Copy Skills and Writing Abilities in Children With and Without Specific Learning Disabilities

Copying a text quickly and accurately is important both in school and in daily life. However, this skill has never been systematically studied, either in children with typical development (TD) or in children with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The aim of this research was to study the features of a copy task and its relationship with other writing tasks. For this purpose, 674 children with TD and 65 children with SLD from Grades 6 through 8 were tested with a copy task and other writing assessment tasks, measuring three aspects of writing: handwriting speed, spelling, and expressive writing. Children with SLD performed worse on the copy task, both in terms of speed and accuracy, than children with TD. Copy speed was predicted by grade level and by all three major writing skills for children with TD but only by handwriting speed and spelling for children with SLD. Copy accuracy was predicted by gender and the three major writing skills for children with TD but only by spelling for children with SLD. These results suggest that children with SLD also have difficulty copying a text and benefit less than children with TD from their other writing skills

Autobiographical Misremembering: John Dean is not Alone

Survey respondents were asked to provide knowledge responses to public events and names that occurred as long ago as the 1930s and as recently as the 1980s. Respondents made errors that reflect the use of semantic and lexical memory systems, and reconstructive processes based on a semantic theme. Errors, as well as correct responses, are affected by whether the events originally occurred during the transition phase (early teens to mid-twenties). Responses indicate that events that occur during the transition phase are remembered better than events that occur during other life phases (in contradiction to the differential sampling hypothesis), but that events that occur during the transition phase can also promote error-prone reporting by interfering with other events or by promoting inaccurate reconstructions. The evidence suggests that the transition phase is not a monolithic entity, but that young adolescence differs from older transition phase ages by having a greater concentration on determining general properties of the world. Support is strongest for cognitive accounts of transition phase effects such as the first experience hypothesis, and results challenge physiological and evolutionary accounts that are tied to the transition phase promoting better memory. Finally, the more dramatic observed errors (such as inverting the subject and object of an event) point to possible undocumented instances of autobiographical misremembering. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/35009/1/446_ftp.pd

Metacognitive Monitoring of Text Comprehension: An Investigation on Postdictive Judgments in Typically Developing Children and Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

The ability to assess and monitor one’s own understanding of a written text is fundamental for learning and academic achievement. In the current paper, postdictive monitoring of text comprehension (i.e., the ability to judge the accuracy of responses previously given to a reading comprehension test) was investigated in both typically developing (TD) children and children with reading comprehension difficulties. Children from primary school (3rd to 5th grade) and secondary school (6th to 8th grade) participated in the study (N = 245). They were administered standardized tasks for reading comprehension, in which they had to read two texts and answer 12 multiple-choice questions after each text; subsequently, they had to provide postdictive judgments evaluating their performance: for each answer they had to select whether they judged it as correct, incorrect or whether they were uncertain. Two scores were calculated: Bias score, indicating the difference between metacognitive judgments of accuracy and actual performance; and Accurate estimation, indicating the sum of correct answers judged as “correct” and incorrect answers judged as “incorrect.” Results showed that primary school children were more overconfident than secondary school children and made fewer Accurate estimations especially for “correct” responses. Furthermore, the consideration of a group of children with reading comprehension difficulties showed that these failures are linked to worse metacognitive monitoring ability of comprehension performance in comparison not only to age-matched controls but also to the TD group of third-graders. Implications for learning and achievement are discussed

Imaginative Representations of Two- and Three-Dimensional Matrices in Children with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

Children with non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD) are characterized by high verbal and poor non-verbal intelligence, poor cognitive abilities, school difficulties, and—sometimes—depressive symptoms. NLD children lack visuospatial working memory, but it is not clear whether they encounter difficulties in mental imagery tasks. In the present study, NLD adolescents without depressive symptoms, depressed adolescents without NLD symptoms, and a control group were administered a mental imagery task requiring them to imagine to move along the cells of a 2-D (5 × 5) or 3-D (3 × 3 × 3) matrix. Results showed that NLD adolescents had difficulty at performing the imagery task when a 3-D pattern was involved. It is suggested that 3-D mental imagery tasks tap visuospatial processes which are weak in NLD individuals. In addition, their poor cognitive performance cannot be attributed to a depressive state, as the depressed group had a performance similar to that of controls

