The relationship of rapid serial naming and word reading in normally developing readers: An exploratory model

Even though researchers have established that rapid serial naming (RSN), or the ability to name within a restricted category of visual stimuli quickly, is a significant predictor of word reading, the predictive nature of RSN is not well understood. To investigate the relationship of RSN and other variables thought to contribute to beginning word reading (phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, memory span, processing speed, and articulation), a preliminary/exploratory model of word reading was developed and then tested by path analysis. Results indicated that no variable in the model could fully `explain' RSN; processing speed, but not articulation, contributed to RSN performance. RSN and orthographic knowledge were significantly related, but this relationship was due to the effects of processing speed. In terms of their unique contributions to the variance in word reading, RSN, phonological awareness, and orthographic knowledge were independent of each other. While these results pertain only to normal readers and are preliminary in nature, they may provide a basis for a clear interpretation of similar studies conducted with both normal and dyslexic readers.     

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.     

从美国赤字财政政策的演变看我国财政政策的选择

20世纪30年代大危机使凯恩斯主义在美国经济生活中占据统治地位。美国财政政策长期以赤字财政为主,对整个社会经济造成严重危害,克林顿时期财政政策指导思想发生变化,与货币政策等配套,带来经济持续繁荣。我国不应重蹈美国赤字财政的覆辙,长期仍应以适度从紧财政政策为宜,同时提高财政支出的效率,发挥配套政策的效用。     

Grammar and phonology predict spelling in middle childhood

We report the findings of a follow-up study of 34 9-year-old children who had participated in a longitudinal study of phonological and literacy development between the ages of 4 and 6 years. In a series of concurrent and longitudinal analyses, measures of phoneme awareness proved to be better predictors of spelling than measures of rime awareness. Children's awareness of grammatical relations influenced their orthographic skills in spelling. Although we were able to demonstrate that later orthographic knowledge is influenced by earlier phonological processes, our results are also consistent with the view that awareness of grammatical rules has an important role in determining orthographic proficiency as children get older.     

足球界引进“外援”实行配额制的可行性分析

本文针对中国足球职业俱乐部（以下简称俱乐部）在引进“外援”上建议采取适当的经济措施,即“配额制”以减少体育贸易的逆差,并针对所要解决的问题加以讨论、分析,使国内足球市场朝着良性循环的方向发展。     

Differential effects of phonological priming on Chinese character recognition

We report two experiments investigating the effect of phonological priming on the recognition of two types of Chinese characters: compound targets which contain separate radical components; and integrated targets which do not contain separate radicals. We used a masked priming paradigm with varying prime-target exposure durations. In Experiment 1, phonological priming effects on compound target recognition were found following a 50 msec SOA. However, there was no evidence of phonological priming on integrated target recognition at this SOA. In Experiment 2 we investigated the time course of phonological priming effects at three prime-target SOAs (30, 50 and 80 msec) in a between-subjects design. Semantic priming effects were also investigated. Phonological priming effects on compound target recognition were found following the 50 msec and the 80 msec SOAs. However, there was no evidence of phonological priming on integrated target recognition at any SOA. Semantic priming effects on both compound and integrated target recognition were found in the 50 msec and the 80 msec SOA conditions suggesting that phonological and semantic activation are co-incidental during compound character recognition. We conclude that character type constrains the activation of phonology during Chinese character recognition.     

The role of vowel signs in Hebrew: Beyond word recognition

After third grade of elementary school, native Hebrew speakers in Israel gradually become expert in reading two kinds of writing systems: the one they start with that contains signs for every phoneme of the spoken language, and another, to which they are steadily introduced, beginning with the second grade, which omits most vowels, together with few consonantal distinctions. Earlier studies indicate that single voweled words are read faster than unvoweled words, particularly in a naming task. This study examined another possible contribution of vowel signs in reading Hebrew: Its effect on memory and comprehension. It was assumed that if subvocalization facilitates memory of words while reading, and if vowel signs facilitate phonological processing, as is perhaps the case in naming tasks, then vowelization may intensify the processing of the articulatory loop and this should improve memory and comprehension. Our first two experiments assessed the contribution of vowel signs to the memory of word lists in either recognition memory or word recall tasks. The third experiment examined the contribution of vowel signs to the reading of connected texts. We found that vowel signs speeded up recognition memory of words in third graders, and improved the recall of words printed in the context of mixed lists in sixth graders. We also found that vowelization improved memory and comprehension of some prose texts.     

A cross-linguistic comparison of phonological awareness and word recognition

Phonological awareness is one of the critical skills in the acquisition of reading in an alphabetic orthography. The development of phonological awareness was compared across Turkish and English-speaking kindergarten and first-grade children (n = 138). The Turkish-speakers were more proficient in both handling of the syllables and deleting final phonemes of words. These patterns were related to the characteristics of the respective spoken languages (such as the saliency of the syllable, familiarity of the nonword patterns, importance of onset or final phoneme deletion, importance of vowel harmony) and the development of phonological awareness was discussed as a function of the characteristics of spoken language, orthography and literacy instruction.     

Developing phonological awareness and word recognition skills: A two-year intervention with low-income,inner-city children

Low-income, inner-city children were involved in a two-year intervention delivered in the regular classroom by regular classroom teachers to develop phonological awareness and word recognition skills. For the treatment children, an 11-week phoneme awareness program in kindergarten was followed by a first grade reading program (extended to grade 2 for some children) that emphasized explicit, systematic instruction in the alphabetic code. Control children participated in the school district's regular basal reading program. Both groups participated in a phonetically-based spelling program mandated by the district. At the end of grade 1, treatment children (n = 66) significantly outperformed control children (n = 62) on measures of phonological awareness, letter name and letter sound knowledge, and three measures of word recognition, and reached marginal significance (0.056) on a fourth. They also significantly outperformed the control children on two measures of spelling. One year later, at the end of grade 2, the treatment children (n = 58) significantly outperformed the control children (n = 48) on all four measures of word recognition. For the groups as a whole, there were no differences on the one measure of spelling readministered at the end of grade 2. However, there were significant differences in spelling between the treatment (n = 16) and control children (n = 13) who remained in the bottom quartile of spellers at the end of grade 2 when partial credit was given for phonetically correct spelling, and significant differences in reading favoring these treatment children on all four measures of word recognition.     

二语心理词库提取的语音和词形效应

二语习得者在视觉词汇提取过程中,依据对词汇的熟悉程度,词汇的语音信息和词形信息不同程度地参与了词汇的提取。本文回顾了国内外心理词汇提取的相关理论,结合笔者对词汇提取的测试结果,运用错误分析法分析语音和词形参与词汇提取的效应。