Spatial and temporal matching ability among subgroups of disabled readers

Spatial and temporal matching abilities of 67 male and female fifth and sixth grade average (18) and severely disabled readers (49) were investigated. Subjects were classified according to the Boder Diagnostic Screening Procedure readers: dysphonetic, dyseidetic, and alexic. Results of the matching task indicated that average and dyseidetic readers were better able than dysphonetic and alexic readers to match purely temporal information. When order of difficulty among the spatial and temporal tasks was analyzed, dysphonetic and alexic readers demonstrated greater difficulty with temporal information. Matching abilities were found to be less related to integration ability than to an ability to sequence temporal information. The existence of possible memory and neurological correlates is discussed.     

北京城市绿地对热岛效应的缓解作用

按照城市功能定位将北京市分为中心城、卫星城和郊区,利用2005-2011年的19个站点逐日3个时次(8∶00、14∶00、20∶00)的温度数据,对比分析中心城和卫星城城市热岛效应强度及其变化,同时利用野外试验数据,对比研究不同城市绿地对北京城市热岛的缓解作用。结果表明:1各时次年平均气温中心城卫星城郊区,且中心城和卫星城年平均气温波动上升,而郊区却波动下降,致使各时次中心城和卫星城热岛强度波动增强,且热岛强度增幅中心城高于卫星城;2中心城热岛强度冬季夏季,而卫星城夏季冬季,冬季均以8∶00最强,14∶00最弱,夏季卫星城各时次城市热岛强度次序与冬季相同,但夏季中心城却以20∶00最强,14∶00最弱;3绿地缓解热岛效应功能与绿地类型、树种组成、林分密度等群落结构及管理措施等相关,试验绿地夏季9∶00-16∶00的降温幅度约为0.2~12.9℃,各类绿地平均降温幅度介于1.2~9.5℃,平均降温约4.2℃,以乔草绿地最大,草地最低。因此,合理的群落结构与空间布局可增强区域绿地缓解热岛效应功能。     

Timing of Homework Completion vs. Performance in General Chemistry

The goal of this study was to investigate the timing of online homework completion and its effects on student performance. Data was collected from two large, first-semester general chemistry sections at a southwestern university. Specifically, this study aims to explore the link between when students complete their homework relative to the date the material was covered in lecture and student performance in that class. Topics covered in the study included VSEPR, Lewis structures, and molecular geometry. Performance was measured by different variables, namely in-class clicker scores (short-term) and exam grade (long-term). Students were divided into three groups: students who completed the relevant homework within 2 days after the lecture (before the next lecture), those who completed the homework 2 to 4 days after the lecture, and students who completed the homework more than 4 days after the material was covered in lecture. The study also took into consideration student reasoning abilities, as measured by the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT), with a focus on at-risk students (low TOLT students). Results showed promising findings for low TOLT students. Instructors can employ results from this study to help their students better utilize the online homework resources.

     

Personal Context and Continuity of Human Thought as Recurrent Themes in a Longitudinal Study

The present study of personal context and continuity in 23 students' thinking builds upon data from a longitudinal study of the students' conceptualisations of ecological processes. Each student was interviewed 11 times from age 9-15 about these processes. At the ages of 15 and 19, the students listened to what they said at the age of 11 and 15, respectively, and described how they thought their understanding had developed. The occurrence of charac teristic individual elements in the students' conceptions can be followed as themes in the interviews year by year. The students could, as 15- and 19-year-olds, often reveal concrete experiences from an early age that they referred to repeatedly in the interviews. Even if there was a substantial conceptual development, there was also a very strong element of personal continuity. Conceptions that had developed at an early age seemed to be important for future conceptual development.     

COMPARISON OF THE BECK DEPRESSION INVENTORY-II AND THE INVENTORY TO DIAGNOSE DEPRESSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE COUNSELORS

Community college counselors need to assess depressive symptoms in students and to differentiate depressive symptoms from anxiety symptoms to help them implement crisis intervention strategies. Two instruments available to the community college counselor are the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Inventory to Diagnose Depression (IDD). This article, which is based on the published literature, reports on and discusses the construct and discriminant validities of the BDI-II and IDD so that community college counselors may use them with knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of each instrument. Although results should be interpreted with caution, both instruments are useful in measuring the presence or absence of depressive symptoms.     

Differentiating the neural response to intervention in children with developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is associated with functional abnormalities within reading areas of the brain. For some children diagnosed with dyslexia, phonologically based remediation programs appear to rehabilitate brain function in key reading areas (Shaywitz et al., Biological Psychiatry 55: 101–110, 2004; Simos et al., Neuroscience 58: 1203–1213, 2002). However, a non-trivial number of children diagnosed with dyslexia fail to respond to these interventions (Torgesen, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 15: 55–64, 2000). A cross-sectional fMRI study investigating post-treatment effects was conducted in an effort to better understand differences in brain function between treatment responders and non-responders. Educational testing and brain activation measured after treatment suggested that the reading intervention used in the present study rehabilitated several basic level reading processes in all participants diagnosed with dyslexia. However, activation in the left inferior parietal lobe differentiated treatment responders and non-responders in comparison to non-impaired readers. Children with persistent deficits in single word decoding (treatment non-responders) demonstrated significantly less activation in the left inferior parietal lobe when compared to non-impaired readers.