Development of a home literacy environment questionnaire for Tamil-speaking kindergarten children

Abstract Background The development of emergent literacy skills depends upon the literacy environments and experiences of children at home. Children’s home literacy environment is closely related to the development of various aspects of emergent literacy like letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Dimensions of home literacy environment, such as physical (literacy) environment, child’s own literacy habits, parental literacy habits, parent-child interaction for language and literacy activities, and parental beliefs about literacy, have been reported in literature. Methods The present study describes the construction of a home literacy environment questionnaire for Tamil-speaking kindergarten children in the Indian context. The various dimensions of home literacy environment were described, and items related to each dimension were listed. Seventeen judges rated each item on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (no fit) to 4 (excellent fit). Their comments/remarks/opinion, specific to an item or dimension, were also taken. The rating responses were analyzed for content validity and internal consistency. Results Content validity index was calculated at item level as well as scale level. The items in each subscale/dimension which had the item level content validity index scores higher than 0.78 were included in the final questionnaire and the other items were rejected. The scale level content validity index scores were higher than 0.90, indicating good content validity. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated as a measure of internal consistency. Cronbach’s alpha values were lower than 0.7 for three domains: physical environment, parent literacy habits, and parental beliefs. Conclusions The questionnaire developed promises to be a useful tool to evaluate the home literacy environment of Tamil children who undergo formal education in English medium schools like in India. The questionnaire developed and presented here can help in collecting reliable data to make informed decisions about children’s (whether typically developing or with developmental disabilities) home literacy environment

Introduction: Reading and writing in semi-syllabic scripts

Overview of special issue.This article is an overview of studies in a special issue of the journal, focused on reading and writing in semi-syllabic scripts

Efecto de los subtítulos en el comportamiento de la mirada durante los cambios de plano: un estudio de seguimiento ocular

The study provides a comprehensive picture of the effect of subtitles on the gaze behavior of the participants while watching continuity editing and discontinuity editing style cinema. Three video clips (with English subtitles and without subtitles) of continuity editing and discontinuity editing styles were presented to participants. The video clips came from English movies and the participants were not native English speakers. Entry time, dwell time, first fixation time, scan path, and average fixation duration were taken as dependent variables in this within-group study. The eye-tracking data gathered were subjected to repeated measures of two-way ANOVA and paired t-test. Results revealed that the appearance of subtitles at the bottom of the screen changed the eye movement pattern of the participants during the shot changes. Timing of the subtitle starting point (before the cut or after the cut) also affected the gaze behavior. The editing style, however, did not make any difference in the gaze behavior of participants while watching subtitled video clips. Further, participants preferred reading subtitles to seeing visual images even if the subtitles were presented during the shot changes.Este estudio provee una imagen completa del efecto de subtítulos en el comportamiento de la mirada en múltiples participantes viendo películas elaboradas con edición continua y discontinua. Tres videoclips (con y sinsubtítulos en inglés) con estilos de edición continua y discontinua fueron presentados a los participantes. Los videoclips fueron extraídos de películas de habla inglesa, y los participantes no eran hablantes nativos de inglés.Tiempo de entrada, tiempo de permanencia, tiempo de primera fijación, trayectoria de escaneo, y duración promedio de fijación, fueron tomados como variables dependientes en este estudio entre grupos. La data de rastreo ocular recolectada fue sometida a un ANOVA de dos vías de medidas repetidas y a pruebas-t pareadas. Los resultados revelaron que la presencia de subtítulos en la parte baja de la pantalla cambió el patrón de movimiento ocular de los participantes durante los cambios de toma. El momento de aparición de los subtítulos (antes o después de los cortes) también afectó el comportamiento de la mirada. Sin embargo, el estilo de edición no generó ninguna diferencia en el comportamiento de la mirada de los participantes mientras veían los videoclips subtitulados. Adicionalmente, los participantes prefirieron leer los subtítulos que ver las imágenes visuales, incluso si estos subtítulos se presentaban durante cambios de toma

Scripts' influence on reading processes and cognition: a preamble

The term ‘language’ generally subsumes both spoken and written forms though they are very different. Spoken language is more biological and spontaneously acquired while literacy (reading and writing) is a more a culturally evolved skill. Learning to read requires explicit, conscious instructions and practice. Spoken language is a unique feature of the human species while reading and writing is the hallmark of human civilization. The origin of language dates back to about 1.5 million years ago while writing and reading date back to about 6000 years ago - a very recent phenomenon in human history. Therefore, human brains are not hardwired for literacy. There are no dedicated neuronal structures or networks specifically evolved for reading and writing. Reading skills are achievable due to the malleability or neuroplasticity of the human brain, which has an inbuilt capacity of rewiring the existing (pre-wired) neuronal connections as a function of practice and experience. Reading, in this way, is built on the neuronal network evolved primarily for speech (Dehaene et al., 2010). It is not surprising that reading/writing is built on spoken language as by the time children are introduced to literacy skills they would have already mastered the spoken language to a large extent. Modern researches suggests that newborn infants develop initial language-related skills within hours shortly after birth (Wu, Hou, Peng, et al., 2022). Eye movement studies suggest that eye movements during text reading align with the rate of speech production (Gagl, Gregorova, Golch, et al., 2022). These recent studies support the view that reading/writing, a culturally learned and transmitted secondary linguistic skill, is grown out of spoken language roots

