The relationship between reading comprehension, working memory and language in children with cochlear implants

Working memory, language, and reading comprehension are strongly associated in children with severe and profound hearing impairment treated by cochlear implants (CI). In this study we explore this relationship in sixteen Swedish children with CI. We found that over 60% of the children with CI performed at the level of their hearing peers in a reading comprehension test. Demographic factors were not predictive of reading comprehension, but a complex working memory task was. Reading percentile was significantly correlated to the working memory test, but no other correlations between reading and cognitive/linguistic factors remained significant after age was factored out. Individual results from a comparison of the two best and the two poorest readers corroborate group results, confirming the important role of working memory for reading as measured by comprehension of words andmsentences in this group of children

Cultivation of the causative agent of human neoehrlichiosis from clinical isolates identifies vascular endothelium as a target of infection

ABSTRACTCandidatus (Ca.) Neoehrlichia mikurensis is the cause of neoehrlichiosis, an emerging tick-borne infectious disease characterized by fever and vascular events. The bacterium belongs to the Anaplasmataceae, a family of obligate intracellular pathogens, but has not previously been cultivated, and it is uncertain which cell types it infects. The goals of this study were to cultivate Ca. N. mikurensis in cell lines and to identify possible target cells for human infection. Blood components derived from infected patients were inoculated into cell lines of both tick and human origin. Bacterial growth in the cell cultures was monitored by real-time PCR and imaging flow cytometry. Ca. N. mikurensis was successfully propagated from the blood of immunocompromised neoehrlichiosis patients in two Ixodes spp. tick cell lines following incubation periods of 7–20 weeks. Human primary endothelial cells derived from skin microvasculature as well as pulmonary artery were also susceptible to infection with tick cell-derived bacteria. Finally, Ca. N. mikurensis was visualized within circulating endothelial cells of two neoehrlichiosis patients. To conclude, we report the first successful isolation and propagation of Ca. N. mikurensis from clinical isolates and identify human vascular endothelial cells as a target of infection

Correlates of Orthographic Learning in Swedish Children With Cochlear Implants

This study set out to explore the cognitive and linguistic correlates of orthographic learning in a group of 32 deaf and hard of hearing children with cochlear implants, to better understand the factors that affect the development of fluent reading in these children. To date, the research about the mechanisms of reading fluency and orthographic learning in this population is scarce. The children were between 6:0 and 10:11 years of age and used oral language as their primary mode of communication. They were assessed on orthographic learning, reading fluency and a range of cognitive and linguistic skills including working memory measures, word retrieval and paired associate learning. The results were analyzed in a set of correlation analyses. In line with previous findings from children with typical hearing, orthographic learning was strongly correlated with phonological decoding, receptive vocabulary, phonological skills, verbal-verbal paired-associate learning and word retrieval. The results of this study suggest that orthographic learning in children with CI is strongly dependent on similar cognitive and linguistic skills as in typically hearing peers. Efforts should thus be made to support phonological decoding skill, vocabulary, and phonological skills in this population

Children with cochlear implants : cognition and reading ability

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Barn med cochleaimplantat : Kognition och läsförmåga

The present thesis investigated cognitive ability in children with severe to profound hearing impairment who have received cochlear implants (CIs). The auditory stimulation from a cochlear implant early in life influences most cognitive functions as a consequence of the plasticity of the brain in the young child. It is important to understand the cognitive consequences of auditory stimulation from CIs in order to provide adequate support to these children. This thesis examined three specific aspects of cognitive ability (working memory, phonological skill and lexical access), and reading ability in children with CIs, as compared to children with normal hearing in the same age. The relations between cognitive abilities and reading skills were also investigated, as well as the associations between demographic variables (e.g., age at implantation and communication mode), cognitive abilities and reading skills. The children with CI generally had lower performance levels than the normal hearing children in tasks of phonological and general working memory, phonological skills and lexical access. They had specific problems in tasks with high demands on phonological working memory, whereas their performance levels in tasks of visuospatial working memory were on par with the hearing children. A majority of the children with CI demonstrated reading skills within the normal range for hearing children, both for decoding and reading comprehension. The relations between demographic factors and cognitive skills varied somewhat between the studies. The patterns of result are discussed with reference to contemporary theories of working memory, phonological skills, and lexical access.Avhandlingens övergripande syfte var att studera kognitiva förmågor hos barn med grav hörselskada eller dövhet som fått cochleaimplantat (CI). Auditiv stimulering från CI i tidig ålder påverkar de flesta kognitiva funktioner som en följd av hjärnans plasticitet hos små barn. Det är viktigt att förstå de kognitiva konsekvenserna av auditiv stimulering från CI för att kunna ge dessa barn bästa möjliga stöd. Avhandlingen undersökte tre specifika aspekter av kognitiv förmåga (arbetsminne, fonologiska förmågor och lexikal aktivering), samt läsförmåga hos barn med CI, i jämförelse med barn med normal hörsel i samma åldrar. Relationerna mellan kognitiva förmågor och läsförmåga studerades också, liksom sambanden mellan demografiska faktorer (t ex implantationsålder och kommunikationssätt) och kognitiva förmågor samt läsfärdigheter. Barnen med CI hade generellt lägre prestationsnivå än barnen med normal hörsel i uppgifter som mäter fonologiskt och generellt arbetsminne, fonologiska förmågor och lexikal aktivering. De hade specifika problem i uppgifter som i hög grad belastar fonologiskt arbetsminne, medan deras visuospatiala arbetsminneskapacitet var jämförbar med den hos barnen med normal hörsel. Majoriteten av barnen med CI hade läsfärdigheter i nivå med normalhörande barn, för både avkodning och läsförståelse. Sambanden mellan demografiska faktorer och kognitiva förmågor och läsförmåga varierade mellan studierna. Resultatmönstren diskuteras utifrån teorier om arbetsminne, fonologiska färdigheter och lexikal aktivering

