All posts tagged: decline

Speech and language: Teachers report decline post-pandemic

Speech and language: Teachers report decline post-pandemic

Published by skeptic

And most say this makes their job harder, poll finds And most say this makes their job harder, poll finds Teaching has become more difficult because of a rise in pupils starting school with poor speech and language skills since the start of the Covid pandemic, new polling suggests. School staff also fear a lack of such skills are incorrectly identified as problems with maths or literacy, or as behaviour issues. Polling by YouGov for GL Assessment found 89 per cent reported a decline in speech and language skills since the start of the pandemic in 2020, and of those, 92 per cent said this had made teaching more difficult. Crispin Chatterton, director of education at Renaissance, which owns GL Assessment, said: “Oracy is crucial. If children lack the ability to communicate effectively, every aspect of their school experience suffers.  “Not only are they unable to participate fully in lessons, but opportunities to socialise with their peers and ultimately their life chances are also greatly reduced.”  ‘Easy to mistake’ for literacy or behaviour issues YouGov …

Tesla Sees Catastrophic Sales Decline in Australia

Tesla Sees Catastrophic Sales Decline in Australia

Published by José

The past few months have not been kind for Tesla’s shareholders, as massive sales slumps in Germany, China, France and greater Scandinavia drag the company’s stock price through the mud. Tesla’s nosedive coincides with Elon Musk’s first full month as unelected vizier to Donald Trump, a corporate power grab which has been met with widespread disgust bubbling over into property destruction. Investors hoping for a break will have to keep waiting, because new reporting is showing a disastrous drop in Australian Tesla sales in February — to the tune of a catastrophic 70 percent compared to 2024. That’s more than double an already agonizing 33 percent drop in January, the company’s worst performance since 2022. On its own, new Aussie registrations for Tesla’s Model 3 tanked by a stomach-churning 81.4 percent in February, compared to the same month last year. Some commenters have noted Tesla’s slump is part of a broader decline in EV sales down under. That said, sales of BYD’s Shark 6 — a Chinese-made hybrid truck — shot up to become the …

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America: Unable to Know “What’s True,” We Will Slide, “Without Noticing, Back into Superstition & Darkness” (1995)

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America: Unable to Know “What’s True,” We Will Slide, “Without Noticing, Back into Superstition & Darkness” (1995)

Published by José

Image by Ken­neth Zirkel, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons There have been many the­o­ries of how human his­to­ry works. Some, like Ger­man thinker G.W.F. Hegel, have thought of progress as inevitable. Oth­ers have embraced a more sta­t­ic view, full of “Great Men” and an immutable nat­ur­al order. Then we have the counter-Enlight­en­ment thinker Giambat­tista Vico. The 18th cen­tu­ry Neapoli­tan philoso­pher took human irra­tional­ism seri­ous­ly, and wrote about our ten­den­cy to rely on myth and metaphor rather than rea­son or nature. Vico’s most “rev­o­lu­tion­ary move,” wrote Isa­iah Berlin, “is to have denied the doc­trine of a time­less nat­ur­al law” that could be “known in prin­ci­ple to any man, at any time, any­where.” Vico’s the­o­ry of his­to­ry includ­ed inevitable peri­ods of decline (and heav­i­ly influ­enced the his­tor­i­cal think­ing of James Joyce and Friedrich Niet­zsche). He describes his con­cept “most col­or­ful­ly,” writes Alexan­der Bert­land at the Inter­net Ency­clo­pe­dia of Phi­los­o­phy, “when he gives this axiom”: Men first felt neces­si­ty then look for util­i­ty, next attend to com­fort, still lat­er amuse them­selves with plea­sure, thence grow dis­solute in lux­u­ry, and final­ly go mad and waste their …

Newborn neurons in adults may protect against cognitive decline

Newborn neurons in adults may protect against cognitive decline

Published by José

Your brain can still make new neurons when you’re an adult. But how does the rare birth of these new neurons contribute to cognitive function? Neurons are the cells that govern brain function, and you are born with most of the neurons you will ever have during your lifetime. While the brain undergoes most of its development during early life, specific regions of the brain continue to generate new neurons throughout adulthood, although at a much lower rate. Whether this process of neurogenesis actually happens in adults and what function it serves in the brain is still a subject of debate among scientists. Past research has shown that people with epilepsy or Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias develop fewer neurons as adults than people without these conditions. However, whether the absence of new neurons contributes to the cognitive challenges patients with these neurological disorders face is unknown. We are part of a team of stem cell researchers, neuroscientists, neurologists, neurosurgeons and neuropsychologists. Our newly published research reveals that the new neurons that form in adults’ …

Labour’s policy is managed decline for specialist provision

Labour’s policy is managed decline for specialist provision

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles The government announcement of an additional £740 million to increase specialist provision and inclusion in mainstream should be celebrated. After all, it’s an enabler of a more inclusive education system. Or is it? It could be argued that it is simply throwing good money after bad. At a time when we’re consistently reminded about the hostility of the fiscal environment, when we know the SEND system is broken and getting worse, and when the school estate is crumbling from years of low investment,  do we have the evidence base to invest three-quarters of a billion pounds in this way? State of the specialist estate Special schools are beyond saturation point. Up and down the country, numbers on roll have crept up every year since 2015 and continue to do so, with virtually no capital investment. Many of the special schools in our trust are subject to tens of tribunal directions each year, and every year the cycle repeats. Class sizes are growing, and we’re on the knife edge of …

