"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.

Introduction: Readability formulas are crucial for identifying suitable texts for children’s reading development. Traditional formulas, however, are linear models designed for alphabetic languages and struggle with numerous predictors. Purpose: To develop advanced readability formulas for Chinese texts using machine-learning algorithms that can handle hundreds of predictors. It is also the first readability formula developed in Hong Kong. Method: The corpus comprised 723 texts from 72 Chinese language arts textbooks used in public primary schools. The study considered 274 linguistic features at the character, word, syntax, and discourse levels as predictor variables. The outcome variables were the publisher-assigned semester scale and the teacher-rated readability level. Fifteen combinations of linguistic features were trained using Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF) algorithms. Model performance was evaluated by prediction accuracy and the mean absolute error between predicted and actual readability. For both publisher-assigned and teacher-rated readability, the all-level-feature-RF and character-level-feature-RF models performed the best. The top 10 predictive features of the two optimal models were analyzed. Results: Among the publisher-assigned and subjective readability measures, the all-RF and character-RF models performed the best. The feature importance analyses of these two optimal models highlight the significance of character learning sequences, character frequency, and word frequency in estimating text readability in the Chinese context of Hong Kong. In addition, the findings suggest that publishers might rely on diverse information sources to assign semesters, whereas teachers likely prefer to utilize indices that can be directly derived from the texts themselves to gauge readability levels. Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of character-level features, particularly the timing of a character’s introduction in the textbook

The way in which different cities teach children to read in Chinese may have an impact on the skills they later utilize to acquire English word reading skills. This study examined the relative contributions of several cognitive–linguistic measures to English word reading for Chinese students learning English as a second language in two Chinese cities, one whose school system teaches Pinyin (Beijing) and one whose school system does not teach Pinyin (Hong Kong). Students in grades 2–3 completed measures on Chinese morphological awareness (MA), Chinese phonological awareness (PA), Pinyin writing, and English word reading. In the Beijing group, it was found that PA (β = 0.334, p < 0.01) and Pinyin (β = 0.257,p < 0.05) were significant predictors of English word reading. In contrast, in the Hong Kong group, only MA (β = 0.263, p < 0.05) was found to be a significant predictor of English word reading. The difference in predictors could be due to the availability of a phonological tool (Pinyin) for the Beijing students when learning Chinese, while the Hong Kong group may have relied more heavily on learning using MA and rote memory techniques. Overall, the results from this study provide data supporting the benefits of having a phonological tool like Pinyin for Chinese children when learning to read in English. Copyright ©2024 MDPI.

This case study explored how the principles of multicultural and intercultural education are reflected in a minority-majority Hong Kong secondary school (that is, a school where most students are ethnic minorities). The findings suggest that the school illustrates several aspects of multicultural and intercultural education, especially content integration, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and democratic deliberation, particularly in relation to school-based material, teacher sensitivity, and dialogical reasoning. The main hurdles discovered are language learning difficulties and an unsupportive social environment. This study contributes to literature on the development of multicultural and intercultural education in Hong Kong and offers directions for generalizable future research. Copyright © 2023 Peicong MA et al.

Students with special education needs (SEN) face challenges in developing career adaptability and self-efficacy. Using a sample of 355 students with SEN in Hong Kong, this study evaluated effects of social connectedness and meaning in life on career adaptability and career self-efficacy. Data were collected twice, participants completing self-report measures at baseline and 18 months later. Analysis found that meaning in life significantly and positively predicted both variables. At follow-up, social connectedness directly predicted presence of meaning, while indirectly predicting career adaptability and self-efficacy. Interventions for SEN students should seek to strengthen their social connectedness and meaning in life. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

Copying characters presented previously (delayed copying) is an important skill in Chinese literacy acquisition. The relations of delayed copying and a set of literacy-related skills (including vocabulary knowledge, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness), visual-orthographic judgment, motor coordination, pure copying of foreign scripts, and delayed copying to Chinese spelling were examined among 294 typically developing Hong Kong kindergarteners. With all other variables statistically controlled, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, motor coordination, and delayed copying all uniquely explained Chinese spelling. To further investigate how delayed copying interacts with other skills, path analyses were conducted. The final model showed that vocabulary knowledge, visual-orthographic judgment, and pure copying had indirect effects on spelling through delayed copying. These findings partly support spelling models developed in alphabetic writing systems, but also reflect the uniqueness of Chinese. In addition, results suggest that delayed copying is a unique window into how children learn to write words in Chinese. The potentially critical role of delayed copying in Chinese spelling makes it a potentially good clinical indicator of early spelling proficiency and spelling difficulties. Copyright © 2022 SAGE Publications.

