Rumination and emotional profile in children with specific learning disorders and their parents

Rumination, namely a cognitive process characterized by a repetitive thinking focused on negative feelings and thoughts, is a significant predictor for the onset of internalizing symptoms and has also been found to run in families. Rumination has never been studied in children with specific learning disorders (SLD), a population that, due to its condition, might encounter more difficulties in daily life and is at risk of increased psychological distress, compared to typically developing (TD) peers. The present study covers this gap by examining whether children with SLD, and their parents, tend to use rumination more than TD peers and their parents. The study also explores associations between rumination and both children’s and parents’ emotional profile. Results on 25 children with SLD and 25 TD peers and their parents (n = 150), showed higher levels of rumination in children with SLD when referring to a negative social situation, as well as higher levels of rumination in both mothers and fathers of children with SLD. Modest correlations between parents’ and children’s rumination traits were also found. This study offers evidence on rumination as a possible risk factor for children with SLD, particularly considering when they deal with social contexts

Postural control data from prevalent kidney transplant patients with and without history of falls

From Elsevier via Jisc Publications RouterItem not available in this repository.This article presents data from a research paper entitled “Postural balance, muscle strength, and history of falls in end-stage renal disease patients living with a kidney transplant: a cross-sectional study” available in Journal Gait and Posture [1]. In this article, we reported the minimal detectable changes at the 95% level of confidence (MDC95) of postural balance variables measured in eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) conditions, with a stabilometric platform, in 59 kidney transplant (KT) recipients (mean age= 53.2 ± 11 years). In addition, we also performed receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis to explore the ability of postural balance measures to discriminate fallers and non-fallers (history of falls: yes or no). Sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve (AUC) of mean center of pressure velocity (CoPv), sway area (SA), center of pressure range of displacement in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medio-lateral (ML) directions were calculated. These data can be used by researchers aiming to design psychometric studies of postural balance in KT patients and they also provide clinicians with information on possible prioritization of outcome assessment for future fall-risk research in this clinical population.31pubpu

Viral nervous necrosis in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) caused by reassortant betanodavirus RGNNV/SJNNV : an emerging threat for Mediterranean aquaculture

Viral nervous necrosis (VNN) certainly represents the biggest challenge for the sustainability and the development of aquaculture. A large number of economically relevant fish species have proven to be susceptible to the disease. Conversely, gilthead sea bream has generally been considered resistant to VNN, although it has been possible to isolate the virus from apparently healthy sea bream and sporadically from affected larvae and postlarvae. Unexpectedly, in 2014-2016 an increasing number of hatcheries in Europe have experienced mass mortalities in sea bream larvae. Two clinical outbreaks were monitored over this time span and findings are reported in this paper. Despite showing no specific clinical signs, the affected fish displayed high mortality and histological lesions typical of VNN. Fish tested positive for betanodavirus by different laboratory techniques. The isolates were all genetically characterized as being reassortant strains RGNNV/SJNNV. A genetic characterization of all sea bream betanodaviruses which had been isolated in the past had revealed that the majority of the strains infecting sea bream are actually RGNNV/SJNNV. Taken together, this information strongly suggests that RGNNV/SJNNV betanodavirus possesses a particular tropism to sea bream, which can pose a new and unexpected threat to the Mediterranean aquaculture

Detection and characterization of a rhabdovirus causing mortality in black bullhead catfish, Ameiurus melas

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Crossing barriers: Profiles of reading and comprehension skills in early and late bilinguals, poor comprehenders, reading impaired, and typically developing children

The aim of the present study was to analyze the performance of primary school children with different cognitive (specific learning disorders and poor comprehenders) or language (early and late bilinguals) profiles, considering reading and comprehension skills. In particular, it focused on a transparent orthography (Italian), complementing existing studies conducted mainly on children during their acquisition of an opaque orthography such as English, either as a first or second language. Five groups of children (N = 600) were involved in the study: children diagnosed with specific learning disorders, poor comprehenders, early bilinguals, late bilinguals, and a control group. They were tested for reading speed and accuracy of words, non-words, and text, and for reading and language comprehension when using the battery for Assessment of Reading and Comprehension in Develop- mental Age (Bonifacci, Tobia, Lami, & Snowling, 2014). Mean group differences and profiles within each group were analyzed. The comparison of different groups evidences how, within each dimension, there might be similar profiles across different groups (e.g., the same reading comprehension skills in early bilinguals, late bilinguals, and children with specific learning disorders) and highly discrepant skills within the same group (e.g., word and non-word reading in late bilinguals). These results provide some insight into the importance of assessing a complete functional profile aside from categorical classifications and reinforce the concept of dimensional models in developing trajectories of reading and comprehension skills (Snowling & Hulme, 2012)

