Auditory Morphological Knowledge Among Children With Developmental Dyslexia

The aim of the present study is to examine the morphological knowledge of readers with developmental dyslexia compared to chronological age and reading-level matched controls. The study also analyzes the errors dyslexics make and their metamorphological awareness compared to controls. Participants included 31 seventh-grade dyslexic children and two matched control groups of normal readers: 34 seventh graders matched for chronological age and 32 third graders matched for reading age. Two tasks were administered via the auditory modality—morphological priming and morphological analogies task. We also performed error analysis and a metamorphological interview. Our analyses reveal that although dyslexics perform equally to chronological age matched controls on the priming task and similarly to reading-level matched controls on the morphological analogies task, their errors and metamorphological awareness are qualitatively different.     

Poor Auditory Task Scores in Children With Specific Reading and Language Difficulties: Some Poor Scores Are More Equal Than Others

Children with specific reading disability (SRD) or specific language impairment (SLI), who scored poorly on an auditory discrimination task, did up to 140 runs on the failed task. Forty-one percent of the children produced widely fluctuating scores that did not improve across runs (untrainable errant performance), 23% produced widely fluctuating scores in early runs that did improve across runs (trainable errant performance), 26% produced stable poor scores that did not improve across runs (untrainable nonerrant poor performance), and 23% produced stable poor scores that did improve across runs (trainable nonerrant performance). In most cases, trainable and untrainable errant performance, and nonerrant poor performance, could be predicted from a child's first two auditory task scores. These results illustrate that poor auditory task scores produced by children with SRD and SLI do not reflect a unitary deficit, do not necessarily reflect poor perception, and do not always respond to training.     

Comprehension and Decoding: Patterns of Association in Children With Reading Difficulties

Comparisons of reading measures from a sample of 361 children aged 7.5 to 9.5, including many with reading difficulties, showed high correlations between word reading and nonword reading, and between each of these abilities and reading comprehension. These results, together with other findings from these children, showed that skill in word identification was almost inseparable from the phonologically analytic decoding process that is tapped by nonword reading, and, correspondingly, differences in reading comprehension were closely associated with differences in decoding skill. The findings support the conclusion that bottom-up skills largely drive the reading process in this age group. Only a small number of children departed from the norm in showing better reading comprehension than would be expected from their decoding skills, and those with the opposite discrepancy accounted for even fewer.     

Auditory Processing of Amplitude Envelope Rise Time in Adults Diagnosed With Developmental Dyslexia

Studies of basic (nonspeech) auditory processing in adults thought to have developmental dyslexia have yielded a variety of data. Yet there has been little consensus regarding the explanatory value of auditory processing in accounting for reading difficulties. Recently, however, a number of studies of basic auditory processing in children with developmental dyslexia have suggested that a reduced ability to discriminate the rate of change in amplitude envelope onsets (rise time) may be linked to phonological processing difficulties and thereby to reading difficulties. Here, we select a range of different rise-time tasks used with children, and give them to adults with developmental dyslexia, along with 2 other auditory tasks (intensity discrimination and temporal order judgment). Deficits in both rise-time perception and temporal order judgment were found to predict literacy attainment in adults with developmental dyslexia, but the data were suggestive of different causal pathways.     

Academic Achievement and Social Functioning of Children With and Without Learning Difficulties

The academic achievement and social functioning of children with learning difficulties (LD) and children without LD (7–12 years old) was examined. Attainment scores in mathematics and English were obtained for each child, and a sample of children without LD was further classified as low achieving (LA) or high achieving (HA) on the basis of these scores. Sociometric and peer behavioural attribute scores were collected for each child. Findings indicated correlations of attainment with sociometric status and also with behaviour attributes. Boys and girls differed on the proportion of variance in sociometric status accounted for by academic achievement and also by various behavioural attributes. HA children scored higher on positive sociometric status than children with LD, and higher on positive behaviours than both LA children and children with LD. Children with LD scored higher on negative behaviours than both HA and LA children. The findings are discussed as indicating a relationship between academic achievement and social adjustment, suggesting that intervention strategies need to target social relationship difficulties in LA children as well as children with LD, while also accounting for possible gender differences.     

