The International HapMap Project

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62838/1/nature02168.pd

Should we invest in BioBanking in Hong Kong?: Using BioBanking for dyslexic studies in Hong Kong as an example

Chapter

Longitudinal twin study on Chinese reading development: stability and change in genetic and environmental influences

Paper PresentationThe 17th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR 2010), Berlin, Germany, 7-10 July 2010

Examining an extended simple view of reading in Chinese

Spoken papers: Orthographic learning: no. 1PURPOSE: The simple view of reading (SVR) proposes that reading comprehension is the product of two constructs, namely decoding and language comprehension. Although this view has received much support in alphabetic languages, it has been challenged for missing some important constructs like fluency. The present study examined the adequacy of an extended SVR in a nonalphabetic writing system, Chinese. METHOD: Participants were 199 Chinese children of Grades 1 to 4 recruited in Hong Kong. The children were given Chinese measures on decoding (character reading, word reading, and spelling), language comprehension (morphological awareness, vocabulary, morphosyntactic skills, and discourse skills), fluency (Chinese digit RAN, English digit RAN, and English letter RAN), and passage reading comprehension. RESULTS: We examined the contributions of decoding, language comprehension, and fluency to reading comprehension in four models using Structural Equation Modeling. The best fitting model was the one with a significant direct effect of language comprehension but a nonsignificant direct effect of decoding on reading comprehension. The effect of decoding on reading comprehension was fully mediated by fluency. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that apart from decoding and language comprehension, fluency may also be an essential component for adequate reading comprehension as automatic word retrieval may free up capacity for meaning extraction and integration in text comprehension. To attain good comprehension in reading, separate instruction on promoting accurate word recognition, various levels of oral language skills, fluent and automatic text retrieval and processing would be important

Schizophrenia and hypocalcaemia: Variable phenotype of deletion at chromosome 22q11

Objective: The aim of this paper is to report the diagnosis of velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) in a patient presenting with schizophrenia and hypocalcaemia. Screening of deletion 22q11 in patients with schizophrenia is discussed. Clinical picture: We report a schizophrenic patient presenting with hypocalcaemia as the only feature of VCFS. Deletion 22q11 was confirmed by fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH). Treatment: The patient was treated with haloperidol 3 mg/day with resolution of psychotic symptoms. Outcome: The patient harboured some residual psychotic symptoms probably related to her irregular compliance. Conclusions: The wide range of phenotypic variability of VCFS makes screening of 22q11 deletion in schizophrenia difficult. It is proposed that screening of 22q11 deletion in schizophrenia should be selectively targeted only at patients with specific features of VCFS highly predictive of the presence of 22q11 deletion.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Editorial : relationship of language and music, ten years after : neural organization, cross-domain transfer and evolutionary origins

202208 bckwVersion of RecordSelf-fundedPublishe

Is There Common Etiology in Children's Development of Various Cognitive Skills? Evidence from a Chinese Twin Study

Poster Session 14, no. 1

The relationship between N1 print tuning and literacy in Chinese children

Interactive poster presentation - Poster Session IVTo examine how word-likeness affects N1 during single character Chinese word processing, and its relationship to literacy measures, 14 grade 2 to 3 children (M=7.67, SD=0.57 years old) were given Chinese literacy measures, including tasks of word reading and one-minute word reading. Electroencephalogram was recorded during a character lexical decision task. Comparisons among four experimental conditions, including real character, pseudo character (combining real radicals in their legal positions), reversed character (reversing the radical position of a real character to form an illegal character), and stroke combination were made for N1 peak latency and mean amplitude. Peak latency results indicated that the stroke combination had the fastest N1. Mean amplitude results indicated a significant word-likeness effect and a significant laterality by word-likeness interaction. Follow up contrasts showed these patterns on N1: Left hemisphere: Real = Pseudo < Reversed < Stroke; Right hemisphere: Real = Pseudo = Reversed < Stroke. Word reading and one-minute word reading were significantly correlated with the coarse character tuning effect. These results indicate word-likeness can be reflected in the N1. Radical position legality and radical information are the most important influences on N1. This neurological indicator was strongly correlated with both word reading (r=-.78, p<.01) and one-minute word reading (r=-.68, p<.01)