The simple view of reading in a transparent orthography: the stronger role of oral comprehension

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, but it is a very complex task consisting of multiple component skills. A number of studies have tested the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986) in opaque languages, but few investigations of the SVR components have been conducted on transparent languages. In the present study, we tested the SVR model in a sample of 1,895 Italian children attending primary school, from first to fifth grade. An assessment battery was used, which included five different tasks: word and non-word reading, passage reading, reading comprehension, and oral comprehension. Hybrid models combining confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with path analysis were run separately for each grade. Results indicated that oral comprehension was always the best predictor of reading comprehension, whereas reading accuracy played a significant but minor role. Implications for research and practice are discussed

The Simple View of Reading in Bilingual Language-Minority Children Acquiring a Highly Transparent Second Language

The present study evaluated which components within the simple view of reading model better predicted reading comprehension in a sample of bilingual language-minority children exposed to Italian, a highly transparent language, as a second language. The sample included 260 typically developing bilingual children who were attending either the first 2\ua0years (n\ua0=\ua095) or the last 3\ua0years (n\ua0=\ua0165) of primary school and who had Italian as an instructional language. Children were administered a comprehensive battery for the assessment of decoding skills, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension latent variables. Results showed that, in both groups, listening comprehension was the most powerful predictor of reading comprehension, followed, only for younger children, by reading accuracy. Reading speed was not a significant predictor. These results confirmed the primary role of listening comprehension in predicting reading comprehension in bilinguals and added important evidence regarding the role of reading accuracy as a predictor of reading comprehension

Prerequisiti dell'abilit\ue0 matematica

Il modello piagetiano \ue8 stato per anni molto influente nel panorama scientifico della psicologia dello sviluppo in generale e, per quanto ci concerne, anche nell'ambito dello sviluppo della cognizione numerica: esso, nella sua lettura pi\uf9 rigida, sostiene che l'acquisizione delle prime vere e proprie competenze numeriche sia subordinata allo sviluppo che caratterizza l'intelligenza generale nel passaggio dallo stadio preoperatorio allo stadio operatorio concreto, che avviene verso i 6-7 anni. Prima di questo cambiamento, i bambini utilizzerebbero i numeri senza comprenderne realmente il significato. Questa concezione \ue8 stata ampiamente superata, grazie all\u2019apporto di nuove teorie e ricerche che hanno mostrato il carattere innato della capacit\ue0 di comprendere il mondo in termini quantitativi e numerici

Apprendere nella scuola dell'infanzia. Lo sviluppo dei prerequisiti.

La scuola dell’infanzia rappresenta un periodo importante per lo sviluppo dei prerequisiti dell’apprendimento, ovvero per sviluppare quelle competenze di base che permettono ai bambini di essere preparati alla successiva acquisizione degli apprendimenti scolastici. La fase evolutiva dell’età prescolare richiede però che vengano rispettati alcuni principi importanti, relativi al carattere ludico, esperienziale e multi-sensoriale delle attività proposte. Il volume prende in esame i prerequisiti delle competenze di lettura, abilità matematica, scrittura e comprensione del testo, presentando i modelli teorici di riferimento e discutendo alcuni aspetti applicativi: quali abilità è importante osservare nei bambini in età prescolare? Come osservarle? E come potenziarle nel contesto quotidiano? Inoltre, viene considerato il ruolo delle competenze attentive e delle funzioni esecutive, illustrando anche in questo caso proposte di attività per la scuola dell’infanzia. Il libro propone una modalità di lavoro, basata su modelli teorici, che favorisce l’espressione del potenziale dei bambini, permettendo un passaggio più “fluido” alla scuola primaria. È destinato a insegnanti, educatori e genitori e può costituire un riferimento per studenti universitari in formazione su tematiche psicologiche e scolastiche

Introduzione

Questo libro parla di apprendimento nella scuola dell’infanzia, un periodo fondamentale nello sviluppo del bambino, che necessita, da un lato, di prepararsi alla scuola primaria e, dall’altro, di socializzare, giocare, costruire esperienze. L’obiettivo del volume è quello di fornire suggerimenti, riflessioni e modalità operative su come si possano favorire gli apprendimenti nella scuola dell’infanzia attraverso modalità ludiche che preservino la natura esperienziale delle scoperte e l’acquisizione di nuove conoscenze e abilità in questa fascia di età (e anche oltre, perché no!). I prerequisiti degli apprendimenti si riferiscono a quei processi che costituiscono la base su cui si fonderanno, poi, gli apprendimenti formali