'Unexpected' spelling difficulty in a ten-year-old child with good reading skills: An intervention case study

We report a single-case intervention study of Alan, a child aged 10;04, who presented with spelling difficulty but good reading skills. Assessment of the potential cognitive functions underlying the spelling difficulty explored phonological abilities, visual memory and letter report. We also assessed print exposure and verbal memory. Results of analysis of spelling performance revealed an effect of word length on accuracy, and spelling errors involving omission, insertion, substitution and transposition of graphemes. Results of the literacy-related assessments indicated that Alan did not have a phonological or visual memory deficit, but he showed impaired performance in the letter-report task when asked to report all the letters in the five-item test array. On the basis of previous research, we hypothesised that Alan’s unexpectedly poor spelling was due to a graphemic buffer deficit. Two different interventions were employed: a lexical-orthographic programme, followed by one aimed at improving sublexical abilities. The results showed a significant increase in spelling accuracy after the lexical-orthographic intervention for the treated word set, and a small improvement for the untrained words that was significant at delayed post-intervention testing. The improvement was shown to persist over time. No improvement in spelling was observed after the sublexical intervention. The study emphasises the importance of a wide assessment in order to investigate cognitive processes underpinning spelling difficulty

Development and flight test of an experimental maneuver autopilot for a highly maneuverable aircraft

This report presents the development of an experimental flight test maneuver autopilot (FTMAP) for a highly maneuverable aircraft. The essence of this technique is the application of an autopilot to provide precise control during required flight test maneuvers. This newly developed flight test technique is being applied at the Dryden Flight Research Facility of NASA Ames Research Center. The FTMAP is designed to increase the quantity and quality of data obtained in test flight. The technique was developed and demonstrated on the highly maneuverable aircraft technology (HiMAT) vehicle. This report describes the HiMAT vehicle systems, maneuver requirements, FTMAP development process, and flight results

Distributed Ordering and Optimization for Intersection Management with Connected and Automated Vehicles

Intelligent transport systems are preparing to welcome connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), although it is uncertain which algorithms should be employed for the effective and efficient management of CAV systems. Even though remarkable improvements in telecommunication technologies, such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), enable communication and computation sharing among different agents, e.g. vehicles and infrastructures, within existing approaches, a significant part of the computation burden is still typically assigned to central units. Distributed algorithms, on the other hand, could alleviate traffic units from most, if not all, of the high dimensional calculation duties, while improving security and remaining effective. In this paper, we propose a formation-control-inspired distributed algorithm to rearrange vehicles’ passing time periods through an intersection and a novel formulation of the underlying trajectory optimization problem so that vehicles need to exchange and process only a limited amount of information. We include early simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach

Seasonal Climate Forecasts and Risk Management Among Georgia Farmers

Recent increases in the scientific robustness of seasonal climate forecasts have not led to substantial changes in farmers’ risk management strategies of actors, largely because there is poor integration of scientific forecasting into farmers’ decision-making processes. The goal of the research presented here is to explore the potentials and constraints for farmers’ application of seasonal climate forecasts through an analysis of the cultural contexts of their decision-making and information use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 farmers in southern Georgia, examining their approaches, risk-management, to livelihood goals and strategies, and interactions with weather and climate information. Findings indicate that farmers’ management of risks associated with climate variability is embedded within a broad array of social factors, including subjective construction of social and personal identities, goals, and values. These cultural contexts affect the ways that farmers interpret and might apply seasonal climate forecasts to agricultural decisions. These findings indicate that, rather than simply acting as a technical information input, seasonal climate forecasts and forecasters must gradually work theirway into farmers’ trusted social networks before their potential as risk management tools will be realized. Furthermore, while seeking to produce scientific information to support farmers’ adaptive practices, scientists themselves must adapt their own practices to better fit a coproduction of knowledge approach

Phonological and semantic processes in children aged 8-9 years with different types of developmental dyslexia

The locus of naming impairment in dyslexic children has been attributed to difficulty in retrieving the phonological representations of words due to a phonological deficit, but none of the studies reviewed included an independent assessment of dyslexics’ phonological abilities. Moreover, recent research indicates that dyslexia is not a homogeneous disorder and that there can be different underlying causes. A deficit in phonological processes has been associated with developmental phonological dyslexia. Conversely, individuals with developmental surface dyslexia are generally reported to have unimpaired phonology, and there appear to be different cognitive loci of impairment, of which semantics is one of the possible sources. On the basis of this evidence, the phonological deficit hypothesis of naming problems in dyslexic children was revisited, and investigation of naming in relation to different reading profiles was undertaken. The picture naming paradigm was employed to investigate possible naming deficits and to examine relationships with measures of semantics and phonology, and, in turn, their connection to reading in 35 dyslexic children aged 8-9 years. Furthermore, 122 typically developing (TD) children aged 4 to 9 were assessed with the aim of providing a context within which to interpret the results of the dyslexic children. Standardised and newly developed tasks of naming, phonology and semantics, were employed. Dyslexic children were assigned to subtypes on the basis of nonword and irregular word reading. Overall, results indicated that a naming and phonological deficit was apparent in the sample of dyslexic children when compared to age-matched controls, but naming accuracy was in line with that of reading age controls. However, only the children classified as having a primary sublexical reading deficit were identified as having a naming and phonological deficit. The findings are consistent with the view that classifying developmental reading difficulties is crucial in order to identify underlying deficits

Coping with Climate Variability and Adapting to Climate Change in Kenya: Household and Community Strategies and Determinants

Report 3a of the project “Adaptation of Smallholder Agriculture to Climate Change in Kenya