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Dyslexia and Mindfulness: Can Mental Training Ameliorate the Symptoms of Dyslexia?
No full textDyslexia (DYS) can be defined as a reading disorder that is not caused by sensory or cognitive deficits, or by a lack of motivation or adequate reading instruction. Remediation of a deficit in phonological processing has been the focus of most DYS interventions to date, but these studies have had despairingly little impact on generalized reading abilities. Reading Recovery and mindfulness (MF) training are two interventions that emphasize the development of metacognition. Reading Recovery teaches children how to use multiple metacognitive strategies (e.g., using context clues, making predictions) while in the process of decoding and comprehending text. MF, or mental training, is a well-established technique for developing attentional capacities and can also be considered a metacognitive skill. In this mixed-methods study, I investigated whether training in metacognitive strategies (including MF) would significantly improve reading and writing skills compared to a control condition. Twenty students in grades 2-5 with an identified learning disability were recruited from the public school district. After matching on age, severity, gender, and primary language, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group or active control group. Participants in the experimental group received a five-week intervention that incorporated phonics training, Reading Recovery, and MF. Subjects in the control group received only phonics training for five weeks. Pre- and post-measures were collected on reading, writing, and a lexical-decision task. Quantitative results demonstrated that MF significantly increased response times during decoding (indicating a possible increase in reflectiveness due to metacognitive processes) and significantly lowered heart rate over the course of the intervention. Qualitative themes pointed to improvement in self-expression, motivation, focus, self-confidence, positive affect, and use of metacognitive strategies.Mind and Life InstitutePsychologyDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of PsychologyRuthruff, EricSmith, BruceWitherington, DavidAverill, Jennife
A variationist perspective on Spanish-origin verbs in Paraguayan Guarani
No full textParaguay presents a unique case of societal bilingualism in Latin America. Almost 90% of its population speaks the indigenous language Guarani, and half of the population is bilingual in Spanish and Guarani. However, contemporary Guarani has been described as an unpredictable, ad-hoc mix of Guarani and Spanish. This idea is also reflected in the local term jopara ‘mixture’, which is used to refer to the variety by its speakers. A particularly salient contact feature are loan verbs, i.e. Spanish-origin roots used with Guarani morphology. To gain an empirical perspective on the presence and motivation of Spanish loan verbs in Guarani, 35 sociolinguistic interviews were conducted with Guarani speakers who live or work in Asunción (Paraguay’s capital).
The initial hypothesis was that, due to a tendency towards bilingualism in urban areas, younger speakers would use Spanish-origin verbs more frequently than older speakers when speaking Guarani. However, an initial count of all verb tokens used by the two oldest and the two youngest speakers (average age: 77 vs. 21; total tokens: 2930) showed only a modest increase in the use of Spanish-origin verbs (an 8% rise). Next, the degree to which some verb meanings have competing Spanish-origin and Guarani-origin forms was quantified to test the hypothesis of ongoing relexification. Of the 331 different verb meanings expressed in these four interviews, very few have broadly equivalent and therefore interchangeable forms. The vast majority of the meanings were expressed categorically, i.e. using only a Guarani or a Spanish-origin form.
Two of the attested variable verb meanings (‘know’ and ‘live’) were coded in all 35 interviewees and tested for a possible correlation with demographic data and internal factors. It was found that the age of the speaker did not have the hypothesized effect. The amount of tokens of the Spanish-origin form of these verbs did not increase in the younger generation. A re-examination of the initial verb count showed that the difference in preference for Spanish-origin forms between the oldest and the youngest speakers was, instead, found in the low-frequency verbs. Thus, verb meanings like ‘live’ and ‘know’, which are mid-frequency, are not undergoing change. This resistance to change is even more evident in high-frequency verbs, which are all categorical Guarani-origin stems, with no attested Spanish-origin counterparts.
