PurposeDeveloping a sense of belonging among immigrant youth in multicultural contexts has attracted significant attention from scholars during the last few decades. Studies have already underscored how various educational factors hinder or facilitate students' sense of belonging to the school or the larger society. Although most students in Hong Kong schools are ethnic Chinese, a significant number of non-Chinese children make students diversity an essential aspect of schooling. The study investigated how schools can develop a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approachAs the education system in Hong Kong lacks a multicultural education policy, how can schools help develop a sense of belonging to the school and the larger society among young ethnic minority people? To answer this question, this paper consolidates the two sets of data originally gathered for two research projects. The data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with nine secondary school teachers (Chinese and non-Chinese) and 15 students (non-Chinese) and analysed thematically.FindingsThe thematic analysis of the qualitative data identified several challenges and opportunities for developing ethnic minority students' sense of belonging in Hong Kong.Research limitations/implicationsResearchers in comparative education can further explore how multicultural education and inclusive education approach together can help ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and cater to students' diverse learning needs across the education systems.Practical implicationsGiven that the aims of multicultural education and inclusive education resonate with each other, schools can focus on the Whole School Approach to developing a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong. However, policymakers and practitioners may need to adopt a multifaceted perspective on inclusive education that strives to ensure equitable quality education

Despite increased governmental support and attention, improved collaboration with community-based professionals, and enhanced teacher knowledge and training in Hong Kong, studies continue to reveal the unreadiness or even resistance of kindergarten teachers to include children with special educational needs (SENs) in their classrooms. This study aimed to unveil the possible reasons behind such unreadiness and resistance among trained early childhood teachers. The research team interviewed four early childhood educators from Hong Kong with various positions, experiences, and standpoints to explore their perspectives on pre-service teacher education and practicums in preparing teachers to support children with SENs. The results indicated that, while trainee teachers had the necessary knowledge to work with children with SENs, they lacked opportunities and support to apply and connect theory to practice during their practicums. This could be due to constraints such as being assigned passive roles by mentors and trainees' own complacency. Implications and recommendations for improving future pre-service programmes are discussed to better prepare teachers for inclusion. The analysis contributes an ecological perspective by investigating experiential learning as negotiated within dynamic sociocultural and structural forces, furthering understanding of influences shaping competence development. Copyright © 2024 Routledge .

Dyslexia and developmental language disorders are important learning difficulties. However, their genetic basis remains poorly understood, and most genetic studies were performed on Europeans. There is a lack of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on literacy phenotypes of Chinese as a native language and English as a second language (ESL) in a Chinese population. In this study, we conducted GWAS on 34 reading/language-related phenotypes in Hong Kong Chinese bilingual children (including both twins and singletons; total N = 1046). We performed association tests at the single-variant, gene, and pathway levels. In addition, we tested genetic overlap of these phenotypes with other neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as cognitive performance (CP) and educational attainment (EA) using polygenic risk score (PRS) analysis. Totally 5 independent loci (LD-clumped at r(2) = 0.01; MAF > 0.05) reached genome-wide significance (p < 5e-08; filtered by imputation quality metric Rsq>0.3 and having at least 2 correlated SNPs (r(2) > 0.5) with p < 1e-3). The loci were associated with a range of language/literacy traits such as Chinese vocabulary, character and word reading, and rapid digit naming, as well as English lexical decision. Several SNPs from these loci mapped to genes that were reported to be associated with EA and other neuropsychiatric phenotypes, such as MANEA and PLXNC1. In PRS analysis, EA and CP showed the most consistent and significant polygenic overlap with a variety of language traits, especially English literacy skills. To summarize, this study revealed the genetic basis of Chinese and English abilities in a group of Chinese bilingual children. Further studies are warranted to replicate the findings. Copyright © 2024 Springer.

The present study used functional analysis and tested for the effects of a treatment package on the increase of play and decrease of stereotypy with a student with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who attended an inclusive international school in Hong Kong. The treatment package was a partial replication of a toy conditioning procedure from Tsai Greer (2006). The play used was games on an iPad. The functional analysis conducted suggested that the high rates of stereotypy observed were being maintained through automatic reinforcement. Furthermore, the student was chosen to be in this study due to his observed high rates of stereotypy and limited community of reinforcers. Results show a correlation between the play conditioning procedure and subsequent reduction in stereotypy. Copyright ©2024 Mercy College New York.

This study examined the cognitive-linguistic and literacy-related correlates of dyslexia in three Chinese cities and the English word reading and mathematics performances of Chinese children with dyslexia. Chinese children with/without dyslexia were measured with an equivalent test battery of literacy and mathematics in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Univariate analysis results suggested that phonological sensitivity distinguished those with and without dyslexia across all three cities in group comparisons. In Taipei and Hong Kong, morphological awareness, delayed copying, and spelling also distinguished the groups. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that Chinese character reading, as directly compared to Chinese word reading, also distinguished the groups particularly well. In addition, in Beijing and Hong Kong, children with dyslexia performed significantly less well in English word reading than those without dyslexia. In Hong Kong and Taipei, children with dyslexia also had difficulties in mathematics performance. Findings highlight the fundamental importance of some cognitive-linguistic skills for explaining Chinese dyslexia across cultures, the utility of recognizing the individual Chinese character as a foundational unit of analysis in Chinese across cultures, and the generalizability of the comorbidity of both English as a second language (L2) and mathematics with dyslexia in Chinese children in both Beijing and Hong Kong. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