In this study, we investigated the direct and indirect associations of different cognitive–linguistic skills and Chinese reading comprehension in Hong Kong kindergarteners. We assessed 179 children's nonverbal IQ, cognitive–linguistic skills, word reading, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Results showed significant correlations between all variables and reading comprehension. Further path analysis results indicated that rapid automatized naming, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness contributed to reading comprehension via word reading. Nonverbal IQ and vocabulary knowledge were associated with reading comprehension through listening comprehension. Beyond that, nonverbal IQ and morphological awareness still contributed directly to reading comprehension. Overall, our findings elucidated the importance of nonverbal IQ and cognitive–linguistic skills within the framework of the simple view of reading in Chinese and highlighted the unique roles of nonverbal IQ and meaning-related skills in Chinese reading comprehension, which contributed to understanding the simple view of reading in Chinese. Copyright © 2022 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan.

The Hong Kong Early Child Development Scale (HKECDS) is a tool for assessing holistic early child development in preschoolers aged from three to six years. The original version of the scale, HKECDS, was updated in 2019 (HKECDS-2) to reflect the contemporary context and local curricular expectations. Children (n = 144) from three kindergartens in Hong Kong completed the HKECDS-2 in individual sessions. Rasch model analysis and expert discussions resulted in a short version of the scale (HKECDS-3) with 50 items in nine domains. The domains are Personal and self-care (4 items), Language development (7 items), Pre-academic learning (10 items), Cognitive development (6 items), Gross motor (4 items), Fine motor (2 items), Health and safety (5 items), Moral development (6 items), and Society and environment (6 items). There were significant correlations between findings from the updated version of the tool, HKECDS-3 and the HKECDS-2 (long form), and older children had significantly higher scores than younger children. Copyright © 2022 by THE PACIFIC EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION.

The mixed-method study reported here was designed to evaluate a strengths-based career intervention program for secondary school students with mild special educational needs (SEN). A sample of 32 SEN students (19 boys: 13 girls) from 5 inclusive schools in Hong Kong were recruited to a treatment group. An additional 32 SEN students (19 boys: 13 girls) were selected to form the control group matched for age, gender and parents’ education level. The special needs exhibited by both groups were in areas of literacy and numeracy, attention deficits, and social-emotional problems, but did not include severe or complex disabilities. Participants in both groups responded to pre- and post-intervention questionnaires covering career development self-efficacy, personal and social development self-efficacy, and meaning in life. As a follow-up, two teachers and three social workers providing support to SEN students, and the 32 participants were interviewed several months after the intervention. Interviews also took place with teachers, social workers and students to evaluate the perceived effects of the intervention. Findings indicated significant interactions between Time 1 and Time 2, and between groups (control vs. treatment) in personal goal-setting, career goal-setting, and the presence of meaning in life. Additionally, several themes were identified from the interviews suggesting that the intervention did have positive effects on SEN students’ career, personal and social development self-efficacy, and acquisition of meaning in life. Copyright © 2022 The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V.

• Writing motives was assessed using Writing Motivation Questionnaire. • Writing self-efficacy was assessed using a revised Writing Self-efficacy Scale. • Measurement invariance was established across Shanghai and Hong Kong students. • Latent means comparison found differences between these two groups. • A direct-mediational model examined the relationship between these constructs. What motivates Chinese students to write? In the present investigation, we examined Chinese students' writing motives and writing self-efficacy. Grades 4 and 5 Chinese students in Shanghai (n = 332) and Hong Kong (n = 305) completed a survey questionnaire assessing motives for writing using the Writing Motivation Questionnaire and writing self-efficacy based on a revised Writing Self-efficacy Scale. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses, measurement invariance was established by examining configural, metric, scalar and residual invariance. Latent means comparison located significant differences between the Chinese groups in relation to writing self-efficacy and writing motives derived from a focus on curiosity, competition and grades. Multigroup structural equation analyses verified a hypothesized direct-mediational model depicting the relationship between writing motives and writing self-efficacy. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier.