New Directions in Children's and Adolescents' Information Behavior Research


Book Description

This book comprises innovative research on the information behavior of various age groups. It also looks at special populations such as ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, and users with disabilities. The book presents research and reflections on designing systems that help the new generation cope with a complex knowledge society.




New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research


Book Description

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.




New Directions in Information Behaviour


Book Description

New Research in Information Behaviour provides an understanding of the new directions, leading edge theories and models in information behaviour. Information behaviour is conceptualized as complex human information related processes that are embedded within an individual's everyday social and life processes.




Learning in Information-Rich Environments


Book Description

The amount and range of information available to today’s students—and indeed to all learners—is unprecedented. If the characteristics of “the information age” demand new conceptions of commerce, national security, and publishing—among other things—it is logical to assume that they carry implications for education as well. Little has been written, however, about how the specific affordances of these technologies—and the kinds of information they allow students to access and create—relate to the central purpose of education: learning. What does “learning” mean in an information-rich environment? What are its characteristics? What kinds of tasks should it involve? What concepts, strategies, attitudes, and skills do educators and students need to master if they are to learn effectively and efficiently in such an environment? How can researchers, theorists, and practitioners foster the well-founded and widespread development of such key elements of the learning process? This second edition continues these discussions and suggests some tentative answers. Drawing primarily from research and theory in three distinct but related fields—learning theory, instructional systems design, and information studies—it presents a way to think about learning that responds directly to the actualities of a world brimming with information. The second edition also includes insights from digital and critical literacies and provides a combination of an updated research-and-theory base and a collection of instructional scenarios for helping teachers and librarians implement each step of the I-LEARN model. The book could be used in courses in teacher preparation, academic-librarian preparation, and school-librarian preparation.




Growing Community Health Literacy through Libraries


Book Description

The capacity to understand and communicate health information is a major international health concern. Sponsored by the Health and Biosciences Section of International Federation of Library Associations, this book highlights the contribution that librarians are making to improving health literacy and enabling citizens to be active participants in the management of their own health. Knowledge is power and the World Health Organization recognizes that health literacy, involving effective access to and understanding of health information, is essential to health and well-being in society by empowering and enabling citizens to participate in their own healthcare. The book presents inspiring studies from an international group of authors showing how libraries and librarians are partnering with diverse sectors of society including universities, hospitals, public health clinics, community-based organisations, voluntary bodies and government agencies, to help citizens understand and manage their health. It provides guidance by example to suggest how libraries can help citizens participate in their healthcare and their communities by collaborating with others to increase health literacy in society.




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




New Directions in Human Information Behavior


Book Description

New Directions in Human Information Behavior, co-edited by Drs. Amanda Spink and Charles Cole provides an understanding of the new directions, leading edge theories and models in human information behavior. Information behavior is conceptualized as complex human information related processes that are embedded within an individual’s everyday social and life processes. The book presents chapters by an interdisciplinary range of scholars who show new directions that often challenge the established views and paradigms of information behavior studies. Beginning with an evolutionary framework, the book examines information behaviors over various epochs of human existence from the Palaeolithic Era and within pre-literate societies, to contemporary behaviors by 21st century humans. Drawing upon social and psychological science theories the book presents a more integrated and holistic approach to the understanding of information behaviors that include multitasking and non-linear longitudinal processes, individuals’ information ground, information practices and information sharing, digital behaviors and human information organizing behaviors. The final chapter of the book integrates these new approaches and presents an overview of the key trends, theories and models for further research. This book is directly relevant to information scientists, librarians, social and evolutionary psychologists. Undergraduate and graduate students, academics and information professionals interested in human information behavior will find this book of particular benefit.




New Directions and Trends in Parenting Research


Book Description

For many decades, parenting has been at the center of interest for practitioners and researchers interested in child social and psychological development. The body of research on children’s socialization has primarily focused on traditional parenting styles and their related practices in the spirit of Baumrind’s and others’ conceptualization of parental control and power assertion (e.g. authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive). This research has revealed many domains of children’s and adolescents’ adjustment and wellbeing that are affected by and affecting parenting quality, but intriguing new parental approaches and types have recently emerged in research literature, such as digital parenting, transcendent parenting, parental alienation, overparenting/helicopter parenting, tiger parenting, and several others, about which more is yet to be learned. Likewise, in recent years, our understanding of the role played by factors such as culture/ethnicity, environmental, and familial background in the relationship between parenting styles and children’s psychological wellbeing and mental health has greatly improved. However, the question of whether or not there is a global, uniform optimal parenting remains controversial, as more studies are required to better understand the varying impacts of parenting on the child’s well-being within different demographic and familial contexts. This is especially true for families with special needs children (i.e., children and adolescents with developmental and psychological disabilities), where research on parenting styles, in particular, is understudied. Additionally, in the present digital era, there is growing interested in relatively new behavioral outcomes in children and adolescents, such as sedentary behaviors, including eating and nutrition habits, online behaviors, and digital activity vs. physical activity. These and other important contemporary aspects in children’s functioning and behaviors contribute to developmental mental health, and further establishing our knowledge regarding the parental role in these contexts is essential.




The Promise of Adolescence


Book Description

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.




New Directions in the Treatment of Aggressive Behavior for Persons with Mental and Developmental Disabilities


Book Description

This book was written because of the paucity of practical, evidence-based and person-centered information regarding the treatment and management of aggressive behavior exhibited by persons with these disabilities. This book will acquaint readers about the: scope of aggression among the mentally and developmentally disabled persons; basic principles for designing and validating novel treatments for aggressive behavior; comprehensive functional assessment of aggression that permits individualised design of treatment interventions with a high likelihood of success in reducing or eliminating aggression toward others or self; positive behavior supports for a wide range of developmentally disabled persons, including those with traumatic brain injuries; currently validated, evidence-based medications for the control of aggression and how to use medications so they are monitored for effectiveness; cognitive-behavior therapy for aggression among the mentally ill; national and international dissemination and adoption of the treatment techniques described in this book. The major reason for writing this book was to bring these new directions in the effective treatment of aggressive behavior into the mainstream of services for persons with mental and developmental disabilities. The Editors engaged in enormous efforts of dissemination far beyond publications and presentations to professional colleagues at conferences, conventions and institutes. Our extensive dissemination efforts - where they given workshops and training institutes - have taken place in China, Japan, India, Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Spain, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For example, our colleagues in China recently informed us that over 50,000 Chinese persons with schizophrenia have participated in our published modules for training social and independent living skills. Our previous books have been translated in numerous languages, and at last count are in active use in 23 countries. Their goal in writing this book was to encourage various service agencies, treatment facilities and clinical teams to use positive techniques in managing aggressive behavior and teach appropriate communication and self-management skills.