Speech and Language Difficulties in Children With and Without a Family History of Dyslexia

According to recent psychological theories of situation model construction, readers routinely and quickly construct inferences that elaborate causal antecedents of explicit events in the text, but not inferences about causal consequences. The process of forecasting lengthy causal chains into the future is taxing on working memory, so these inferences are either not constructed or their construction consumes a comparatively large amount of reading time. This study collected self-paced sentence reading times from younger and older adults who read expository texts on scientific and technological mechanisms. Readers were also measured on working memory span, general world knowledge, reasoning ability, and reading frequency. Multiple regression analyses on the reading times revealed that (a) causal consequence inferences were more time consuming than causal antecedent inferences and (b) noncausal elaborative inferences were not constructed. The pattern of beta weights for inference variables was remarkably similar for younger and older adults and was unaffected by other measures of individual differences. The process of constructing causal inferences is therefore stable and predictable across different groups of readers.     

The Association of Rapid Temporal Perception With Orthographic and Phonological Processing in Children and Adults With Reading Impairment

Adults and children with reading impairment (N = 67) were administered a rapid auditory task, a rapid visual task, and a battery of orthographic and phonological tasks. Our results support a differential development model of reading disability that argues that deficits in rapid auditory ability in children are primarily associated with problems in phonological processing, whereas deficits in rapid visual ability in children are primarily associated with problems in orthographic processing (Farmer & Klein, 1995). In contrast to the children, the adults showed a strong relation between rapid auditory ability and both orthographic and phonological processing. These results suggest that continued deficits in auditory ability may have a pervasive and negative impact on word processing in general. In addition, adults did not exhibit a relation between rapid visual ability and orthographic-processing problems. Orthographic-processing deficits may result from a reading delay condition that can be overcome with increased reading exposure (Harm & Seidenberg, 1999).     

从时间知觉到时间心理学的研究

时间心理学的发展趋势是随着研究方法的不断进步和研究视野的不断扩大,研究的领域逐渐拓展,逐步走向多方法多取向的、全面综合的研究。在早期的时间知觉阶段,研究了刺激的时间特性的影响;在时间认知阶段,研究了个体的认知因素的影响;在时间心理学阶段,研究了个体的人格特征的影响。我国时间心理学的发展趋势是起步较晚,但进展较快。在时间知觉阶段,我国的研究相对较少,而到了时间心理学阶段,我国的研究已经走在世界的前列。     

Difficulties in Lexical Stress Versus Difficulties in Segmental Phonology Among Adolescents With Dyslexia

Dyslexic difficulties in lexical stress were compared to difficulties in segmental phonology. Twenty-nine adolescents with dyslexia and 29 typically developing adolescents, matched on age and nonverbal ability, were assessed on reading, spelling, phonological and stress awareness, rapid naming, and short-term memory. Group differences in stress assignment were larger than in segmental phonology in reading and spelling pseudowords but not words, indicating a fragility of explicit processes that manipulate stress representations. Despite impaired stress performance in dyslexia at the group level, individual variability failed to reveal evidence for a stress-specific deficit or for a distinct stress-impaired subgroup.     

时间知觉的脑机制研究

当前时间知觉的脑机制的研究结果出现了定位论和非定位论的研究趋向。支持定位论的证据主要集中在小脑高级功能区运动计时特异化作用及基底神经节分泌的多巴胺对时间知觉的作用；支持非定位论的证据主要集中在脑损伤、脑成像研究中关于多个脑区整合作用机制以及多种神经递质在计时中的作用。上述两种趋向是基于时距长短不同所致，比如对秒以下计时加工的部位在小脑高级功能区，而加工1秒及以上的时距则涉及多个脑区及神经递质的整合作用。时间知觉之脑机制研究正方兴未艾。     

Speech Perception and Production by Sequential Bilingual Children: A Longitudinal Study of Voice Onset Time Acquisition

The majority of bilingual speech research has focused on simultaneous bilinguals. Yet, in immigrant communities, children are often initially exposed to their family language (L1), before becoming gradually immersed in the host country's language (L2). This is typically referred to as sequential bilingualism. Using a longitudinal design, this study explored the perception and production of the English voicing contrast in 55 children (40 Sylheti‐English sequential bilinguals and 15 English monolinguals). Children were tested twice: when they were in nursery (52‐month‐olds) and 1 year later. Sequential bilinguals' perception and production of English plosives were initially driven by their experience with their L1, but after starting school, changed to match that of their monolingual peers.     

