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This study examined longitudinally how infants’ display of gestural and verbal deictic means to indicate targets is related to a certain target topology and to a specific mother attention pattern. Eight Spanish 1- and 2-year-olds and their mothers were observed every three months during one year, while performing routine activities. Results showed that the younger children usually pointed alone or combined with a vocalization to objects placed within the boundaries of the visual field. The older children usually pointed combined with a content word or with a deictic word or said a deictic word alone to indicate objects under manipulation, mainly placed in the close peripersonal space. Across ages, mothers supported the child’s use of deictic means by looking at the object as well as at the child’s face. Findings are discussed in terms of the functions that gestural and verbal deixis may serve for early verbal development and, specifically, to the grounding of reference.

Abstract-A family of oblivious routing schemes for Fat Trees and their slimmed versions is presented in this work. First, two popular oblivious routing algorithms, which we refer to as S-mod-k and D-mod-k, are analyzed in detail. S-mod-k is the default routing algorithm given as an example in the first works formally describing Fat Tree networks. D-mod-k has been independently proposed and investigated by several authors, who conclude in their evaluations that it achieves better performance than a random or adaptive routing approach. First, we identify the reasons why these algorithms perform well. Using this insight we extend these algorithms, originally intended for full bisection networks, to slimmed networks. Based on the lessons learned we propose a new generalized family of algorithms that provides a better oblivious solution than the existing ones for this class of networks. Moreover, this family extends the previous work from k-ary n-trees to the more general class of extended generalized fat trees.

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ResumenEste programa tiene como objetivo fundamental intervenir grupalmente con las familias usuarias de los servicios sociales municipales que están en situación de riesgo psicosocial. Estos padres, que viven en familias multiproblema, tienen un nivel educativo bajo y muestran una conducta inadecuada con sus hijos que compromete seriamente su desarrollo. El programa pretende apoyar y desarrollar sus competencias y habilidades parentales y posibilitar la permanencia de los hijos en el hogar familiar. Un convenio de colaboración suscrito entre el Cabildo de Tenerife, la Fundación ECCA y la Universidad de La Laguna, ha permitido la implementación, el seguimiento y la evaluación del programa en varios ayuntamientos de la isla. El programa se ha evaluado siguiendo un diseño cuasi-experimental (pretest-postest y solo postest-grupo control) en el que participaron 340 madres, 185 madres habían realizado el programa y 155 constituyeron el grupo control. Las madres del programa, respecto a las madres del grupo control, disminuyeron su apoyo a las ideas Nurturistas e Innatistas así como el uso de prácticas Permisivas-Negligentes y Coercitivas. Asimismo mostraron una mayor Autoeficacia, Locus interno, Acuerdo marital, Dificultad en el rol, así como un mayor uso de prácticas Inductivas. Palabras clave: Preservación familiar, familias en situación de riesgo psicosocial, intervención grupal. Evaluation of the "Apoyo personal y familiar" (Personal and Family Support) prevention programme for high psychosocial risk parents Abstract The evaluation of the "Apoyo Personal y Familiar" (APF) or Personal and Family Support programme for low-educated mothers from extremely deprived and multi-problem families showing inadequate behaviour with their children is reported. A formal agreement between the Tenerife (Canary Islands) government, the ECCA foundation and La LagunaUniversity allowed the programme to be implemented. A total of 340 mothers referred by the Tenerife (Spain) social services participated in the programme, 185 of these mothers followed the APF programme during eight months, and 155 mothers served as the control group. Pre-post test comparisons for the intervention group and only post-test comparisons with the control group on self-rating measures of maternal beliefs, child-rearing practices and personal agency were performed. Mothers' support of Nurturist and Nativist beliefs and the reported use of Neglect-permissive and Coercive practices significantly decreased after the programme's completion. Self-efficacy, Internal control, Marital agreement, Role difficulty and the reported use of Inductive practices significantly increased. Most of these changes were also significant in relation to those of the control group.

This study looks at whether there is a relationship between mother and infant gesture production. Specifically, it addresses the extent of articulation in the maternal gesture repertoire and how closely it supports the infant production of gestures. Eight Spanish mothers and their 1-and 2-year-old babies were studied during 1 year of observations. Maternal and child verbal production, gestures and actions were recorded at their homes on five occasions while performing daily routines. Results indicated that mother and child deictic gestures (pointing and instrumental) and representational gestures (symbolic and social) were very similar at each age group and did not decline across groups. Overall, deictic gestures were more frequent than representational gestures. Maternal adaptation to developmental changes is specific for gesturing but not for acting. Maternal and child speech were related positively to mother and child pointing and representational gestures, and negatively to mother and child instrumental gestures. Mother and child instrumental gestures were positively related to action production, after maternal and child speech was partialled out. Thus, language plays an important role for dyadic communicative activities (gesture-gesture relations) but not for dyadic motor activities (gesture-action relations). Finally, a comparison of the growth curves across sessions showed a closer correspondence for mother-child deictic gestures than for representational gestures. Overall, the results point to the existence of an articulated maternal gesture input that closely supports the child gesture production.

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