Overall, these results suggest that to the degree that Spanish-origin verbs are replacing Guarani verbs, only low-frequency verbs are affected. Also, the process is slower than generally assumed. The data analyzed here indicate that the incorporation of Spanish-origin verbs into the language for the most part does not represent a loss of Guarani verbs, but rather serves the purpose of lexical expansion. Finally, the low variability in the expression of verb meanings helps discredit the idea that spoken Guarani is a random, on-the-spot mixture of Guarani and Spanish.Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII), UNM
Office of Graduate Studies (OGS), UNMLinguisticsMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of LinguisticsKoops, ChristianShin, NaomiVallejos, Ros
USING COLLABORATIVE WORK GROUPS TO IMPROVE TEACHERS’ USE OF EBPS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR
No full textThree teachers and one assistant principal were recruited from a middle school in a large metropolitan area of the southwestern United States to implement evidence-based practices (EBP). The teachers implemented EBPs in self-continued classrooms to ameliorate the disruptive behavior of three students. The recruited teachers and assistant principal participated in collaborative work groups biweekly for a total of 12 weeks. The teachers chose the EBPs that they were interested in implementing, and the collaborative work groups served as a forum for learning about the EBPs. Data sources included coding and thematic analysis of initial and final interviews, recording of the collaborative work groups, classroom observations, prebehavior and postbehavior checklists, and a social validity questionnaire.
Three main themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the interview and collaborative work group data: Attribution, winging it, and it’s about me. Results were examined in light of the leadership framework of Fullan (2001) and the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR) of Damschroder et al. (2009). Implications included the need for consideration of the effect of attribution of teachers (to student diagnosis, other professionals, or behavior function) on user benefit, commitment, and relationships to the implementation of EBPs. A practical implication is the need for leadership models and a commitment to the process of adoption and implementation of the EBPs at the leadership level. An additional practical implication is the need for challenging teachers’ perceptions of disruptive behavior through a process of reflective listening. Future research is needed on the effect of an individual’s attribution of behavior on factors such as diagnosis or other professionals, an effect that may play out at any point in the implementation process.Special EducationDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Division of Educational SpecialtiesCopeland, SusanLuckasson, RuthDougher, MichaelScherba de Valenzuela, Juli
Biagaweit: Securing Water from the Mighty River in the Snake River Basin Adjudication
No full textThis symposium article describes the Shoshone and Bannock peoples’ journey to quantify their water rights in the SRBA. It begins with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal cultural perspective on water and water rights. It then discusses the concept of tribal homelands and the water required and necessary for sustaining a tribally reserved home as guaranteed in the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868, including a discussion of the Winters doctrine which affirms the treaty’s promises. It concludes with a review of the Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Agreement.
“Biagaweit” is the Shoshone word for the Snake River. The mighty Snake River begins its journey in the Shoshone and Bannock Tribal peoples’ aboriginal area (Yellowstone Park area in Wyoming), flows through the original homelands of the Bannocks and many Shoshone bands who lived on the Biagaweit
Spring 2016 Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies APR Self-Study Report
No full textAPR self-study fulfills requirements of the Higher Learning Commission, UNM's accrediting bod
Spring 2016 Psychology APR Self-Study Report
No full textAPR Self-study report fulfills requirements of the Higher Learning Commission, UNM's accrediting bod
DESIGN, FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF PHONONIC CRYSTALS IN MACRO AND MICRO SCALE
No full textIn many areas of engineering such as telecommunications industry, lenses and optical cooling, waveguiding and the ability to control wave propagation is necessary. Phononic Crystals (PnCs) influence the propagation of mechanical waves by their periodic variation in elastic impedances. Depending on Lattice type and inclusion’s spacing, one can manipulate the frequencies that are blocked or allowed to transmit through the crystal in a particular direction. In this work, two dimensional PnCs plates are design and also numerically and experimentally demonstrated. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed to study the dispersion behavior and eigenmodes of a PnC. The simulations show the existence of a complete bandgap, thus acoustic PnC devices such as cavity, resonator and waveguide are created accordingly by introducing a line defect to the crystal. The experimental response of the devices was then measured by fabricating and then testing them. These results show excellent agreement with the FEA. For the first time waveguide and 90ᵒ bend is designed that have several isolated modes in the bandgap with transmission efficiencies above 90% for a specific frequency range. In this seminar also a few novel patents will be introduced.
We consider a two-dimensional periodic square array of the air holes in a finite aluminum medium. The defect introduced to the crystals are acting as local acoustic resonances/guiding with the substrate and lead to the possibility of finding a low-frequency confined acoustic waves or guided modes. Studying the mode shapes will help to shed light on the origin of BG formation and as the results BG optimization. The numerical and experimental results presented here are related to the case of Aluminum-air devices, but the conclusions remain valid for other materials and compositions as well.Mechanical EngineeringDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of Mechanical EngineeringLeseman, ZaydShen, Yu-linEl-Kady, IhabFatih Su, MehmetHossein-Zadeh, Man
"The Bellows / of Experience": The Modernist Love Poem and Its Legacy
No full textThe vein of experimental love poetry examined in this project takes advantage of the friction generated by charging both form and content with innovation. The troubled relationship between sex and power is knit directly into the long and dynamic history of love poetry, but there has yet to be a published monograph on the modernist love poem and its implications for literary history. This dissertation fills a major gap in scholarship and speaks to the broader social concerns addressed by public discourse on sex, sexuality, and eros.
