Stretching the Limits of Drug Policies : An Uneasy Balancing Act

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Metacognition for spelling in higher etudents with dyslexia: is there evidence for the dual burden hypothesis?

We examined whether academic and professional bachelor students with dyslexia are able to compensate for their spelling deficits with metacognitive experience. Previous research suggested that students with dyslexia may suffer from a dual burden. Not only do they perform worse on spelling but in addition they are not as fully aware of their difficulties as their peers without dyslexia. According to some authors, this is the result of a worse feeling of confidence, which can be considered as a form of metacognition (metacognitive experience). We tried to isolate this metacognitive experience by asking 100 students with dyslexia and 100 matched control students to rate their feeling of confidence in a word spelling task and a proofreading task. Next, we used Signal Detection Analysis to disentangle the effects of proficiency and criterion setting. We found that students with dyslexia showed lower proficiencies but not suboptimal response biases. They were as good at deciding when they could be confident or not as their peers without dyslexia. They just had more cases in which their spelling was wrong. We conclude that the feeling of confidence in our students with dyslexia is as good as in their peers without dyslexia. These findings go against the Dual Burden theory (Kruger & Dunning, 1999), which assumes that people with a skills problem suffer twice as a result of insufficiently developed metacognitive competence. As a result, there is no gain to be expected from extra training of this metacognitive experience in higher education students with dyslexia

Kestävyyskasvatuksen Kummitus. : Kestävyyskasvatuksen läppärimalli ulkoteatterin kautta.

Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on kerätä tietoa tapauksesta, jonka avulla analysoidaan miten teatteri ja ulkoilmaopetus potentiaalisesti voisi tukea kestävyyskasvatusta. Siirtyminen kestävämpään maailmaan on jo vuosikymmeniä leimattu kriittiseksiä asiaksi. Kasvatuksen roolia tässä prosessissa on tehty selväksi eri tavoin. Näistä kestävimpiin elämäntapoihin siirtymisen aikomuksista huolimatta, kirjallisuudesta ilmenee selvästi ettei tyydyttävään tulokseen olla vielä päästy. Kestävyyskriisi on kompleksinen ongelma, johon ei ole helppoja ratkaisuja. Teatterilla ja ulkoilmaopetuksella on molemmilla tapansa tukea oppimista. Tässä tutkimuksessa näiden molempien alojen ammattilaiset, yhdessä opettajien ja koulutusalan ammattilaisten kanssa, jakavat ideoitaan ja näkemyksiään siitä, mitä kestävyyskasvatus on, ja siitä, miten teatteri ja ulkoilmaopetus voivat olla osa kestävyyskasvatuksen tavoitteiden tavoittamista. Teatterialan, ulkoilmapedagogiikan sekä peruskoulutusalan asiantuntijoita kutsuttiin yhteiseen ryhmähaastatteluun. He jakavat kokemuksiaan liittyen ulkoilma-lastenteatteriprojektiin; ‘Spöket på Lillklobb / Lillklobbin Kummitus’. Tutkimukseen osallistuvat asiantuntijat olivat kaikki joko osallisia projektin luomisessa, tai osallistuivat projektiin osallistuvan lapsiryhmän vastuuhenkilönä. Ryhmähaastattelussa kerätty aineisto on läpikäynyt temaattisen analyysin. Tämän temaattisen analyysin tuloksena kehitettiin kestävyyskasvatukselle malli: Läppärimalli. Tämä malli edustaa kestävyyskasvatuksen kolmea pääteemaa: kognitiivinen aspekti, sosiaalinen ja emotionaalinen aspekti, sekä toiminnan aspekti. Teatteri ja ulkoilmaopetus voivat monella tapaa myötävaikuttaa kestävyyskasvatukseen, kuten Läppärimallilla esitetään. Pääasia on, että sekä teatteri että ulkoilmaopetus on nähtävä ‘kokemuksena’. Se, että lapsi saa kokemuksen, tekee siitä arvokkaan. Ulkoilmateatteri koetaan kokonaisvaltaisesti edistävän läppärimallia, ja sitoo mallin eri osat toisiinsa. -- Syftet med denna undersökning är att samla information från en fallstudie, för att synliggöra hur teater och utomhusundervisning potentiellt kan bidra till hållbarhetspedagogik. Redan i flera decennier har övergången till hållbarhet framhållits som brådskande. Den roll utbildning har i denna process har skrivits ut otaliga gånger, på olika sätt. Trots dessa intentioner att övergå till ett mer hållbart sätt att leva, visar litteraturen tydligt att ett tillfredsställande resultat inte ännu har nåtts. Hållbarhetskrisen är ett komplext problem, och det finns inga lätta lösningar. Teater och utomhuspedagogik har bägge olika sätt att bidra till lärande. I denna studie delar experter från båda dessa fält, samt lärare i form av pedagogiska experter, sina idéer och synpunkter på vad hållbarhetspedagogik är, och hur teater och utomhusundervisning kan bidra till att nå hållbarhetspedagogikens mål. Experter inom teater, utomhuspedagogik och undervisning i årskurs 1-6 sammanförs i denna undersökning. De delar alla erfarenheter av ett utomhusteaterprojekt för barn; ‘Spöket på Lillklobb / Lillklobbin Kummitus’. Experterna som deltar i denna undersökning var antingen delaktiga i skapandet av projektet, eller deltog i projektet med en barngrupp de ansvarade för. Genom att ordna en fokusgruppdiskussion samlas experternas synvinklar och idéer relaterade till undersökningsfrågorna. Utgående från detta material har sedan en tematisk analys genomförts. Denna tematiska analys resulterade i utvecklingen av en modell för hållbarhetspedagogik: Laptop-modellen. Denna modell företräder hållbarhetspedagogikens tre huvudteman: den kognitiva aspekten, den sociala och emotionella aspekten samt handlingsaspekten. Teater och utomhusundervisning kan bidra till hållbarhetspedagogik på många sätt, vilket Laptop-modellen visar. Huvudsaken är att både teater och utomhusundervisning ses som en upplevelse. Det är det faktum att barnen får ‘en upplevelse’ som gör det värdefullt. Det är uppenbart att utomhusteater bidrar holistiskt till Laptop-modellen, och lyckas integrera dess olika delar.The purpose of this study is to obtain information from a case to shed light on the potential contribution of theatre and Outdoor Education to Sustainability education. Making the transition towards a sustainable world has been labelled as urgent for many decades now. The role of education in this process has been written out multiple times, in various ways. Despite these intentions of transitioning to a more sustainable way of living, literature shows that a satisfactory result has not been obtained yet. The sustainability crisis is a complex problem, and no easy solutions are at hand. Theatre and outdoor education have both different ways of contributing to learning. In this study, experts from both fields, with teachers as education experts, share their ideas and views on what sustainability education is, and how theatre and outdoor education can help to reach the goals it aims at. Experts from theatre, outdoor education, and primary education, are brought together in this study. They all share the experience of an outdoor theatre project aimed at children called ‘Spöket på Lillklobb / Lillklobbin kummitus’. The experts participating in this research were either part of creating this project or participating in it with a group of children under their responsibility. By organising a focus group discussion, the views and ideas of the experts related to the research questions are gathered. This data has then been subject to a thematic analysis. This thematic analysis resulted in the developing of a model for sustainability education: The Laptop model. This model represents the three main themes of sustainability education: the cognitive aspect, the social- and emotional aspect, and the aspect of actions. There are several ways in which theatre and outdoor education can contribute to sustainability education, as presented by the Laptop model. Most importantly, both theatre and outdoor education should be seen as an experience. It is the fact that the children have ‘an experience’ that makes it most valuable. Outdoor theatre is found to contribute holistically to the Laptop model, and make the different parts of the model to interrelate