Forward and backward digit span difficulties in children with specific learning disorder

This study examined performance in the forward and backward digit span task of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fourth Edition (WISC–IV) in a large group of children with specific learning disorder (SLD) as compared with a group of typically developing children matched for age and sex. Our results further support the hypothesis that the intellectual difficulties of children with SLD involve working memory in the forward digit span task to a greater extent than in the backward digit span task. The correlation of the two spans with a General Ability Index (GAI) was similar in SLD, and smaller in magnitude than in typically developing children. Despite a GAI within normal range, children with SLD had difficulty with both digit span tasks, but more so for forward span. This pattern was similar for different SLD profiles with clinical diagnoses of dyslexia and mixed disorder, but the impairments were more severe in the latter. Age differences were also investigated, demonstrating larger span impairment in older children with SLD than in younger

Reading comprehension in deprived social backgrounds: The effect of an intervention program based on the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies in written texts

La comprensión de textos es una de las competencias fundamentales para el desarrollo social y educativo de los seres humanos y constituye un tema esencial en la agenda educativa. Sin embargo, el estudio y la sistematización de los efectos de programas que buscan mejorar la comprensión lectora, sobre todo en el caso de alumnos pertenecientes a entornos sociales desfavorecidos, son todavía escasos. Se presentan los resultados de una intervención realizada en un grupo de alumnos de primero y segundo año de nivel medio y de contexto desfavorecido de una escuela de gestión social de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina). Dicha intervención estuvo basada en la habilidad metacognitiva de detectar errores e incongruencias, fundamental para el proceso de comprensión de un texto. Inicialmente fueron evaluados 50 adolescentes con un test de eficacia lectora, una prueba estandarizada de comprensión de textos y una prueba específica que evalúa la habilidad de detectar errores e incongruencias. Se conformó un grupo control con 23 participantes y un grupo experimental con los 27 restantes. El entrenamiento se llevó a cabo durante tres meses, con una frecuencia de una hora semanal y una vez finalizado, ambos grupos fueron reevaluados. Los resultados muestran un efecto positivo de la intervención sobre el grupo experimental, que alcanzó una diferencia estadísticamente significativa entre la cantidad de respuestas correctas de la evaluación inicial y de la evaluación final.Reading comprehension is one of the core competencies for social and educational development of human beings and an essential topic in education agenda. However, the study and systematization of the effects of programs that seek to improve reading comprehension, especially in students from deprived social backgrounds, are still scarce. As a strategic skill that requires a conscious and active reader who can process the text and formulate a plan according to his or her purposes, reading comprehension must be flexible enough to adjust text demands. In this respect, a good reader should be aware of his or her cognitive abilities in order to understand a text successfully. Hence training in metacognitive skills improves significantly whole reading comprehension ability. Metacognitive training allows children to internalize and also anticipate the effective and useful strategies to be applied in each case. This paper aims to promote social inclusion to adolescents from a deprived social environment. To gain this goal, a program was designed considering, measurable, agreed and communicable targets, according to real deadlinesthat fit the raised population needs and realities. It presents the results of an intervention in a group of students of first and second year from secondary school from a deprived context in Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina). This intervention was based on the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies, fundamental to understanding texts. 50 adolescents were initially evaluated with a reading efficiency test, a standardized reading comprehension test and a specific proof to assess the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies. 23 students were part of the control group and 27, were involved in the experimental group. The one hour training was held weekly for three months and once thistraining was completed, both groups were reevaluated. The training involved twelve sessions which kept the same structure. First the ability was orally introduced. A video, a song, a painting, language games, among other resources, were used to include an error (or more) and / or a mismatch (or more). Then, the students altogether discussed, orally, the strategies used to resolve de introduction activity in order to detect these errors and inconsistencies. In third place, an understanding activity that included a situation that supposed an error or inconsistency wasintroduced. A fourth step was to present a written activity to strengthen the target ability, asking the children to produce a similar situation. The session finally ended with a pooling of production. This scheme wasrepeated over the 12 sessions by modifying the content thereof. The last two activities were carried out in pairs to stimulate mutual learning. In every session the information was presented with Powerpoint Program, in differentiates place from, especially assigned for the interventions. The results show a positive effect of the intervention on the experimental group, whose performance achieved a statistically significant difference between the number of correct responsesfrom the initial to the second assessment. One-sample t test was applied to compare the means of performance from the same population before and after the intervention. For the experimental group,statistically significant differences between means were checked before and after the intervention in both variables. time and right answers. For the control group, which received no intervention but had traditional instruction, a t test showed that the difference in performance between the first and second evaluation was not significant.Fil: Cartoceti, Romina Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; ArgentinaFil: Abusamra, Valeria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; ArgentinaFil: De Beni, Rossana. Universidad de Pádova; ItaliaFil: Cornoldi, Cesare. Universidad de Pádova; Itali

