The relations of early phonological awareness, rapid‐naming and speed of processing with the development of spelling and reading: a longitudinal examination

Phonological awareness has been found to be strongly related to spelling. Findings on the relations between rapid-naming and spelling are less consistent and have been suggested to be shared with speed of processing. This study set out to examine these relations in spelling and reading of Hebrew. Children attending the regular educational system were followed longitudinally (N = 70): phonological awareness, rapid-naming and speed of processing were tested in kindergarten and in grade 1, and spelling and reading were tested in grade 2. Kindergarten and grade 1 rapid-naming predicted spelling and word reading, and grade 1 phonological awareness predicted spelling, word reading and decoding. Speed of processing was an insignificant predictor. The findings extend the role of phonological awareness in spelling to an orthography with partial phonological representations and concurrently suggest weak relations. The results further suggest a link between rapid-naming and orthographic knowledge, which may not be explained by shared variance with speed of processing

Regulation of Cellular Heterogeneity and Rates of Symmetric and Asymmetric Divisions in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Differentiation events contribute to phenotypic cellular heterogeneity within tumors and influence disease progression and response to therapy. Here, we dissect mechanisms controlling intratumoral heterogeneity within triple-negative basal-like breast cancers. Tumor cells expressing the cytokeratin K14 possess a differentiation state that is associated with that of normal luminal progenitors, and K14-negative cells are in a state closer to that of mature luminal cells. We show that cells can transition between these states through asymmetric divisions, which produce one K14+and one K14−daughter cell, and that these asymmetric divisions contribute to the generation of cellular heterogeneity. We identified several regulators that control the proportion of K14+cells in the population. EZH2 and Notch increase the numbers of K14+cells and their rates of symmetric divisions, and FOXA1 has an opposing effect. Our findings demonstrate that asymmetric divisions generate differentiation transitions and heterogeneity, and identify pathways that control breast cancer cellular composition