Why Tangibility Matters: A Design Case Study of At-Risk Children Learning to Read and Spell

Tangibles may be effective for reading applications. Letters can be represented as 3D physical objects. Words are spatially organized collections of letters. We explore how tangibility impacts reading and spelling acquisition for young Anglophone children who have dyslexia. We describe our theory-based design rationale and present a mixedmethods case study of eight children using our PhonoBlocks system. All children made significant gains in reading and spelling on trained and untrained (new) words, and could apply all spelling rules a month later. We discuss the design features of our system that contributed to effective learning processes, resulting in successful learning outcomes: dynamic colour cues embedded in 3D letters, which can draw attention to how letter(s) position changes their sounds; and the form of 3D tangible letters, which can enforce correct letter orientation and enable epistemic strategies in letter organization that simplify spelling tasks. We conclude with design guidelines for tangible reading systems

The Wanganui River: A recreation survey

This Report is a joint undertaking between Lincoln College and the Wanganui River Scenic Board. Its principal objective is to provide user information which in conjunction with other essential resource information will offer a substantive basis for management planning. As such, this report which looks at users, their motivations, characteristics, satisfactions and management preferences, may be unique in such a planning ventur

Measuring Anxiety in Youth with Learning Disabilities: Reliability and Validity of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC)

Youth with learning disabilities (LD) are at an increased risk for anxiety disorders and valid measures of anxiety are necessary for assessing this population. We investigated the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC; March in Multidimensional anxiety scale for children. Multi-Health Systems, North Tonawanda, 1998) in 41 adolescents (ages 11– 17 years) with LD. Youth and parents completed the MASC and were administered the semi-structured Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule: Child and Parent Versions (ADIS: C/P; Silverman and Albano in The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV-Child and Parent Versions. Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, 1996). Results found that child and parent reports of Social Anxiety on the MASC closely corresponded with ADIS-generated social phobia diagnoses, and parent total scores discriminated well among youth with and without any anxiety disorder. A multi-method multi-trait matrix provided evidence of the construct validity of the MASC total score for both parent and child reports. Our findings provide empirical evidence that parent and child versions of the MASC are useful for assessing anxiety in youth with LD

The ABCs of learning disabilities

This [book] traces the history of the learning disabilities field and presents the standard gamut of topics subsumed in the history of the field. These include, but are not limited to, the origins of the learning disability field, the influential definitions of learning disabilities, the characteristics of individuals with learning disabilities, the condition of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the etiology of learning disabilities. The [book] concludes with an assessment of the current hot topic of the response to instruction model as an alternative to the IQ-achievement discrepancy model of diagnosing learning disabilities and boldly raises the question of contributions of the research of response to instruction (RTI standard-protocol approach) to the learning disabilities field