Progress in the measurement of laterality and implications for dyslexia research

Much of contemporary laterality research has been motivated by a need to increase the accuracy with which individuals can be classified as left- or right-hemisphere dominant for speech and language. Efforts to improve the classification accuracy of laterality methods have led not only to the refinement of laterality methods but also to the discovery of some of the mechanisms that contribute to asymmetric performance. Despite these advances, laterality methods still do not lead to definitive conclusions about hemispheric specialization in the individual case, and special caution must be used when interpreting results for individual dyslexic children. Event-related measurements of cerebral metabolism, still in the development phase, promise to complement but not replace behavioral laterality methods.     

Cerebral laterality in dyslexic children: Implications for phonological word decoding deficits

The study evaluated a substantially updated version of Orton's (1937) classical idea of a significant relatonship in dyslexic children between cerebral lateralization and their word decoding deficits. Attentional lateralization was examined under the assumption that covert spatial attention when directed contralaterally interacts with ageinvariant cerebral asymmetries for receptive speech. Thirty dysphonetic dyslexic children were compared to 30 younger normal readers who were matched to the dyslexics in reading comprehension. The children were tested in left ear (LE) and right ear (RE) directed attention dichotic listening (DAD), and in pseudoword decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, arithmetic, and in general intelligence (IQ). Group comparisons in DAD failed to show any differences, confirming the mounting evidence that dyslexia is not related to incomplete lateralization. Entering the DAD scores of the dyslexics (LE first, LE second, RE first, RE second) as predictors of achievement revealed that, independently of chronological age (CA) and IQ, their ability to recall items from the LE first produced a negative regression which predicted 42 percent of the variance in pseudoword decoding. Selective report from the LE also produced small but significant negative correlations with visual recognition of real words and spelling; but no relationship to reading comprehension. IQ was related to reading comprehension and to the ability to shift attention from the LE to the RE. Eventhough the dyslexics were lateralized normally, weak lateralization was related specifically to phonological word decoding, a core deficit in dyslexia. However, unlike Orton's concept, these findings suggest that dyslexics suffer from exuberant right hemisphere processing in response to spatial attentional demands that, in turn, interferes transcallosally with the development of the sound-symbol representations that are required for fluent reading. Lateralization, per se, is unaffected by the disorder.     

Cerebral laterality effects in the dual processing of prose

The degree to which the concreteness of prose material presented in an auditory fashion would interact with learners' lateral preference under different right hemispheric presentation conditions was investigated with 96 normal adults. Forty-eight subjects with consistent right preference patterns and a like number of bilateral individuals were either instructed to image, given a visual-spatial interference task, or given no instructions before listening to passages which differed in abstractness. As predicted across conditions, learners recalled a significantly greater number of ideas when the passage was concrete. Importantly, the abstractness was found to interact with subjects' inferred cerebral dominance. Whereas instructions to image and visual interference had little significant effect on mixed dominant subjects, for more consistently lateralized subjects imagery instructions increased and right-hemispheric interference decreased concrete recall. The results were interpreted in terms of visual and verbal encoding concomitant with cerebral lateralization.     

Cerebral hemisphere asymmetry: Methods,issues, and implications

This is the seventh ERIC/ECTJ Annual Review Paper, preparation of which was supported by the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Clearing-house on Information Resources, Syracuse University. The material in this article was prepared pursuant to a contract with the National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education. Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their judgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent the official view or opinion of the NIE. - Ed. The author’s own research discussed in this article was supported in part by research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and from the National Science Foundation.     

英语口语互动模式研究及对口语教学的启示

本研究旨在通过评述有关二语学习者互动模式和互动能力的研究提出针对中国高级学习者英语口语教学研究的新方向。首先对Kramsch和Young的互动能力概念和理论框架进行了介绍,然后了介绍了Galaczi基于剑桥FCE口语考试中考生之间互动模式的研究中所采用的会话分析的方法。最后提出对口语教学的启示。     

篇章的连贯性及其对英语教学的启示

语篇由衔接和连贯两个语篇特征构成连续的语言整体,分别被称为"有形网络"和"无形网络"。教师在英语教学中应利用这两个特征,将语言的形式教学与意义教学相结合,促进学生对语篇整体的把握。     

海德格尔诗意栖居理论对高等教育的启示

海德格尔"诗意地栖居"意味着:此在作为被创建的此在是一种捐赠。人诗意栖居意味着一个双重的要求,诗意栖居和现实生活紧密相连,既不完全抛弃现实,又不屈从于现实。诗意栖居理论启迪了追求真知的现代人,对高等教育有意义深远。     

Hemispheric laterality in music and math

Hemispheric laterality may be a useful concept in teaching, learning, training, and in understanding more about human development. To address this issue, a measure of hemispheric laterality was compared to musical and mathematical ability. The Human Information Processing Survey (HIPS) instrument, designed to measure hemispheric laterality, was administered to 101 participants who were then asked to provide a measure of their conceptual aptitude for mathematics and music. Scores were then compared through canonical correlation to test the hypothesis that perceived mathematical ability may be explained by left-brain hemisphere preference and musical by the right hemisphere. A relatively strong correlation was found between music ability and right-brain hemisphere preference. A relationship between math and left-brain hemisphere preference or integrated brain processing scores was found to be marginal. Ramifications to learning are discussed.     

