Assessing decoding ability: the role of speed and accuracy and a new composite indicator to measure decoding skill in elementary grades

Tools for assessing decoding skill in students attending elementary grades are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early identification of reading disabled students and reducing both the primary negative effects (on learning) and the secondary negative effects (on the development of the personality) of this disability. This article presents results obtained by administering existing standardized tests of reading and a new screening procedure to about 1,500 students in the elementary grades in Italy. It is found that variables measuring speed and accuracy in all administered reading tests are not Gaussian, and therefore the threshold values used for classifying a student as a normal decoder or as an impaired decoder must be estimated on the basis of the empirical distribution of these variables rather than by using the percentiles of the normal distribution. It is also found that the decoding speed and the decoding accuracy can be measured in either a 1-minute procedure or in much longer standardized tests. The screening procedure and the tests administered are found to be equivalent insofar as they carry the same information. Finally, it is found that speed and accuracy act as complementary effects in the measurement of decoding ability. On the basis of this last finding, the study introduces a new composite indicator aimed at determining the student's performance, which combines speed and accuracy in the measurement of decoding ability

Early numerical skills in individuals with Down Syndrome

The aim of the present work was to explore early mathematical competences in individuals with Down Syndrome (DS). Intellectual Disability has been identified as one of the most important features in this population. The behavioral phenotype of individuals with DS is characterized by deficits in cognitive functions and learning abilities. A numerical battery was administered to a group of 11 individuals with DS and 11 Typically Developed (TD) children matched for mental age, as assessed with the Logical Operations Test. The findings revealed that early numerical skills of individuals with DS were well aligned to mental age: the two groups presented similar competences in counting, in mental calculation and cardinality. Moreover, individuals with DS read better Arabic numbers than the control group. Data concerning the discrimination of numbers in individuals with DS was also taken into consideration. Certainly, more research on children with DS is needed although the findings here presented have implications to understand the development of numerical skills in DS and to improve the neuropsychological assessment of children with this genetic condition

Some experimental results on the role of speed and accuracy of reading in psychometric tests.

According to the Italian Parliament act (n. 170/2010) that recognizesdyslexia as a physical disturbance, of neurobiological origin, dyslexic children in primary school should be early recognized, in order to asses a targeted intervention within the school and to start a teaching that respects the difficulties in learning to read, to write and to perform calculations. Screening procedures inside the primaryschools aimed at detecting children with difficulties in reading, are not so common in Italy as in other European countries. Nevertheless, screening procedures are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early detection of dyslexic children and reducing both the primary negative effects - on learning - and the secondary negative effects - on the development of the personality - of this disturbance. In thisstudy we analyze the validity, from a statistical point of view, of a screening procedure recently proposed in the psychometric literature (Stella et al., 2011). This procedure is very fast (it is exactly one minute long), simple, cheap and can be dispensed by teachers without psychometric experience. On the contrary, the currentlyused tests are much longer and must be provided by skilled teachers. These two major flaw prevent the widespread use of these tests. If the new procedure is found to be reliable, it can be provided to each student in primary school and it can also be repeated in time, in order to monitor the children difficulties. The validity of the procedure and the benchmark with two currently used tests are studied on the thebasis of the results of a survey on about 1500 students attending primary school

The evolution of the reading profile in children with developmental dyslexia in a regular ortographies