The Caregiver Strain Questionnaire assesses the three dimensions of caregiver strain, namely the objective, subjective externalized and subjective internalized strain. It was validated among caregivers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the United States and Mainland China with promising psychometric properties. This study aimed to develop and validate the Chinese (traditional script) version of the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (C-CGSQ) among 198 caregivers of children with ASD in Hong Kong. The C-CGSQ showed excellent internal consistency (α = 0.958) and test-retest reliability (Spearman’s r  = 0.966). Concurrent, convergent, divergent validity and a three-factor structure (consistent with previous studies) were established. The C-CGSQ demonstrated promising psychometric properties in measuring caregiver strain among caregivers of Chinese ASD children in Hong Kong. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

This study aims to bridge the research gap in the humour comprehension problems of individuals with dyslexia in Chinese culture. We conducted a nonexperimental study to examine the differences between Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia in visual humour comprehension as well as the group differences in the correlation of visual humour comprehension with other abilities. In total, 48 Chinese adolescents (16 individuals with dyslexia and 32 individuals without dyslexia) were recruited in Hong Kong. They were all administered several tasks: tests of nonverbal IQ, Chinese character reading, visual-spatial attention, orthographic knowledge, and visual humour comprehension. Our results indicated that visual humour comprehension is correlated with other abilities. Additionally, the group with dyslexia performed significantly less accurately on most tasks except humour comprehension accuracy. However, only visual spatial attention, orthographic knowledge, and humour comprehension speed significantly predicted membership in the two groups. Finally, approximately half of the participants with dyslexia had significantly slower humour comprehension than those with typical development. Our findings shed light on problems with humour comprehension exhibited by Chinese individuals with dyslexia. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the adoption of distance learning as a new alternative educational approach globally, a shift that has persisted even to the post-pandemic period. Despite identifying online educational advantages in previous studies, the abrupt societal changes brought about by the pandemic have exposed disproportionate difficulties. This study aims to understand how attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children and their parents are influenced by this educational pattern, and to outline a framework to improve their home-based learning environment from a design perspective. Following the Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle (KELC), the research commenced with the analysis of ADHD children and online-schooling in Hong Kong. After problems are identified initially, the observational study of 32 school students with or without ADHD in a home-learning environment is conducted to interpret these problems. This process has identified the key issues of domestic distraction and the need for resource support. The study also provides a multi-functional table design as an initial direction for developing supportive frameworks. Then, another study is conducted with a total of 30 school students with or without ADHD and their stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of the design concept. Therefore, the study's findings provide a valuable insight for proposing the framework to improve the home learning experience via the working area for ADHD children. These research findings not only contribute to academic discourse for validating ADHD children challenges in distance education, but also facilitate ADHD parents, educators and designers to enhance the home learning environment by offering a structured design framework. Copyright ©2024 Scientia Socialis Ltd.

Introduction: Audio description (AD) should satisfy the needs of people who are visually impaired; however, quality assessment in university training programs has rarely been based on feedback provided by AD users. Aiming to help students truly understand the needs of people who are visually impaired and their criteria for AD, this study adopted user-centered evaluation in an AD training program offered by a university in Hong Kong. Method: Three evaluators with visual impairment, representing the views of AD users, were invited to evaluate 29 students’ film clips that included AD and discuss their evaluation criteria. Eleven students participated in focus-group interviews and were asked to comment on AD products and discuss their own evaluation criteria. The evaluation criteria of the two groups were compared qualitatively and quantitatively with the aid of the software NVivo. Results: The results showed discrepancies between the users’ and the trainees’ criteria as well as differences in their focuses when evaluating the AD products. The users’ criteria were more numerous; however, certain criteria were perceived exclusively by the trainees. Discussion: Without sufficient knowledge of users’ needs, AD trainees are inclined to provide redundant information (e.g., easily identifiable film sounds and speaker information) while neglecting some aspects of AD (e.g., the prudent use of pronouns and literary expressions), which are deemed important by the users. Implications for Practitioners: The results prompted AD instructors to integrate user feedback into AD training to improve students’ understanding of how to produce AD that better meets its users’ needs. Copyright ©2024 Sage.

"The Transporters" intervention contains 15 animated episodes that autistic children watch daily for a month and learn emotion recognition through stories depicting social interactions between vehicle characters with grafted human faces, expressing emotions. Its automated, home-based format is cost-effective. This study included four groups of young Chinese children in Hong Kong: two intervention groups (an autism intervention group and an autism + attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) intervention group), an autism control group and a non-autistic group. The autism + ADHD intervention group was one that had not been separately examined before. In this study, "The Transporters" episodes were delivered via an App instead of the dated DVD technology. Following "The Transporters" intervention, both autism and autism + ADHD intervention groups improved significantly and similarly on emotion recognition and were more like the non-autistic group, while the autism control group did not. Learning was generalizable to novel situations/characters. There was no dosage effect, with the standard recommended number of episodes viewed as sufficient for significant improvement. Besides confirming the effectiveness of "The Transporters" for young Chinese autistic children, this study contributes to the literature/practice by expanding the range of applicability of "The Transporters" to autistic children with ADHD, which is important given the high co-occurrence rate between autism and ADHD. Copyright ©2024 SAGE Publications.