Damaging stop gain/loss and frameshift mutations in autism subjects outline impairment in neuronal migration and adhesion pathways

Genetic heterogeneity makes it challenging to identify causal-genes responsible for autism pathogenesis. Till date, research studies report only a handful of high confidence genes for autism. There is a need to identify damaging genomic-variants, predisposing an individual towards autism manifestation. Of special interest is stop gain/loss mutations found in the exome. Such variants are prevalent, having an estimated number of 100-200 occurrences per human-genome. Stop-gains and frameshifts may lead to functional consequences. Based on stringent inclusion-exclusion criteria, the study recruited 150 autism subjects of Indian origin, of which 13 were used for WES. To understand the nature and possible consequences of these variants, we first analyzed their characteristics at the genome-level. Genome-wide analysis of more than 30000 variants provided statistical-significance to identify sequence-specific features for severity and to build a pathogenicity score. This sequence-based pathogenicity score was then applied to the analysis of variants in autism susceptibility. Several damaging stop gain/loss mutations encompassing autism genes CDH5, DDX23, CLDN5, and DPP3 were identified with protein truncations ranging from 20-70%. Loss of function mutations disrupted protein domains involved in various autism related pathways such as neuronal migration, synaptogenesis,and neuronal adhesion. Mutations were identified with previous evidences for neuronal migration and adhesion pathways in Drosophila sp, C. elegans and mice models. Homozygosity mapping analysis to identify risk-homozygous-haplotypes showed evidence of recessive polymorphisms in GIGYF1, SERPINE1, and EPHB6. Recessive alleles were identified across all the samples while polymorphisms in FOLH1, BCKDK, CDH11, and CTCF were specific. Mutations in language-specific genes, GCFC1 and MRPL19 were associated with autism phenome. A novel autism candidate gene CLDN5 that physically interacts with genes involved in various autism pathways was identified.CLDN5 belongs to the leukocyte-transendothelial-migration pathway and elevated in autism cortex, impairing the blood brain barrier leading to compensatory gene expression and protein accumulation. This on-going study identified several damaging mutations specific for autism in Indian population, adding to the growing body of mutational spectrum. Validations through Sanger sequencing and allele specific PCR is being done for the mutations identified

Familial patterns and biological markers of dyslexia

Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disability. Though dyslexia is a major educational problem, studies on biological aspects of dyslexia are very limited in India. Here we report prevalence, inheritance patterns and biological markers of dyslexia in 179 selected families front South India. Families were ascertained through probands attending special schools for dyslexic students as well as from regular schools from Karnataka state, South India. Prevalence and types of inheritance patterns were recorded. A questionnaire concerning allergies, asthma, arthritis, migraine etc. was used to assess the prevalence of immune disorders. Occurrence of chicken pox, measles, mumps, delayed milestones, birth complications, motor coordination problems, short sight and left handedness, fatty acid deficiency signs were recorded in the dyslexic probands. Among school children, prevalence of dyslexia is found to be 9.87% and in the selected families the prevalence is 28.32%. Based on the affectedness, dyslexia phenotypes were classified as severe and mild deficits. Mild deficits were better compensated than the severe deficits. Among the selected families autosomal dominant mode of inheritance was found to be more prevalent. Consanguinity plays a major role in familial aggregation of dyslexia. Allergy, migraine, delayed milestones, low level of blood cholesterol and certain fatty acid deficiency signs were found to be associated with dyslexia. Since complex array of symptoms are associated with dyslexia an integrated research approach is needed for effective diagnosis and remediation of dyslexia

An examination of candidate gene SNPs for dyslexia in an Indian sample

Developmental Dyslexia (DD) is a complex neuro-genetic disorder associated with difficulty in learning to read despite adequate intelligence and educational opportunities. Studies in different populations have established associations between DD and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in a number of candidate genes, including DYX1C1, KIAA0319 and DCDC2. In an ongoing DD study in India, we screened twenty SNPs located within the coding region of these three candidate genes by massARRAY technique. At this point, there is no statistical evidence of association between the allelic variation in the three candidate genes and DD in our sample, although there might be some promising leads for future research that should involve a large and a better characterized sample