What happens when you use multicultural mentor texts as read alouds to generate ideas for writing personal narratives?

The purpose of this study is to determine what happens when you use multicultural mentor texts as read alouds to generate ideas for writing personal narratives in 3rd grade readers and writers. By utilizing these mentor texts as read alouds this study seeks to determine what effects they have on writing personal narratives. The students in this study listened to weekly teacher read alouds and participated in writing activities over a five week period. Through teacher observations, whole class discussions, student writing journals and essays the study showed a greater depth of understanding, interest, and increase in writing in student responses. Out of fifteen focus group participants, all of the students improved in writing descriptive narratives that reflected connections and associations made during the multicultural mentor text read alouds. The findings of this study suggest that by reading relevant multicultural mentor texts that students can connect to, students are able to generate more ideas and description in writing personal narratives

The Influence of Heading and Gender on Intraindividual Variability in Neuropsychological Test Performance in College Soccer Players

The goal of this study was to determine if repetitive exposure to heading the ball in soccer led to increased neurocognitive dispersion across several neuropsychological tests in college soccer athletes. Gender was analyzed to determine if male and female athletes experienced different levels of dispersion following repetitive heading events. In this study, 50 soccer athletes (25 = female) were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests and completed a questionnaire (HeadCount-2w) assessing soccer activity over a two-week period, including recent heading exposure. Scores on neuropsychological tests were converted to Standard scores and an intraindividual standard deviation (ISD) score was calculated for each individual to determine neurocognitive dispersion spanning across twelve tests. No significant relationship was found across ISD scores between low and high heading groups or male and female athletes. However, both comparisons exhibited medium effect sizes when considering the number of impaired scores, pointing to the potential use of this metric in future studies as a measure of neuropsychological performance following repetitive heading events

Individual-level functional connectivity predicts cognitive control efficiency

Cognitive control (CC) is essential for problem-solving in everyday life, and CC-related deficits occur alongside costly and debilitating disorders. The tri-partite model suggests that CC comprises multiple behaviors, including switching, inhibiting, and updating. Activity within the fronto-parietal control network B (FPCN-B), the dorsal attention network (DAN), the cingulo-opercular network (CON), and the lateral default-mode network (L-DMN) is related to switching and inhibiting behaviors. However, our understanding of how these brain regions interact to bring about cognitive switching and inhibiting in individuals is unclear. In the current study, subjects performed two in-scanner tasks that required switching and inhibiting. We used support vector regression (SVR) models containing individually-estimated functional connectivity between the FPCN-B, DAN, CON and L-DMN to predict switching and inhibiting behaviors. We observed that: inter-network connectivity can predict inhibiting and switching behaviors in individuals, and the L-DMN plays a role in switching and inhibiting behaviors. Therefore, individually estimated inter-network connections are markers of CC behaviors, and CC behaviors may arise due to interactions between a set of networks