Youths’ involvement in organized crime is worrisome, as it not only disrupts a healthy development, but also aggravates youths’ criminal behavior, and makes it harder to return to living a crime-free life. Social ties play an import role in the way youths get and stay involved in organized crime, that is why interventions are needed that target the youth, but also the youth’s social environment. We examine hotspots and mechanisms underlying organized crime involvement and use the knowledge gained to improve and implement intervention strategies. This way, the proposed project directly contributes to effectively decreasing youths’ involvement in organized crime.

Aim of the proposal is to obtain a deeper understanding of the underlying phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia. Dyslexia is a multi-faceted, heterogeneous condition, which can be studied at different levels of aggregation, including genetic, neurological, cognitive, linguistic, behavioral, and environmental. According to current theories, it is assumed that dyslexia is caused by a phonological core deficit of genetic origin. Much progress has been made in understanding the early neurolinguistic variables (the past state) that contribute to the manifestation of dyslexia (the present state). In particular, it has been shown that dyslexia has a strong familial/genetic etiology, and that neurolinguistic precursors during infancy and early childhood precede the manifestation of dyslexia. In addition, in the perspective of further development (the future state), it has become clear that people with dyslexia do develop reading skills, suggesting patterns of both neurolinguistic ?normalization? and ?compensation?. However, two questions are unanswered. First, although about 40% to 60% of children from dyslexic parents are diagnosed with dyslexia (from now on labeled DYS), the remaining at-risk children learn to read and spell within normal ranges (nonDYS). It is unclear how the differences between affected and unaffected children in reading abilities relate to neurolinguistic ?normalization? or ?compensation? patterns at the level of automatized learning. Normalization would most likely occur in cases with low severity of involvement of the underlying phonological deficit, such that phonological representations and grapheme to phoneme connections do develop, possibly in interaction. Compensation implies overcoming the effects of the core phonological deficit by other mechanisms for sound ? letter matching, such as making use of lexical access, and would most likely occur in more severe cases of phonological deficit. A related question is whether processes of normalization or compensation in the present state at the age of 11-12 years (5th-6th grade) can be predicted on the basis of the past state of neurolinguistic functioning at the age from 0-9 years, and, in turn, predict the future state when the participants are at the secondary school (age 13-14 years). Second, there is large variability in the developmental trajectory of reading acquisition and the ultimately reached level of reading proficiency among children diagnosed with dyslexia. The typical reading acquisition process is a dynamic process in which reading strategies emerge and neural language networks for the reading task evolve. Whereas phonological processes localized at superior-dorsal temporal regions are crucial at the initial reading stage, in subsequent stages whole-word reading strategies, taking a more ventral route, and semantic integration processes for text comprehension, localized at inferior frontal sites, are developed. The question is to what extent and under what conditions the underlying phonological deficit in dyslexic readers hampers the emergence of these higher-level language networks. Are the large differences in ultimately reached functional reading ability among genetically at-risk readers caused by a quantitative difference, that is slower development of the basic reading process in poor readers, or qualitative differences, that is are there differences in strategy by the development of higher order compensating mechanisms. A related question is whether the differences in the present state at the age of 11-12 years predict the future state when the participants are at the secondary school (age 13-14 years). To investigate these questions, the present proposal puts dyslexia in a longitudinal neurolinguistic perspective. Using the well-documented longitudinal Dutch Dyslexia Programme (DDP), in which children were followed between the ages of 0 and 9 years, hypotheses about the present state, and the relation with the past and the future state are put to test. Project 1 makes use of a model of distributional learning to study automatised normalization and compensation processes in the present state at the age of 11-12 years. To relate the present state to the past state, the project makes use of neurolinguistic DDP-data to trace back the developmental parameters leading to DYS and nonDYS, as compared to controls without genetic risk (C). Following the participants, the relation with the future state at age 13-14 years is also investigated. Project 2 monitors the higher order reading acquisition process by means of fMRI combined with EEG (ERP) measurements while the children perform increasingly complex reading tasks requiring integration of phonological, lexical and semantic processes, at present and future state. The longitudinal approach of DDP in combination with the present programme, spanning an age range from 2 months to 14 years, offers the unique opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions about reading acquisition and dyslexia.

Existing practice and research show that nationwide inclusive education is challenging to realise for students with behavioural support needs. This limits the integration of these students into mainstream secondary education. Aiming to increase student numbers retained in or moved into mainstream education, this project forms learning networks where teachers in special education and mainstream schools collaborate with support staff, care providers, students, parents and managers. Participatory action studies analyse how shared experiences and perspectives lead to novel joint insights, solutions and products. Designs will be tested in classroom practice to be recorded and shared in and beyond the school community.

There are concerns regarding the quality of youth care and the high staff turnover. The current proposal aims to improve the quality of youth care by 1) developing a stimulating, interactive and evidence-based learning environment for professionals, 2) research its effects, and 3) ensure sustainable implementation of the learning environment within youth care organisations. This will be done in collaboration with experience experts, professionals and youth care organisations, and by using knowledge about learning and technology. We will further collaborate with policymakers and teachers from universities (of applied sciences) to ensure wide use of the developed learning methods.

De basisschool is een van de vele sociale contexten waarbinnen kinderen burgerschapscompetenties ontwikkelen. Kinderen leren om burger te zijn door deel te nemen aan sociale en culturele praktijken die deel uitmaken van hun dagelijks leven. Het is daarom jammer dat er in het basisonderwijs vaak onvoldoende verbinding wordt gemaakt tussen de burgerschapservaringen op school en de burgerschapservaringen die leerlingen in andere contexten opdoen. Uit onderzoek blijkt dat het reflecteren op leerervaringen in verschillende contexten een proces van analyseren en integreren op gang kan brengen. Het ontbreekt leraren echter aan handvatten om reflectie op binnen- en buitenschoolse leerervaringen te stimuleren. In dit onderzoek willen we daarom nagaan of en op welke manier reflectie gestimuleerd kan worden om binnen- en buitenschoolse burgerschapservaringen met elkaar te verbinden en te verdiepen en zo burgerschapscompetenties te bevorderen. Leraren ontwikkelen samen met onderzoekers reflectiestrategieën (handvatten) die het reflecteren door basisschoolleerlingen in groep 7 en 8 op binnen- en buitenschoolse leerervaringen stimuleren. Vervolgens wordt in een quasi-experimentele studie onderzocht wat het effect is van het werken met de ontwikkelde reflectiestrategieën op de kwaliteit van reflectie (analyseren en integreren van binnen- en buitenschoolse burgerschapservaringen) en de burgerschapscompetenties van leerlingen. Dit project levert kennis en praktische handvatten op waarmee leraren de persoonlijke ervaringen van leerlingen kunnen betrekken in de les en waarmee zij reflectie op binnen- en buitenschoolse burgerschapservaringen bij leerlingen kunnen stimuleren om zo de ontwikkeling van burgerschapscompetenties te bevorderen.