurate at naming monomorphemic words than typically developing children (Dockrell, Messer & George, 2001), but their difficulty in naming morphologically complex words has not yet been investigated. One aim of this paper was to identify whether CwWFDs are similar to typically developing children at producing inflected (morphologically complex) words. A second aim was to invest…
Children with word finding difficulties
Word finding difficulties (WFDs) occur in more than a quarter of children who are receiving speech and language therapy. This study provides the first investigation of the continuity in WFDs and investigates whether WFDs are associated with phonological or semantically related abilities. Thirty-eight children with WFDs were seen at age 7;0 and at 9;8. Standardized assessments of word finding, language and literacy were administered. The children’…
Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition
This study examines whether books that contain personalized content are better facilitators of young children’s word acquisition than books which are not personalized for a child. In a repeated-measures experimental design, 18 children (mean age 3;10) were read a picture book which contained both personalized and non-personalized sections, with unknown, real, target words embedded in each section. The book was read to the children on two occasion…
New directions for early literacy in a digital age
In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month…
The effects of personalisation on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading
The relation between executive functioning, reaction time, naming speed, and single word reading in children with typical development and language impairments
BackgroundFew investigations have examined the relationship between a comprehensive range of executive functioning (EF) abilities and reading.AimsOur investigation identified components of EF that independently predicted single word reading, and determined whether their predictive role remained when additional variables were included in the regression analyses. This provided information about the EF processes that are related to reading, and the …
A Randomized Clinical Trial of Online Stress Inoculation for Adult Children of Divorce
Interventions for helping young adults cope with the stress produced by their parents’ divorce are rarely described or evaluated. Transitions, derived from a stress inoculation framework, was designed to foster stress-coping and parent–young adult relationship skills via the Internet. Participants (95 young adult college students who had experienced parental separation or divorce within the past year) were randomly assigned to experimental and de…
Steven A. Symes
Steven A. Symes is primarily known for his scholarly work on skeletal trauma analysis and for his applied casework and frequent courtroom appearances providing forensic anthropology testimony. However, many may not know that throughout his career Steve has also been a proponent of photography and microscopy. This biography serves to introduce some and enlighten others as to how Steve ended up in forensic anthropology, highlighting aspects of Stev…
The Role of Forensic Anthropologists at the Fatal Fire Recovery
A retrospective review of 1,760 forensic cases processed by Mercyhurst University personnel between 1983 and 2020was performed for medicolegal investigations of fatal fires. This research examines trends in the role of forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology at fatal fire scenes. A total of 218 forensic archaeological searches and/or recoveries were conducted over the 38-year period. Of these, 36 were categorized as fire cases for which th…
“We can make our words powerful”
Previous research suggests that students can use exploratory talk to support their thinking and learning. However, students’ own perspectives on such talk, and whether/how they value it, are rarely sought. Thirty 12-year-olds and their teacher used Talk Factory on an interactive whiteboard and iPads to support exploratory talk in English lessons twice/week for five weeks. Four focal students took photographs and chose words that described their f…
See and Eat! The impact of repeated exposure to vegetable ebooks on young children's vegetable acceptance
Vegetable consumption in young children in the UK is well below the recommended five child-sized portions per day. Effective and practical strategies are therefore needed to encourage vegetable consumption in young children. In this exploratory study, we examine the effects of visual familiarization to foods via See & Eat ebooks, which show vegetables on their journey from 'field to fork'. As part of a larger study, in which 242 British families …
The complexity of student-led research
Preparing young people to meet emerging contemporary challenges has become a global imperative. Over two decades, there has been a call for students’ active participation in the life of school and society, and an important feature of this call is student-led research (SLR). However, this pedagogical and empowering call with many potential benefits is not unproblematic. There are far-reaching differences between various conceptions and use of stud…
Psychology (22 obras) · Developmental psychology (15 obras) · Linguistics (11 obras) · Cognitive psychology (10 obras) · Cognition (8 obras) · Social Psychology (8 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras) · Language Development and Disorders (7 obras) · Reading and Literacy Development (6 obras) · Child Development and Digital Technology (5 obras)