LA COMPRENSIÓN DE TEXTOS DESDE UN ENFOQUE MULTICOMPONENCIAL. EL TEST “LEER PARA COMPRENDER”

Text comprehension is a complex task that requires and involves multiple cognitive abilities. Deficits in one or several abilities can cause difficulties in understanding the textual level. Evaluating these impairments therefore requires a multicomponential perspective. The incipient development of the textual dimension of the learning difficulties in   education as well as in clinic, elicits the need for an instrument of this nature for Spanish-speaking populations. With this objective, a Spanish version of a test (/Nuova guida alla comprensione del testo/, De Beni et al., 2003) was designed for evaluating text comprehension. Normative data for children of 9 to 12 years of age were obtained. The Leer para Comprender Test (Abu- samra et al., in press) is based on a global model composed by eleven factors: basic text scheme, facts and sequences, lexical semantics, syntactic structure, textual cohesion, inferences, text sensibility, text hierarchy, mental models, flexibility, and errors and inconsistencies. This instrument is sensitive to the specificity of the processes implied in text comprehension. An approach from a multicomponential perspective not only allows   operating specifically with the different aspects of comprehension, but it is also advantageous to intervene in a focused manner in the implied processes and abilities.La comprensión de textos es una tarea compleja que requiere de la participación de múltiples habilidades cognitivas. Fallas en una o varias de estas habilidades pueden originar dificultades en la comprensión del nivel textual. La evaluación de dichas dificultades requiere, por lo tanto, una perspectiva multicomponencial. El incipiente desarrollo de la dimensión textual en la educación y en la clínica de las dificultades del aprendizaje plantea la necesidad de contar con un instrumento de esta naturaleza en la población hispanohablante. Con este objetivo se realizó la adaptación al español de un test (Nuova guida alla comprensione del testo, De Beni et al., 2003) para evaluar la comprensión de textos y se obtuvieron datos normativos para niños de 9 a 12 años. El test Leer para Comprender (Abusamra et al., en prensa) toma como base un modelo global de once componentes: esquema básico del texto, hechos y secuencias, semántica léxica, estructura sintáctica, cohesión textual, inferencias, intuición del texto, jerarquía del texto, modelos mentales, flexibilidad y errores e incongruencias. Este instrumento resulta sensible a la especificidad de los procesos implicados en la comprensión de texto. Un acercamiento desde una perspectiva multicomponencial permite no sólo operar de modo específico sobre los distintos aspectos de la comprensión sino que resulta, además, de gran utilidad para intervenir de manera focal sobre los procesos o habilidades implicados

The structure of intelligence in children with specific learning disabilities is different as compared to typically development children