Beyond spelling: the writing skills of higher education students with dyslexia

To have a clearer idea of the problems students with dyslexia may face during their studies, we compared writings of 100 students with dyslexia and 100 age matched control students in higher education. The aim of this study was to compare the writing of young adults with dyslexia and young adults without dyslexia. The study was carried out in Belgium with writers of Dutch. First, we studied the number and type of spelling errors, the quality of the texts produced, the use of words, and the handwriting, both in a précis writing task (writing a summary of an informative text) and in a dictation task (sentence writing). Our results showed medium to large effect sizes for spelling errors: d = .93 for morphosyntactic spelling errors, d = .55 for memory-related spelling errors, and a medium effect size for punctuation and capitalization errors, d = .40. Second, experts who were blind to the aims of the study were asked to judge the quality of the writing of both groups based on transcriptions that were free from spelling errors. The quality of the texts produced was judged lower for students with dyslexia than for the controls, d = .61 for text structure and d = .56 for agreeability, even though the number and types of words used by both groups were very much the same. There was no significant difference in the quality of the handwriting, d = .15. Given that remedial teaching has been shown to be effective for essay-writing skills, educational support along these lines may be helpful for students with dyslexia

A Potential Role of the Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Anterior Insula in Cognitive Control, Brain Rhythms, and Event-Related Potentials

In the present paper, we review evidence for of a model in which the inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula (IFG/AI) area is involved in elaborate attentional and working memory processing and we present the hypothesis that this processing may take different forms and may have different effects, depending on the task at hand: (1) it may facilitate fast and accurate responding, or (2) it may cause slow responding when prolonged elaborate processing is required to increase accuracy of responding, or (3) it may interfere with accuracy and speed of next-trial (for instance, post-error) performance when prolonged elaborate processing interferes with processing of the next stimulus. We present our viewpoint that ventrolateral corticolimbic control pathways, including the IFG/AI, and mediodorsal corticolimbic control pathways, including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex areas, play partly separable, but interacting roles in adaptive behavior in environmental conditions that differ in the level of predictability: compared to dorsal feed-forward control, the ventral corticolimbic control pathways implement control over actions through higher responsiveness to momentary environmental stimuli. This latter control mode is associated with an attentional focus on stimuli that are urgent or close in time and space, while the former control mode is associated with a broader, more global focus in time and space. Both control pathways have developed extensively through evolution, and both developed their own “cognitive controls,” such that neither one can be properly described as purely “cognitive” or “emotional.” We discuss literature that suggests that the role of IFG/AI in top-down control is reflected in cortical rhythms and event-related potentials. Together, the literature suggests that the IFG/AI is an important node in brain networks that control cognitive and emotional processing and behavior

Transmission of Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae (Myxozoa: Malacosporea), the causative organism of salmonid proliferative kidney disease, to the freshwater bryozoan Fredericella sultana

Proliferative kidney disease (PKD), caused by the malacosporean parasite Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae, causes significant losses among salmonids in Western Europe and North America. The role of salmonid fish in the life-cycle of this parasite has been conjectured upon for over a quarter of a century. To examine whether fish can transmit the infection to bryozoans, the known invertebrate host, water containing parasitized brown trout Salmo trutta was pumped into tanks containing colonies of Fredericella sultana collected from the wild. The specific parasite-free status of these colonies being first assessed, by PCR and prolonged laboratory culture. After 6 weeks exposure to the brown trout aquarium effluent, portions of these colonies displayed overt infections with T. bryosalmonae. This was in contrast to control bryozoans, derived from the experimental colonies prior to exposure, which remained T. bryosalmonae negative. In addition, spores obtained from the experimentally infected colonies were exposed to naive rainbow trout, resulting in clinical PKD, thus completing a cycle of transmission. During the experiments, the infection was noted to inhibit statoblast formation within bryozoans and appeared to be pathogenic, finally killing the bryozoan host. These findings indicate that fish can transmit the parasite to bryozoans and are an integral part of this parasite’s life-cycle