No abstract

This study investigated perceptions of academy football players participating in a tournament bio-banded for player maturity status. Players completed a post-tournament questionnaire, comparing participants in bio-banded and age group format competitions. One sample means t-tests, magnitude-based inferences and ANOVA were used to examine differences between perceptions of bio-banded and age-group competitions, and differences across maturity groups. Thematic analysis was conducted on qualitative data generated by the open-ended questions. Quantitative and qualitative results showed two major benefits of bio-banding: first, early maturing boys perceived bio-banding as a greater physical and technical challenge, which provided new opportunities and challenges. Second, late maturing players perceived less physical and technical challenge, which permitted greater opportunity to demonstrate their technical and tactical abilities, and can potentially aid the retention of these players.Overall, players understood and enjoyed the bio-banded competitions, and also perceived less injury risk associated with this format. All maturity groups reported more opportunity to engage in leadership behaviours, to influence game-play and to express themselves on the ball in the bio-banded format. Overall, results of this study contribute to the current knowledge of bio-banding efforts in youth football and may facilitate the development of both early and late maturing academy players.

Reducing injuries to youth players is of primary importance to academies, as injuries can result in a significant loss in both training and match time, as well as negatively affecting player development. In total, 76 talented young football players were analysed over two full competitive seasons. The injury incidence and burden for all non-contact and overuse injuries were recorded. Exposure was calculated as the total number of competitive matches hours played. Somatic maturation was estimated by expressing the current height of each player as a percentage of their predicted adult height (Roche, Tyleshevski, & Rogers, 1983). The period of circa-peak height velocity (PHV) (24.5 injuries per 1000 h) was associated with a significantly higher injury incidence rate and burden compared to pre-PHV (11.5 injuries per 1000 h; RR:2.15, 95%CI:1.37-3.38, P<.001). No significant differences in injury risk between maturity timing groups were observed. The interaction effect between maturity status and maturity timing confirmed there is a risk period circa-PHV, but this was not dependent on maturity timing. The main practical application of this study is that football academies should regularly assess the maturity status of young footballers to identify those players with increased susceptibility to injury. Moreover, academies should individualise training and injury prevention strategies based on maturation.

This paper reports on a two-stage, case-based analysis of infant sociability in infant-only trios to illustrate how findings made using this approach extend our theoretical understanding of early intersubjectivity. Studying infant groups allows us to address three kinds of emerging theoretical argument: (1) that babies are born with a ‘general relational capacity’ which complements or even founds the more specific ‘dyadic program’ that generates attachments; (2) that infants’ communication with peers is the best route to understanding the shared meanings that inform language acquisition, and (3) that the reconceptualisation of ‘nonbasic’ emotions requires we discover whether babies are communicatively competent to elaborate context-specific meanings over time. The materials we use to illustrate this two-stage approach show infants manifest core characteristics of group-communication in the second six months of life, in particular the capacity to be involved with more than one person at a time and for relational encounters to shift behavioral significances for the infants as a product of group interactions.

No abstract

No abstract

This study investigated behavioural problems (as rated by mothers) in 38 children who had been suddenly bereaved of an infant sibling between 3 and 27 months previously. These children were compared with 40 children matched on age, gender, family composition and social background. Bereaved siblings were reported to have a prolonged and significantly elevated rate of non-specific behavioural problems. It is argued that, either the bereaved children's problems were real, or bereaved mothers' perceptions of their surviving children were significantly distorted. In either case, there is serious cause for concern about the welfare of children in families bereaved by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

No abstract