Teachers’ perspectives on integration of visually impaired children

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to show the result of research into the situation of the integration of visually impaired children in Seville (Spain). This work refers to both classroom and peripatetic teachers’ perspectives. We have worked with four peripatetic teachers and nine classroom teachers from Seville. We have used qualitative methodological procedures for data collection and analysis. The results indicate that classroom organization is the most important problem in integration, and within this problem the relationship between classroom and peripatetic teachers becomes a fundamental issue.     

The Process of Stress Assignment in Reading Aloud: Critical Issues From Studies on Italian

In polysyllabic languages the assignment of stress is crucial for understanding the reading process. Here we review empirical evidence, drawn mainly from studies on Italian, and discuss critical issues in understanding reading. We first discuss the lexical and sublexical mechanisms responsible for stress assignment and propose that the former is based on item-specific knowledge and the latter on the statistical-distributional knowledge that readers have acquired about their language. Then we examine the idea that stress and phonemes pertain to two dimensions of the word, which can be placed at two different representational levels. Finally, we analyze the effects of stress assignment on word articulation, a promising field for future investigation. These issues are addressed by reviewing the studies conducted in adult and young readers to outline the developmental trajectory of stress assignment and discuss how it operates in the reading system.     

Suprasegmental Phonology Development and Reading Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study

Previous studies implicate suprasegmental phonology in reading acquisition. However, little is known about how suprasegmental sensitivity develops or how it contributes to reading. Here, 130 Spanish primary-school children participated in this 2-year longitudinal study. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity and metrical-stress sensitivity, along with phonological awareness, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and reading aloud, were assessed on five occasions. Results suggest that prosody abilities have different developmental trajectories and that prosody explains unique variance in reading beyond that explained by other factors. There was some evidence that the contribution of each prosody skill occurred at different phases in reading development. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity, and metrical-stress sensitivity assessed at the end of kindergarten, the start of Grade 1, and the end of Grade 1, respectively, predicted reading performance 6 months later. Nevertheless, sample size and reliability temper the conclusions that can be made. The implications of prosody skills for literacy development are discussed.     

The effects of inter-letter spacing in visual-word recognition: Evidence with young normal readers and developmental dyslexics

Recent research has demonstrated that slight increases of inter-letter spacing have a positive impact on skilled readers' recognition of visually presented words. In the present study, we examined whether this effect generalises to young normal readers and readers with developmental dyslexia, and whether increased inter-letter spacing affects the reading times and comprehension of a short text. To that end, we conducted a series of lexical decision and continuous reading experiments in which words were presented with the default settings or with a small increase in inter-letter spacing. Increased spacing produced shorter word identification times not only with adult skilled readers (Experiment 1), but also with young normal readers (Grade 2 and Grade 4 children; Experiment 2) and, even to a larger degree, with readers with dyslexia (Experiments 3 and 4). These experiments suggest that slight increases in inter-letter spacing would improve the readability of texts aimed at children, especially those with dyslexia.     

Output feedback stabilization for symmetric control systems

This work is devoted to the study of symmetric control systems. It establishes a relation between internal symmetry and external one for a linear invariant control system having n real simple poles. The symmetric stabilization problem is studied using a symmetric feedback gain such that the output control stabilizes the closed-loop system. A necessary and sufficient condition is given to solve this stabilization problem for a symmetric control system (A,B,C) and a generalized symmetric control system (E,A,B,C).     

Adolescents’ future wishes and fears in their acculturation process

In this study we aim at learning about adolescents’ future fears and wishes from different cultural origins with a view to finding implications for intervention in the furthering of their satisfaction and social integration in their acculturation process. The study sample comprised 938 secondary school students—64.4% Spanish, 19.7% South American and 12.8% African. Wishes and fears were evaluated by means of two open questions and the answers were categorized following traditional content analysis methodology. Results show that the adolescents wish for a satisfactory job, family and economic situation, and that they are concerned about aspects such as their own health and that of their family, the possibility of having a precarious job, isolation from their family of origin, and not forming a family. The findings also allow us to give differential profiles according to the cultural origin of the adolescents.     

Technologies in the education of children and teenagers with autism: evaluation and classification of apps by work areas

Education and Information Technologies - Mobile apps represent a resource with great potential for encouraging the development of many skills, given the high number of apps available and the quick...