Children with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) are characterized by a poor academic achievement despite an average intelligence. They are therefore typically assessed not only with achievement tests, but also with intelligence tests, usually the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The assumption of a discrepancy between IQ and achievement in children with SLD has been questioned, however, and the implications of using different measures in batteries of intellectual subtests have not been thoroughly investigated. The present study examined these issues, taking advantage of a large database of scores obtained in the ten core subtests of the WISC-IV by a group of 910 Italian children with a clinical diagnosis of SLD, who were compared with the children considered for national standardization purposes. Our results support the doubts raised concerning the IQ-achievement discrepancy model, showing that relevant discrepancies can emerge even within the WISC profile. The four main WISC-IV indexes were found differently related to intelligence (measured by means of the g-factor) and the g content of many subtests differed in childrenwith SLD vis-\ue0-vis typically-developing children. These results have important implications both theoretical, indicating that the g-factor isweakly identified in children with SLD children, and practical, indicating that the QI obtained with the WISC-IV may not be a good measure of intellectual functioning for children with SLD, which are discussed

EL MEJORAMIENTO DE LA COMPRENSIÓN DEL TEXTO DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA COMPONENCIAL: EL CASO DE LA CAPACIDAD DE INDIVIDUALIZAR PERSONAJES, LUGAR Y TIEMPO

The aim of the present study was to verify the effectiveness of a training program based on the ability to identify “Characters, places and times” (CPT) using an initial evaluation test, a final evaluation test, and the treatment program proposed in Nuova Guida alla Comprensione del Testo (De Beni et al., 2003a), later adapted into Spanish (Abusamra et al., in press).119 students of third (43), fourth (30) and fifth grade (46) of primary schools participated in the reasearch. 59 of them were assigned to the control group and 60 to the experimental group. All of them were evaluated with standardized text comprehension tests as well as with the specific CPT test before and after training took place. The training was implemented in approximately four month’s time and was implemented on a weekly basis. Results demonstrated beneficial effects of the intervention in all the experimental groups. This intervention was particularly effective in the experimental group composed by school children of 5th grade, which exhibited not only specific improvement in the CPT test, but also general improvement in the comprehension test administered subsequently.El objetivo del presente trabajo fue verificar la eficacia de un entrenamiento sobre la habilidad de base de identificar “personajes, lugares y tiempos” (PLT) utilizando una prueba de evaluación inicial, una de evaluación final y el programa de tratamiento propuesto en la Nuova Guida alla Comrpensione del Testo (De Beni et al., 2003a), posteriormente adaptada al español por Abusamra y colaboradores (en prensa). Participaron de esta investigación 119 estudiantes de tercero (43), cuarto (30) y quinto grado (46) de escuelas primarias de los cuales 59 fueron incluidos en el grupo control y 60 en el grupo expe- rimental. Todos fueron evaluados con pruebas estandarizadas de comprensión de textos y con la prueba específica de PLT antes y después del entrenamiento. El entrenamiento tuvo una duración aproximada de cuatro meses y fue implementado con una frecuencia semanal tomando como base la ficha de PLT. Los resultados evidenciaron un efecto beneficioso de la intervención en todos los grupos experimentales. Dicha intervención resultó particularmente eficaz en el grupo experimental de 5° grado que mostró no solo una mejoría específica en la prueba PLT sino además una generalizada en la prueba final que medía la comprensión (prueba MT)

Intelligence and working memory control: Evidence from the WISC-IV administration to Italian children

Working memory (WM) has been associated with general intelligence (GI). However, evidence is contradictory, as the relationship has in some cases resulted to be very high, and in other cases very low. To explain these differences, it has been argued that WM is an articulated system and only its more attentional components are strictly related with GI. In particular, it has been argued that WM tasks can be located – according to the task characteristics and the subject's age – along a continuum, from the most passive tasks, which do not require cognitive control, to the most active tasks, which do require high cognitive control. The present study tested this hypothesis using data collected during the standardization of the Italian version of the WISC-IV. WISC-IV, includes four measures, i.e. the arithmetic test, the letter-number sequencing test, the backward and the forward digit span tests, which represent decreasing levels of cognitive control. The analysis of correlations between the four tasks and a measure of GI – obtained with the six basic tasks (related to verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning, but not to working memory) – confirmed the hypothesis and showed that the pattern of correlations only slightly changes across ages