Several researchers have demonstrated that dyslexia develops differently in shallow orthographies in terms of accuracy and speed. In fact, slow reading speed persists and accuracy improves. The aim of this study is to investigate the evolution of the specific reading disorder over the years of compulsory education, from primary to upper secondary school. Furthermore, it has the aim to verify if there are different evolutionary trajectories of reading skills in relation to the severity of the disorder. The study was carried out on 71 Italian dyslexic children, according to the diagnostic criteria established by the diagnostic manual ICD – 10 and the Consensus Conference. Two groups were selected: children who met criteria for mild dyslexia (mild dyslexics, with n=36) and a comparison group of moderate-severe dyslexics (n=35). All participants were tested at least twice in two different school grades. Comparisons were made on the average performances in each school grade. The results reveal similar patterns of growth over time in reading ability, with the mild dyslexics group outperforming the moderate-severe dyslexics group. The performance trajectory for the moderate-severe dyslexics shows some plateaus and a decrease in performances in the last year analyzed (1st upper secondary school) while the trajectory for the mild dyslexics always show increases in performances. All subjects show a steady increase in word and text reading speed and a slower improvement in pseudo-word decoding

Beyond Verbal Behavior: An Empirical Analysis of Speech Rates in Psychotherapy Sessions

Objective: The present work aims to detect the role of the rate of speech as a mechanism able to give information on patient's intrapsychic activity and the intersubjective quality of the patient–therapist relationship. Method: Thirty clinical sessions among five patients were sampled and divided into idea units (N = 1276) according to the referential activity method. Each idea unit was rated according to referential activity method and in terms of speech rate (syllables per second) for both patient and therapist. A mixed-effects model was applied in order to detect the relationship between the speech rate of both the patient and the therapist and the features of the patient's verbal production in terms of referential activity scales. A Pearson correlation was applied to evaluate the synchrony between the speech rate of the patient and the therapist. Results: Results highlight that speech rate varies according patient's ability to get in touch with specific aspects detected through referential activity method: patient and the therapist speech rate get synchronized during the course of the sessions; and the therapist's speech rate partially attunes to the patient's ability to get in touch with inner aspects detected through RA method. Conclusion: The work identified speech rate as a feature that may help in the development of the clinical process in light of its ability to convey information about a patient's internal states and a therapist's attunement ability. These results support the intersubjective perspective on the clinical process

New fuzzy composite indicators for dyslexia

Composite indicators should ideally identify multidimensional concepts that cannot be captured by a single variable. In this paper, we suggest a method based on fuzzy set theory for the construction of fuzzy synthetic indexes of dyslexia, using the set of manifest variables measured by means of reading tests. A few criteria for assigning values to the membership function are discussed, as well as criteria for defining the weights of the variables. An application regarding the diagnosis of dyslexia in primary and middle school in Italy is presented. In this application, the fuzzy approach is compared with the crisp approach actually used in Italy for detecting dyslexic children in compulsory school

. Il Progetto PerContare – pratiche per una “buona didattica” e metodi per la rilevazione di bambini con difficoltà in matematica.

Circa il 20% degli alunni incontra difficoltà nell’apprendimento della matematica e una percentuale molto esigua (0,5-1%) svilupperà un disturbo specifico del calcolo o discalculia evolutiva (DE) (Cornoldi e Lucangeli 2007). In Italia, la Consensus Conference (2011), oltre a definire i parametri necessari per porre diagnosi di DE, raccomanda l’individuazione precoce di tali disturbi attraverso attività di screening e di adeguate attività di recupero didattico. L’identificazione di una difficoltà può precedere la definitiva identificazione del disturbo ed ha il vantaggio che può essere effettuata dagli insegnanti, con strumenti e formazione adeguate e, se efficace, porta alla riduzione della difficoltà e del grado di espressività dell’eventuale disabilità. È chiaro quindi che, per evitare “falsi positivi” è necessario che l’insegnante sia certo di avere offerto a tutti i bambini strumenti adeguati per la costruzione delle competenze numeriche. In quest’ottica si colloca il progetto PerContare1, oggetto del presente contributo, con referenti scientifici dall’ambito della didattica della matematica (M.G. Bartolini Bussi), e della psicologia cognitiva (G. Stella). Il progetto è, volto a costruire e a mettere a disposizione di insegnanti e scuole materiali e strumenti didattici che per offrire a tutti i bambini strumenti cognitivi adatti per un adeguato sviluppo delle competenze numeriche