A process model of the understanding of uncertain conditionals

To build a process model of the understanding of conditionals we extract a common core of three semantics of if-then sentences: (a) the conditional event interpretation in the coherencebased probability logic, (b) the discourse processingtheory of Hans Kamp, and (c) the game-theoretical approach of Jaakko Hintikka. The empirical part reports three experiments in which each participant assessed the probability of 52 if-then sentencesin a truth table task. Each experiment included a second task: An n-back task relating the interpretation of conditionals to working memory, a Bayesian bookbag and poker chip task relating the interpretation of conditionals to probability updating, and a probabilistic modus ponens task relating the interpretation of conditionals to a classical inference task. Data analysis shows that the way in which the conditionals are interpreted correlates with each of the supplementary tasks. The results are discussed within the process model proposed in the introduction

Associations between family and clinician ratings of child mental health: a study of UK CAMHS assessments and outcomes

Background: The rated severity of child mental health problems depends on who is doing the rating, whether child, carer or clinician. It is important to know how these ratings relate to each other. Aims: To investigate to what extent clinicians’ views are associated with carers’ and young people’s views in routine care in the United Kingdom. Method: Ratings of clinician and parent/child viewpoints from a large Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) sample (ns 1773–47,299), as measured by the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) respectively, were analysed. The parent SDQ added value score (AVS), which adjusts for regression to the mean and other non-treatment change, was also included in the analyses. Results: Small-to-medium correlations were found between family and clinician ratings; however, ratings diverged for the lowest-function CGAS bands. Regression analyses showed that pro-social ratings from both child and parent contributed to clinician ratings. Knowing child-reported emotional problem severity made parent ratings of emotions irrelevant to clinician judgements. There was a positive association between SDQ AVS and CGAS; as hypothesised, CGAS showed more change than the SDQ AVS, suggesting that clinicians over-estimate change. Conclusion: This study shows the importance of multi-informant data gathering and the integration of multiple views by clinicians when monitoring outcomes

Children with speech and language communication needs in England: Challenges for practice

Teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) share concern about children’s speech, language, and communication needs (SLCNs) but they have different foci because of their professional roles. Contemporary research has identified the challenges to schools when meeting the needs of children with SLCN, highlighted terminological controversies, and has increased opportunities for professional development. The views of 170 Educationalists and SLT professionals in England about SLCN, and the children’s associated needs were compared for similarities and differences in an online survey that employed both categorical responses and Likert scales. Comparisons were made between teacher and SLT groups and between SLTs working in schools and clinics. There were few significant differences between the views of SLTs in clinics and education. In contrast, there were often large and significant differences between teachers and SLTs. Education professionals were less familiar with terminology related to speech difficulties, did not discriminate between behaviors that might differentiate speech from language difficulties and varied in the ratings given about other associated difficulties. Additionally, education professionals showed awareness of academic and behavior difficulties associated with language difficulties and highlighted associated problems with reading and writing. SLTs felt confident in their understanding of the relevant terminology but there was less clarity in the features that discriminated speech from language difficulties. Both the Educationalists and SLTs valued additional training needs with over 50% of the Education staff reporting that they had no training in SLCN. The lack of clarity about the language markers of SLCN by teachers and the requests for tools to help in the identification of speech and language problems in school-age children are important areas to address. Both SLTs and Education staff emphasized the co-occurrence of difficulties with reading comprehension and written text production, highlighting the importance of profiling children’s language learning needs rather than a reliance on diagnostic categories

Children with speech language and communication needs in England: challenges for practice

Teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) share concern about children’s speech, language, and communication needs (SLCNs) but they have different foci because of their professional roles. Contemporary research has identified the challenges to schools when meeting the needs of children with SLCN, highlighted terminological controversies, and has increased opportunities for professional development. The views of 170 Educationalists and SLT professionals in England about SLCN, and the children’s associated needs were compared for similarities and differences in an online survey that employed both categorical responses and Likert scales. Comparisons were made between teacher and SLT groups and between SLTs working in schools and clinics. There were few significant differences between the views of SLTs in clinics and education. In contrast, there were often large and significant differences between teachers and SLTs. Education professionals were less familiar with terminology related to speech difficulties, did not discriminate between behaviors that might differentiate speech from language difficulties and varied in the ratings given about other associated difficulties. Additionally, education professionals showed awareness of academic and behavior difficulties associated with language difficulties and highlighted associated problems with reading and writing. SLTs felt confident in their understanding of the relevant terminology but there was less clarity in the features that discriminated speech from language difficulties. Both the Educationalists and SLTs valued additional training needs with over 50% of the Education staff reporting that they had no training in SLCN. The lack of clarity about the language markers of SLCN by teachers and the requests for tools to help in the identification of speech and language problems in school-age children are important areas to address. Both SLTs and Education staff emphasized the co-occurrence of difficulties with reading comprehension and written text production, highlighting the importance of profiling children’s language learning needs rather than a reliance on diagnostic categories

Syntactic predictions and asyntactic comprehension in aphasia: Evidence from scope relations

People with aphasia (PWA) often fail to understand syntactically complex sentences. This phenomenon has been described as asyntactic comprehension and has been explored in various studies cross-linguistically in the past decades. However, until now there has been no consensus among researchers as to the nature of sentence comprehension failures in aphasia. Impaired representations accounts ascribe comprehension deficits to loss of syntactic knowledge, whereas processing/resource reduction accounts assume that PWA are unable to use syntactic knowledge in comprehension due to resource limitation resulting from the brain damage. The aim of this paper is to use independently motivated psycholinguistic models of sentence processing to test a variant of the processing/resource reduction accounts that we dub the Complexity Threshold Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, PWA are capable of building well-formed syntactic representations, but, because their resources for language processing are limited, their syntactic parser fails when processing complexity exceeds a certain threshold. The source of complexity investigated in the experiments reported in this paper is syntactic prediction. We conducted two experiments involving comprehension of sentences with different types of syntactic dependencies, namely dependencies that do not require syntactic prediction (i.e. unpredictable dependencies in sentences that require Quantifier Raising) and dependencies whose resolution requires syntactic predictions at an early stage of processing based on syntactic cues (i.e. predictable dependencies in movement-derived sentences). In line with the predictions of the Complexity Threshold Hypothesis, the results show that the agrammatic patients that participated in this study had no difficulties comprehending sentences with the former type of dependencies, whereas their comprehension of sentences with the latter type of dependencies was impaired

Enantioselective synthesis of non-biaryl atropisomers

This thesis describes the development of novel methods to synthesise non-biaryl atropisomers enantioselectively. In Chapter 1, atropisomerism is defined and explored, with a focus on non-biaryl atropisomers and the literature stereoselective syntheses of chiral naphthamides. Chapter 2 discusses initial attempts to synthesise chiral naphthamides using phase-transfer catalysis, and the barriers to rotation of intermediate enol ethers, and benzylated and debenzylated naphthols are determined. Chapter 3 concerns investigations into the low barriers to rotation of these debenzylated naphthols. Chapter 4 builds on this work to develop an enantioselective synthesis of benzylated naphthamides via a dynamic kinetic resolution of the naphthol starting material. This reaction was tested on a wide variety of substrates to determine its scope and limitations, and the barriers to rotation of the chiral products were calculated

Playland

It\u27s me and you here tonight. The whole world is me and you. Here! Now! (Gideon to Martinus, Playland) Images of war worm their way into our lives in short video clips and images we click through on the web. But outside of television shows and movies, the everyday reality of life as a soldier is something most of us are not familiar with. Gideon has been a soldier in what is referred to as the African Viet-Nam - and while he has returned home physically, he\u27s emotionally stuck reliving his actions. Martinus has not been involved in the war - his was a personal battle fought against racism. While released from his prison cell, he remains stuck behind bars of anger that will not budge. What happens when two immovable forces collide? And what can we, 22 years removed from this specific war, removed from the policies of Apartheid, gather from this late-night encounter between Gideon and Martinus? There will be post-show discussions after the matinee performances of Playland, and I invite you to stay and ponder these questions with us. Or join the conversation on our website blog. Or send me an email. I\u27d love to hear how this play speaks to you.https://griffinshare.fontbonne.edu/mst-programs/1016/thumbnail.jp