First- and Second-Language Learnability Explained by Orthographic Depth and Orthographic Learning : A 'Natural' Scandinavian Experiment

Effects of orthographic depth on orthographic learning ability were examined in 10- to 13-year-old children who learnt to read in similar orthographies differing in orthographic depth, defined as consistency of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Danish children who learnt to read a deep orthography underperformed their Swedish counterparts who acquired a shallow orthography on vocabulary, phonological working memory, orthographic learning ability, and a range of first-language (L1: Danish/Swedish) and second-language (L2: English as a foreign language) measures. Orthographic learning ability explained over and above vocabulary and phonological working memory the better performance of Swedish children in comparison with Danish children on L1 reading accuracy and fluency, spelling, and visual word familiarity. With respect to L2 learning, orthographic learning ability determined spelling and visual word familiarity over and above L2 vocabulary and phonological working memory. It is concluded that shallow orthographies promote orthographic learning ability more efficiently than deep orthographies.Validerad; 2017; Nivå 2; 2017-01-16 (andbra)</p

Comparing the semantic networks of children with cochlear implants and children with typical hearing: Effects of length of language access.

Purpose: Kenett et al. (2013) report that the sematic networks, measured by using an oral semantic fluency task, of children with cochlear implants (CI) are less structured compared to the sematic networks of children with typical hearing (TH). This study aims to evaluate if such differences are only evident if children with CI are compared to children with TH matched on chronological age, or also if they are compared to children with TH matched on hearing age. Method: The performance of a group of children with CI on a verbal fluency task was compared to the performance of a group of chronological-age matched children with TH. Subsequently, computational network analysis was used to compare the semantic network structure of the groups. The same procedure was applied to compare a group of children with CI to a group of hearing-age matched children with TH. Results: The children with CI perform on the same level on an oral semantic verbal fluency task as the children with TH matched on hearing age. There are significant differences in terms of the structure of the semantic network between the groups. The magnitude of these differences is very small and they are non-significant for a proportion of nodes included in the bootstrap analysis. This indicates that there is no true difference between the networks. Hearing age, but not age at implantation was found to be significantly positively correlated with semantic verbal fluency performance for the children with CI. Conclusions: The results from the current study indicate that length of exposure to the tested language is an important factor for the structure of the semantic network and the performance on a semantic verbal fluency task for children with CI. Further studies are needed to explore the role of the accessibility of the language input for the development of semantic networks of children with CI

Paired-associate learning ability accounts for unique variance in orthographic learning

Paired-associate learning is a dynamic measure of the ability to form new links between two items. This study aimed to investigate whether paired-associate learning ability is associated with success in orthographic learning, and if so, whether it accounts for unique variance beyond phonological decoding ability and orthographic knowledge. A group of 63 children ages 8–10 completed an orthographic learning task and three types of paired-associate learning task: visual–visual, visual–verbal, and verbal–verbal. The results showed that both visual–verbal and verbal–verbal (but not visual–visual) paired-associate learning ability were associated with success in learning the spellings of novel words. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses showed that visual–verbal paired-associate learning predicted orthographic learning even after phonological decoding skill and existing orthographic knowledge had been accounted for. We propose that paired-associate learning ability may be one of the underlying mechanisms of orthographic learning, facilitating the connection between the phonology and orthographic representation of a word.12 page(s

MADRES Y FAMILIARES DE VÍCTIMAS DE FEMINICIDIO EN MÉXICO: HABITUS, PODER Y LUCHA SIMBÓLICA ANTE LA VIOLENCIA DE ESTADO

En un sentido distinto, la presente investigación pretende arrojar luz sobre aquellas victimas que pasan por momentos desapercibidas, ya sea en la vida cotidiana, la escena política e incluso para la academia. Estas son los familiares de las víctimas de feminicidio, en su mayoría madres, que ante la ineficacia de un Estado para proporcionar seguridad a las mujeres y de un sistema descompuesto de administración de justicia, se lanzan a ser las principales impulsoras de sus propios casos, rompiendo con lo esperado en razón de las posiciones precarias que ocupan dentro del campo social

The relationship between reasoning and language ability : comparing children with cochlear implants and children with typical hearing

Purpose Language has been suggested to play a facilitating role for analogical reasoning tasks, especially for those with high complexity. This study aims to evaluate if differences in analogical reasoning ability between children with cochlear implants (CI) and children with typical hearing (TH) might be explained by differences in language ability. Methods The analogical reasoning ability (verbal; non-verbal; complex non-verbal: high relational integration demand) of children with CI (N = 15, mean age = 6;7) was compared to two groups of children with TH: age and language matched (TH-A+L, N = 23, mean age = 6;5), and age matched (TH-A, N = 23, mean age = 6;5). Results Children with CI were found to perform comparable to Group TH-A+L on non-verbal reasoning tasks but significantly more poorly on a verbal analogical reasoning task. Children with CI were found to perform significantly more poorly on both the non-verbal analogical reasoning task with high relational integration demand and on the verbal analogical reasoning task compared to Group TH-A. For the non-verbal analogical reasoning task with lower relational integration demand only a tendency for a difference between group CI and Group TH-A was found. Conclusions The results suggest that verbal strategies are influencing the performance on the non-verbal analogical reasoning tasks with a higher relational integration demand. The possible reasons for this are discussed. The verbal analogical reasoning task used in the current study partly measured lexical access. Differences between the children with CI and both groups of children with TH might therefore be explained by differences in expressive vocabulary skills.Funding Agencies|European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) [FP7-607139]; Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and WelfareSwedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council for Health Working Life &amp; Welfare (Forte) [2013-01363]</p