Regular physical activity may be a valuable tool in the prevention of future depressive symptoms in older adults, and depressive symptoms may also prevent older adults from engaging in regular physical activity.

Phonological awareness is a critical enabling skill in learning to read, often developed outside the context of formal reading instruction. More than 2,000 6-year-old children were tested on phonological awareness at two occasions during the preschool year in two cohorts. Between the assessments, a training program was implemented. A two-level path model was applied. More frequent training sessions were connected to higher gains of test scores especially for children with low initial scores in the first cohort. A clear gender effect was also observed. There were more boys with very low initial scores and more girls among the top scorers. A clear SESeffect indicated the influence of early language stimulation. Children who already at the beginning of the preschool year had grasped the alphabetic code had the highest initial scores on the test.Keywords Phonological awareness Á Gender difference Á Socio-economic status Á Two-level modelling Á PreschoolOne important concern in current reading research is to understand the very nature of reading acquisition, its cognitive and linguistic demands, and its early precursors in the developing a child. The enabling skills for success in learning to read are carefully analyzed with the aim of providing the critical basis for successful preventive actions as well as for effective interventions. Poor development of reading skills is one of the most serious issues in current education. It is by now

ObjectivesTo evaluate the influence of perceived stress and musculoskeletal ache/pain, separately and in combination, at baseline, on self-rated work ability and work performance at two-year follow-up.MethodsSurvey data were collected with a 2-year interval. Health care workers participating at both waves were included. Inclusion criteria were good self-reported work ability and unchanged self-rated work performance at baseline, resulting in 770 participants; 617 women and 153 men. Musculoskeletal pain was assessed using the question “How often do you experience pain in joints and muscles, including the neck and low back?”, perceived stress with a modified version of a single item from the QPS-Nordic questionnaire, work performance by the question “Have your work performance changed during the preceding 12 months?” and work ability by a single item from the work ability index. Associations between baseline data and the two outcomes at follow-up were analysed by means of the log binomial model and expressed as risk ratios (RR) with 95 % confidence intervals (CI).ResultsA combination of frequent musculoskeletal pain and perceived stress constituted the highest risk for reporting decreased work performance (RR 1.7; CI 1.28–2.32) and reduced work ability (RR 1.7; CI 1.27–2.30) at follow-up. Separately, frequent pain, but not stress, was clearly associated with both outcomes.ConclusionThe results imply that proactive workplace interventions in order to maintain high work performance and good work ability should include measures to promote musculoskeletal well-being for the employees and measures, both individual and organizational, to minimize the risk of persistent stress reactions.

A well established notion in Buddhist literature is that meditation practice improves the ability to be mindful in daily life which in turn promotes psychological wellbeing. In order to test this hypothesis the relations between meditation experience, five mindfulness facets and psychological well-being were studied in a sample consisting of Buddhist meditators, Western mindfulness meditators and non-meditators. The meditators scored higher than nonmeditators on all mindfulness facets except Describe, but when age and gender were controlled for there were significant differences only on Non-React and Observe.Multiple and simple mediation were tested in a path model framework. Length of meditation experience was related to Non-React and Observe, and there was a similar trend also for Non-Judge, suggesting that these mindfulness facets are the ones most strongly associated with mindfulness meditation practice. The multiple mediation analysis showed an indirect effect of meditation experience on psychological wellbeing via the five mindfulness facets. Simple mediation analyses indicated that Non-React was the primary mediator. These results support the notion that length of meditation experience is related to higher levels of mindfulness, which in turn is associated with improved well-being.

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