当前全球数字贸易国际规则的新发展及中国的应对策略

在国际贸易领域,各国、各地区以及各大国际组织间的谈判博弈经历了由传统贸易谈判向电子商务谈判的转变,当前的国际间贸易谈判已聚焦于数字贸易领域。在数字贸易背景下,国际间贸易规则的博弈愈发激烈。中国是国际贸易谈判、电子商务谈判全球新规则构建的核心推动者,需要结合国情,努力打造符合中国数字贸易发展阶段的“中式模板”。选取66个中国参与的国际电子商务谈判案例,采用模糊集定性比较分析方法进行实证研究,以案例和导致结果的原因为导向,本文得出国际电子商务谈判达成一致的必要条件和取得阶段性成果的5个条件组态,设计出中国应精准选择谈判方、构建有效谈判机制、迅速判断本国特定议题权力和议题联系机会等路径,提出国内治理机制水平提高、全球治理能力提升以及跨境电子商务实践优势转化等策略。     

全球金融危机对高等教育的影响和启示

本次百年不遇的全球金融危机不仅严重影响了国际金融和经济体系,也对高等教育造成了深刻的影响。本文在列举、比较和探讨本次全球金融危机对西方和我国高等教育影响的基础上,预测了金融危机后的高等教育发展,并提出我国高等教育的应对策略。     

Creeping privatization and its implications for schooling in the inner city

During the 1980s, the Conservative government introduced a number of measures to enhance choice and diversity in education. It claimed that these would be particularly beneficial in Labour-controlled inner-city areas, where too many children were currently receiving an inadequate education in poor neighborhood comprehensive schools. Three of the government's initiatives—the assisted places scheme, city technology colleges, and grant-maintained schools—are reviewed in this paper in the light of the evidence so far available and the claims of critics that they are a subtle form of privatization. Despite any benefits they may offer to individual children or schools, they are not seen to constitute an adequate response to the problems facing education in the inner city.Parts of this paper draw upon work carried out with Tony Edwards, John Fitz, and Sharon Gewirtz under ESRC Research Grants C00230036 and C00232462 and with members of the Bristol Polytechnic Education Study Group.     

The idea of impact and its implications for academic development work

In the current context of higher education, those working in academic development feel the need to demonstrate the impact that their work makes on achieving desired institutional outcomes. In this paper, we examine the concept of impact, consider the various meanings of impact and review ways that the term has been used rhetorically and conceptually in relation to academic development. We explore our experience of working in an academic development unit (ADU) and what role impact may have played in our motivations and outcomes. Specifically, we document the changes in the focus, format and language of the ADU's annual reports over three years and reflect on what these revealed to us about our approach to academic development work and the idea of impact.

Dans le contexte actuel de l'enseignement supérieur, ceux qui oeuvrent dans le domaine du développement pédagogique ressentent le besoin de démontrer l'impact de leur travail en relation avec les résultats institutionnels escomptés. Dans cet article, nous examinons la notion d'impact, nous étudions ses diverses significations et nous passons en revue les façons avec lesquelles cette notion a été utilisée aux plans rhétorique et conceptuel en lien avec le développement pédagogique. Nous explorons notre expérience de travail au sein d'une unité de développement pédagogique (ADU) et quel rôle l'impact a pu jouer à l'égard de nos motivations et de nos résultats. De façon plus spécifique, nous documentons les changements de focus, de format ou de langage observés dans les rapports annuels de notre ADU sur une période de trois ans et réfléchissons à ce que cela nous a révélé au sujet de notre approche à l'égard du travail de développement pédagogique et de la notion d'impact.     

Nigerians' concept of death and its implications for counselling in Nigeria

Motivated partly by the contents of most in memorians and obituaries announced on the pages of Nigeria's newspapers, a study was designed to investigate the attitude of some Nigerian students toward death and related matters. A questionnaire was designed and administered to final year education students in two federal universities and one state college of education. In all, 245 students took part in the study. The results suggest that the Nigerian students involved in the study believe in reincarnation, believe that the dead do see and influence the living, and that death is often caused by the work of evil people. Among the implications of these findings for counselling is the difficulty Nigerian counsellors and counsellees could experience in trying to relate meaningfully to each other as a result of Nigerians' inadequate conception of death and their unwillingness to place implicit trust in other people not perceived as a member of the society. The need for a reorientation in some aspects of indigenous cultural beliefs is advocated. This, it is suggested, could be encouraged through mass literacy programmes and through a carefully designed programme of counsellor training.     

非英语专业大学生英语阅读现状的调查及对教学的启示

本文通过抽样,以我院五个专业的在校非英语专业学生为调研对象,开展问卷调查、访谈、随堂听课,了解英语阅读教学现状和问题,经过调查分析,找出存在问题的原因,并提出改善现状的具体措施,以提高英语阅读教学质量,促进学生英语阅读能力的培养。