Towards Scalable, Integrative Assessment of Children's Self-Regulatory Capabilities: New Applications of Digital Technology.

The assessment of self-regulation in children is of significant interest to researchers within education, clinical and developmental psychology, and clinical neuroscience, given its importance to adaptive functioning across a wide range of social, educational, interpersonal, educational and health domains. Because self-regulation is a complex, multidimensional construct, a range of assessment approaches have been developed to assess its various components including behavioural, cognitive and emotional domains. In recent years, digital technology has been increasingly used to enhance or supplement existing measurement approaches; however, developments have predominantly focused on translating traditional testing paradigms into digital formats.

Implementation Through Community Coalitions: The Power of Technology and of Community-Based Intermediaries.

The measurement and monitoring of implementation fidelity or of adaptations to interventions in the ways described by the innovative papers in this special issue implies the need for an 'implementation infrastructure' to help assure the quality and hence impact of prevention delivery systems. In our work in Australia through schools and government-funded community services in socially disadvantaged communities we have begun to build such an infrastructure, which we call a Prevention Translation and Support System (PTSS). We offer our methodologies not as a template but as an illustration of one approach, designed for use with community coalitions.

Are rates of school suspension higher in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods? An Australian study.

Issue Addressed: Health promotion with adolescents spans many contexts including schools. Income and its distribution, education and social exclusion are key social determinants of health. Exclusionary school policies such as school suspension contribute to exclusion, increase the likelihood of school dropout (reducing educational and subsequent employment opportunities), and negatively impact on student wellbeing.

Language delays, reading delays, and learning difficulties: interactive elements requiring multidimensional programming.

Researchers have hypothesized four levels of instructional dialogue and claimed that teachers can improve children's language development by incorporating these dialogue levels in their classrooms. It has also been hypothesized that enhancing children's early language development enhances children's later reading development. This quasi-experimental research study investigated both of these hypotheses using a collaborative service delivery model for Grade 1 children with language difficulties from a socially and economically disadvantaged urban community in Australia.