Statistical models as cognitive models of individual differences in reasoning

There are individual differences in reasoning which go beyond dimensions of ability. Valid models of cognition must take these differences into account, otherwise they characterise group mean phenomena which explain nobody. The gap is closing between formal cognitive models, which are designed from the ground up to explain cognitive phenomena, and statistical models, which traditionally concern the more modest task of modelling relationships in data. This paper critically reviews three illustrative statistical models of individual differences in reasoning which embed some notion of cognitive process. Although the models are each developed in different frameworks, it is shown that they are more similar than would first appear. The cognitive meaning of elements in the example models is explored and some sketches are developed for future directions of research. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Assessing speech, language and communication difficulties in children referred for ADHD: a qualitative evaluation of a UK child and adolescent mental health service

Background: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common childhood neuropsychiatric disorders and is highly comorbid with speech, language and communication difficulties (SLCDs). However, it is unclear how often SLCDs are identified in ADHD referrals in routine practice and whether there are unidentified SLCDs within this population. Method: A thematic analysis was conducted on a random sample of case notes from 18 referrals for ADHD made to a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) in London, United Kingdom. Analyses aimed to identify (a) the types of SLCDs detected during assessment, (b) at which point of the episode of care these SLCDs were suspected and (c) whether a referral or consultation was made to a speech and language therapist (SLT) for further evaluation. Results: Out of 18 cases investigated, 15 were found to have possible SLCDs based on case notes and reports provided by external agencies. However, only four were referred by CAMHS for further assessment. It is unclear what, if any, steps other external agencies took. Themes describing types of SLCDs, comorbidities and the process of identification are discussed. Conclusion: The analysis of this service’s case notes revealed a range of different routes to the identification of SLCDs, and it was unclear what steps were taken as a result of assessment. A limitation is that this is just one service and the results may not generalise. However, given the similarity in practitioner training received across the country and that practitioners move from service to service, there are grounds for repeating the study in other services. We recommend a more structured approach to identifying SLCDs and recording assessment and treatment decisions made

Exploring individual differences in deductive reasoning as a function of 'autistic'-like traits

From a logical viewpoint, people must reason to as well as from interpretations in deductive reasoning tasks. There are two main interpretative stances (e.g., Stenning & van Lambalgen, 2004, 2005, 2008): credulous, the act of trying to infer the speaker's intended model; and sceptical, an adversarial strategy. A range of contextual factors in uence interpretation, but there are also differences between individuals across situations. Taking an individual differences approach, this thesis focuses on reasoning in relation to milder variants of the autism spectrum condition (ASC) phenotype in a typically developing (TD) population. Earlier work on discourse processing in ASC using the `suppression' task (van Lambalgen & Smid, 2004; Pijnacker et al., In press) shows that some aspects of reasoning to interpretations are different in the ASC population. Given that autistic traits involve impairment, e.g., in pragmatic language, and peaks of ability, e.g., in perceptual tasks, it was hypothesised that autistic traits would predict features of the inferences people in the TD population draw. Data were collected from university students on a range of reasoning tasks making it possible to investigate the extent to which interpretation is consistent across task within individuals. Tasks chosen were: conditional reasoning using the `suppression' task and Wason's selection task; one and two-premise Aristotelian quantifer reasoning; the Linda problem; and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices. Autistic traits were assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), used previously to study autistic traits in TD individuals, and the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (Hurley et al., 2007). Autistic traits predicted patterns of inference in many of the tasks. The earlier suppression task result in ASC was replicated and extended in our TD population. Different dimensions of autistic trait related differentially to features of the inferences drawn. Some of the inferences drawn were recognisably related to the credulous versus sceptical distinction and correlated cross-task whilst others were seemingly related to more general topdown versus bottom-up processing preferences. These results provide further evidence of the existence of qualitative individual differences in deductive reasoning. They also show the importance of seeking cross-task correlates to move beyond studies of individual tasks and study reasoning to and from interpretations in the same individual