Auditory Sensitivity,Speech Perception,and Reading Development and Impairment

While the importance of phonological sensitivity for understanding reading acquisition and impairment across orthographies is well documented, what underlies deficits in phonological sensitivity is not well understood. Some researchers have argued that speech perception underlies variability in phonological representations. Others have investigated the role of more general auditory sensitivity for reading development and reading difficulties, arguing that poor phonological representations may actually be due to broad underlying auditory deficits, which are not restricted to speech stimuli. We argue that these hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In this review, we demonstrate that auditory sensitivity and speech perception can be integrated into a single developmental model, in which auditory sensitivity may have an indirect impact on reading; this impact is mediated by speech perception. In the model, we distinguish general auditory sensitivity as falling into at least two general categories: rhythmic and temporal. Correspondingly, speech perception itself can be distinguished as suprasegmental and segmental. Theoretically, the proposed model integrates a broad range of studies on general auditory and speech perception to suggest a developmental trajectory for reading acquisition that can be explored from before birth. Practically, the proposed model points to different ways of understanding and diagnosing reading difficulties and distinguishing reading difficulties across languages and orthographies.     

Teacher Ratings and Peer Nominations of Bullying and Other Behaviour of Children With and Without Learning Difficulties

Teacher ratings were obtained of bullying and other behaviour of 121 children aged 8-12, including 20 children with learning difficulties (LD). Peer nominations were also obtained for 55 of these (15 LD and 40 non-LD). Correlations between teacher ratings and peer nominations were significant for non-LD children but not for children with LD. Teachers and peers scored children with LD higher on victim and shy behaviour and non-LD children higher on leadership and cooperative behaviours. Bullying others was positively related to being disruptive and starting fights by both teachers and peers, and negatively related to being coooperative by teachers. Peers significantly associated being a victim of bullying with shy and help seeking behaviours, while teachers associated victims with fighting, being disruptive and being less cooperative. These differences were related to the children's LD status. Implications for substituting one measure for another when assessing children at risk for adjustment problems, especially children with LD, are discussed.     

口吃者言语听知觉缺陷及其神经机制的研究

关于口吃发生的机制一直没有确切的说法.鉴于口吃主要表现为一种言语表达障碍,因此,大部分研究者都对口吃者言语产生过程本身表示关注.不过,也有部分研究关注了口吃者的言语听知觉功能.这些研究提示,口吃的发生也可能与言语听知觉加工异常有关.该文回顾了近些年来有关口吃者言语听知觉功能及其神经机制的研究进展,提出了当前研究中还存在的一些问题,并展望了未来的口吃研究取向.     

论学习困难儿童的认知策略训练

许多研究表明，学习困难儿童的主要原因在于认知策略不良。因此，教育与转化学习困难儿童，必须重视和加强认知策略的训练。首先，学习策略训练意在提高学习困难儿童学习策略使用水平，使他们形成主动的自我控制型的学习风格，有效地克服学习中的各种困难；其次，归因策略训练是针对学习困难儿童在学习成败情景中的归因倾向而设计的一种教育训练计划。通过训练增强学习困难儿童的自信心，激发他们的学习动机，达到教育的真正目的；再次，监控策略训练是学习困难儿童运用监控策略对他们的每一步认知过程进行评价与调节，最终实现满意的教育效果。     

视听觉障碍儿童的认知能力

本篇主要探究视听觉障碍儿童的基本认知能力。视觉障碍儿童的听觉注意、听觉记忆和听觉表象比正常人更好 ;听觉障碍儿童的视觉搜索 (视觉注意 )、视觉表象、运动表象和视觉记忆比正常人好。这些实验研究更好地支持了特殊教育的三原则     

Development of Motor Patterns in Young Children

A predominant area of instruction in school physical education programs is game play. Effective decision making is important to the successful execution of skills. Unfortunately, the task of teaching effective decision making in varying game situations is not easy. The demands of the game require far more than simply physical skillfulness. Game play is interwoven with numerous decision-making opportunities for the participant. Successful game players must make these decisions in an effective and timely manner. The purpose of this article is to compare two models of game instruction: the technique model and the “games for understanding” model. This analysis indicates that the games for understanding model provides a more viable way of teaching strategic decision making for game players. Included will be discussions on the various theories that contrast the two approaches. A final section provides suggestions for future research into the validity of the “games for understanding model.”     

高校家庭经济困难学生精准识别的实证分析

高校资助工作是确保家庭经济困难学生顺利完成学业的重要举措,而家庭经济困难学生的精准识别是开展高校资助工作的必要前提,结合高校资助工作实际开展情况,构建了家庭经济困难学生精准识别指标体系,运用层次分析法对指标赋予权重,并通过问卷调研进行实证分析,以求推进高校家庭经济困难学生精准资助工作。