The relationship between neuroticism and intelligence scores among a Libyan student sample

The study examined the impact of Neuroticism on an individual's intelligence among a Libyan student sample. Seventy-five students aged between 15 to 25 years, completed the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale (WBIS the Arabic version) and the Neurotic Behaviour Scale (NBS) to provide measures of Intelligence and Neuroticism scores, respectively. The results showed little difference in either sex or age with regard to differences in neuroticism scores. Furthermore, the findings revealed that there were no significant differences between the three different levels of neuroticism scores and the individuals' performance on the WBIS intelligence scales. However, the scaled scores of the High-neuroticism group on the WBIS subtests were more scatter than other groups and were clinically significant on Arithmetic, Information and Digit Symbol. The results indicated that there were significant negative correlations between neuroticism and Arithmetic, Information and the Picture Completion scale. The role of gender appeared through the differences between males and females in the correlation coefficients between neuroticism and the WBIS scores, not just in the size but also in the direction of the correlation

Remediation of fluency: Word specific or generalised training effects?

The present study examines whether reading fluency benefits more from repeated reading of a limited set of words or from practicing reading with many different words. A group of 37 reading delayed Dutch children repeatedly read the same 20 words with limited exposure duration, whereas another group of 37 poor readers received the same reading exercises with 400 different words. Results demonstrated that improvements in accuracy and speed of trained words were larger for the repeated reading group than for the children who had only practiced with these words once. No difference in generalisation of effects to untrained neighbour and control words was found between the two conditions. Furthermore, rapid naming skill was unrelated to improvements in reading fluency and transfer effects in both training conditions. Results demonstrate that the practical value of repeated reading lies in its word specific training effects. © Springer 2006

Deficiencies in broader language skills as predictors of reading skills in atypical development

The current work examines the relationship between broader language skills and the development of early reading skills (decoding and comprehension) among a sample of children with developmental delay. A sample of 10 children between the ages of 5 and 7 years all clinically diagnosed with developmental delay were carefully matched with a chronological age and IQ match control group. All children were presented with a series of different measures to examine profiles of (i) epi- and meta-phonological measures of phonological awareness, (ii) semantic skills and (iii) listening comprehension. Profiles of performance for those with developmental delay were then compared against scores for the two controls groups. The findings reveal that in addition to phonological measures, those with developmental delay show profound deficit in their broader language skills, which could account for a significant amount of the variance in both decoding ability and reading comprehension skill. Overall, the role of broader language skills in relation to children’s development in reading is discussed

Orthographic analogy use and phonological priming effects in non-word reading

The orthographic analogy effect for rime-based analogies has been debated, and theoretical arguments relating to the role of rhyme awareness in reading development have been questioned. This study assessed whether children beginning to read are able to make genuine orthographic analogies based on rime similarity. A non-word version of the clue word task was used to compare children’s performance at reading orthographically and phonologically similar target items and phonologically similar items only. They were also assessed on their ability to make analogies between the beginnings and endings of words. The results were consistent with the suggestion that orthographic analogy use is available to beginning readers as a reading strategy, and that rime-based analogies are easier to make than analogies at the beginning ofwords. However, rhyme awarenesswas found to account for variance in orthographic analogy use between the beginnings of words, but not for rime-based analogies. The implications of this for the theoretical role of rhyme awareness in reading development are discussed

The role of lexical analogies in beginning reading: insights from children's self-reports

The research addresses the role of lexical analogies in early reading by examining variation in children’s self-reported strategy choices in the context of a traditional clue-word reading task. Sixty 5- to 6-year-old beginning readers were given a nonword version of a traditional clue-word reading analogy task, and changes in strategies were examined using measures of immediately retrospective verbal reports. The findings revealed that the children’s performance was accompanied by their use of a wide repertoire of reading strategies, the most prominent being the use of lexical analogies and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rules. Distinct profiles of reading were derived from an analysis of the children’s strategy choice, showing strong patterns of individual differences with regard to the extent to which children reported making analogical responses and applying grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rules to aid their nonword reading. The benefits of using immediately retrospective verbal reports of strategies as a way of examining individual differences in children’s early reading are discusse

Adaptive strategy choice in children's early reading and spelling

There has been a growing interest in the application of the overlapping waves model (Siegler, 1996) to monitor developments in children’s thinking across a diverse range of educational contexts. The present work examines the extent to which this model can be applied to the context of a nonalgorithmic domain: children’s early reading and spelling using immediately retrospective self-report methodology. We examined (i) abundant variability, (ii) adaptive choice and (iii) gradual change in strategy choice in children’s reading and spelling performance on three regular intervals over a period of three months. Studying within-child performance over time revealed strong individual differences in reading and spelling performance and evidence that the children were strategically choosing relevant strategies on a trial-by-trial basis. Indeed, despite showing within-child variability across the trials, there was a general shift in children’s choice of strategies, moving away from relying on less efficient back-up strategies (alphabetic decoding, analogy) to direct retrieval methods. It is expected that these findings will help to illustrate the importance of self-reflection (or self explanation) of strategy choice as an educational tool for enabling children’s developments in reading and spelling. This may lead to a reconceptualisation of some of the current theoretical models of early reading and spelling development (Frith, 1985; Goswami & Bryant, 1990)

The lies we tell and what they say about us: using behavioural characteristics to explain Facebook activity

Are there two definable groups of users of social networking sites based on the individual’s interaction style, that is whether the prime goal is to self-promote (broadcast) or maintain relationships (communicate)? Do such groups indulge in differing patterns of deceptive behaviour? Measures of personality, behaviour, and Facebook activity were completed by 113 undergraduate students all of which were active Facebook users. Regression analyses showed that while broadcasting behaviour was predicted by risk taking, an out-going personality and an absence of quality interaction; low mild social deviance predicted communication behaviour. Unexpectedly, cluster analysis identified three, not two, distinct groups of users: high broadcasters, high communicators and a high interaction group. Although each group mainly interacted with known others, their style of the interaction varied. Communicators’ interaction style supported group cohesion often through the use of ‘white lies’ or social oil; while the remaining two groups indulged in deceptive behaviour designed to self-promote or aggrandize the individual