Growth in Precursor and Reading‐Related Skills: Do Low‐Achieving and IQ‐Discrepant Readers Develop Differently?

Poor readers who met low achievement and IQ‐discrepancy definitions of reading disability were compared with nonimpaired readers on their development of eight precursor and reading‐related skills to evaluate developmental differences prior to students’ identification as reading disabled. Results indicated no evidence for differences between the two groups of poor readers in the development of the eight skills, with three exceptions. Students in the IQ‐discrepant group demonstrated greater growth in letter sound knowledge, greater mean performance in visual‐motor integration at the beginning of first grade, and greater deceleration in rapid naming of letters. When compared to the nonimpaired group, low‐achieving readers demonstrated poorer performance and development in all skills, while the IQ‐discrepant readers demonstrated poorer performance and development in phonemic awareness, rapid naming of letters and objects, spelling, and word reading. The largely null results for comparisons between the two groups of poor readers challenges the validity of the two‐group classification of reading disabilities based on IQ‐discrepancy.     

Neuroimaging Studies of Reading Development and Reading Disability

Converging evidence from a number of neuroimaging studies, including our own, suggest that fluent word identification in reading is related to the functional integrity of two left hemisphere posterior systems: a temporo-parietal system and a ventral occipito-temporal system. These posterior systems are functionally disrupted in developmental dyslexia. Reading disabled, relative to nonimpaired, readers demonstrate heightened reliance on both inferior frontal and right hemisphere posterior regions, presumably in compensation for the LH posterior difficulties. We propose a neurobiological account suggesting that for normally developing readers the temporo-parietal system predominates at first, and is associated with aspects of processing critical in learning to integrate orthography with phonological and lexical-semantic features of printed words. The occipito-temporal system, by contrast, constitutes a fast, late-developing, word-identification system that underlies fluent word recognition in skilled readers.     

Magnetic Properties of Nanocrystalline Fe_(60)Cr_(40) Powders Prepared by Mechanical Alloying in Vacuum and Air

1　Introduction　Sincethediscoveryofgiantmagnetoresistance(GMR),magneticmaterialswithrandommixtureofferromagneticandantiferromagneticpropertieshaverecentlyrecievedalotofattention[1].ThemagneticpropertiesofFeandCrarequitedifferentfromeachother.Feisferromagneticbelow1043K,whileCrisantiferromagneticatroomtemperature.GMRexistesnotonlyinsandwichandmultilayerfilms,butalsoinothernanostructuralmaterials,suchasgranularfilmsandnanostructurebulkmaterialspreparedbymechanicalalloying(MA).MAhasbeendev…