MIND diet slows cognitive decline in older adults, but effects vary by race

MIND diet slows cognitive decline in older adults, but effects vary by race

Published by José

A new study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia provides evidence that the MIND diet—a hybrid of the Mediterranean and DASH diets—may help slow cognitive decline in older adults, though its effects vary by race. While both Black and White participants showed benefits, White adults needed only moderate adherence to the diet to see improvements, whereas Black adults required stricter adherence. Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are growing public health concerns, particularly for underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. Black and Hispanic older adults have higher rates of dementia than their White counterparts, often due to a combination of socioeconomic disparities, healthcare access issues, and vascular risk factors. While dietary patterns like the Mediterranean, DASH, and MIND diets are known to benefit cognitive health, most existing research has focused on predominantly White populations. This new study aimed to investigate whether the MIND diet’s protective effects against cognitive decline apply across diverse racial groups and whether benefits differ within specific racial and gender subgroups. “I am a trained nutritionist and a nutritional epidemiologist and was always …

Lamenting the decline in literacy? The church can help

Lamenting the decline in literacy? The church can help

Published by skeptic

(RNS) — The November issue of The Atlantic has a feature story that has generated a lot of discussion: “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” The article describes how these top-tier students, while possessing basic literacy, struggle to read a lot of books (or even one whole book) because they lack the skills — and the practice — to sustain the attention and comprehension necessary to read long, rich literary texts. Such a development among young people has obvious implications within the context of higher education, not to mention the worlds of work and everyday life these students will later inhabit. But the rise of a generation that can’t or doesn’t read books matters for the church, too. After all, if people can’t or don’t read books, how will they read the Bible? Will they read the Bible? To be sure, hand-wringing think pieces on the decline of reading constitute a genre unto itself. It’s been tempting for a long time for educators, cultural critics and book lovers to claim the sky is …

Six healthy lifestyle habits linked to slower memory decline and lower dementia risk

Six healthy lifestyle habits linked to slower memory decline and lower dementia risk

Published by skeptic

Memory naturally declines with age, affecting life quality and work productivity. However, not all memory loss signals dementia. Often, it’s a sign of senescent forgetfulness—a condition more common in older adults, which can stabilize or even improve. Understanding the factors behind memory decline and how to mitigate them is crucial in maintaining cognitive health. A groundbreaking study by researchers at Capital Medical University offers new insights. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study identifies six key lifestyle habits that significantly slow memory decline and reduce the risk of dementia, even for individuals with a genetic predisposition. Conducted over a decade from 2009 to 2019, the study involved more than 29,000 participants aged 60 and older across China. Visual abstract of the study. (CREDIT: The BMJ) Lifestyle Habits That Protect Memory Participants were grouped based on their adherence to six healthy habits: Regular Physical Activity: At least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly. Balanced Diet: Daily consumption of at least seven out of 12 recommended food items, including fruits, vegetables, …

Survey shows rapid decline in permanent new hires in south

Survey shows rapid decline in permanent new hires in south

Published by skeptic

A survey has shown a decline in the number of new permanent hires in the South in October this year, extending the run of falling numbers to 19 months. It was put down to the cooling economy and the upcoming autumn Budget. The latest KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs: South of England survey, was compiled by S&P Global and covered the period from October 10 to 25. READ MORE: Business confidence among South East firms fell in October Responses are gathered from questionnaires sent to around 150 recruitment and employment consultancies in the region. All four monitored regions in England saw a decrease in new permanent staff appointments, with the South registering the most pronounced decline for the eighth month in a row, it has emerged. Conversely, London noted the weakest contraction among the four regions but was the only area to register a milder drop. The demand for permanent workers also declined rapidly across the South, marking successive monthly contractions for the past 15 months, while the rate of reduction was the …

Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

Published by José

More than 50 years and 10 pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er (1971). And while it shows signs of age, the ani­mat­ed film, a para­ble about the role of immi­gra­tion, race, and wealth in Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Actu­al­ly, giv­en the cyn­i­cal exploita­tion of xeno­pho­bia dur­ing this most unpres­i­den­tial of pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, you could say that Free­dom River strikes a big­ger chord than it has in years. That’s why we’re fea­tur­ing the ani­ma­tion once again on Open Cul­ture. The back­sto­ry behind the film deserves a lit­tle men­tion. Accord­ing to Joseph Cavel­la, a writer for the film, it took a lit­tle cajol­ing and per­se­ver­ance to get Orson Welles involved in the film. For sev­er­al years, Bosus­tow Pro­duc­tions had asked Orson Welles, then liv­ing in Paris, to nar­rate one of their films. He nev­er respond­ed. When I fin­ished the Free­dom Riv­er script, we sent it to him togeth­er with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a siz­able check and crossed our fin­gers. He was either des­per­ate for mon­ey or (I would …