The body of modernist love poetry includes allusions to traditional love poetry—a tradition in lyric extending from the earliest written poems and culminating in nineteenth-century sentimentality—as well as explicit erotic content, satire, polemic, violence, and anxiety. It is not neatly bounded by nation, gender, race, or aesthetic approach, but nonetheless, this project examines the consistent presence and achievement of experimental Anglophone poets working with the genre. My dissertation begins with a series of case studies examining the work of Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Mina Loy, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and Langston Hughes to elucidate love poetry in its modernist form. The project establishes the place innovative modernist love poetry holds in literary history, and casts forward with two chapters, one on Anne Sexton and Robert Creeley, and another on Harryette Mullen and Bruce Andrews, to illustrate how mid-century and contemporary poets have continued to find new ways of re-imagining the genre.Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski FoundationEnglishDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of EnglishHofer, MatthewHiggins, ScarlettHarrison, GaryGolding, Ala
Experimental drought and soil depth interactively influence fungal community composition in piñon-juniper woodland
No full textDrought can flip ecosystems between states and in the process alter key systems such as plant biomass and carbon balance. Many drought-related studies have focused on plant responses or charismatic megafauna. Less work has addressed drought in the context of aboveground-belowground feedbacks. Impacts of drought are increasing, particularly in arid environments such as the southwestern United States. Major tree species of these regions, such as piñon pine, are adapted to a wetter and more predictable climate than the projected future climate. The effects of drought on piñon and its ectomycorrhizae have been studied observationally and in laboratories. Soil depth has also been established in other systems to be an important driver of soil processes, but has thus far been ignored in the piñon-juniper system. Our study is the first to address the effects of long-term experimental moisture manipulation and associated piñon mortality on the soil fungal community of the piñon-juniper woodland as well as that of piñon’s obligate ectomycorrhizal partners across soil depth.
We used Illumina sequencing to profile the fungal community of piñon pine at two soil depths along an experimentally imposed moisture-stress gradient from 2008-2013 including drought, ambient, and irrigated treatments. We used field collected soil samples expected to include roots, spores, and free-living mycelia to address fungal change community-wide. We found significant effects of moisture treatment and depth in structuring the overall fungal community of piñon-juniper soils. The drought treatment reduced richness by 20% and 38% in surface and deep soils, respectively. We used FUNGUILD to assign functional roles and found a significant reduction in the proportion of ectomycorrhizal fungi in drought plots, particularly on plots with high piñon mortality.
The change in guild dominance suggests significant impacts of plant mortality coupled with environmental pressures on ectomycorrhizal fungi. Shifts in climate and plant mortality are likely to alter the distribution of members of the belowground community, particularly ectomycorrhizal fungi, which in turn may limit the establishment and/or recovery of plant species. Based on our findings, we predict greater patchiness of fungi, particularly ectomycorrhizal taxa, in drought-impacted habitats and/or significant retractions in plant and fungal geographic ranges.Seviletta LTER, UNM Biology DepartmentBiologyMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Biology Dept.Taylor, D. LeeGehring, CatherinePockman, Willia
Land Cover Change During a Transition in Land Management at Valles Caldera 1989-2013
No full textThis study examines how land-use policies can play a role in manifesting physical landscape changes. In 2000, Congress enacted a unique experiment in public lands management by creating the Valles Caldera National Preserve and its governing body, the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT). The management approach enacted by Valles Caldera Trust marked a significant departure in land-use intensity. To assess how these changes in management have affected land-use intensity and resulting cover change, this research seeks to identify landscape-level changes that taken place during a period of ten years prior to and following the formation of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (i.e., 1989-2013).
Remote sensing techniques were used to quantify land cover transitions. Landsat image data (30m) from 1989, 1999, 2003, and 2013 were compared to identify changes that have taken place between the time periods 1989-1999, a period just prior to the purchase of the Baca Ranch by the federal government, and 10 years of management by the Valles Caldera Trust, 2003-2013. In order to do this, pre-classification change detection was used to quantify changes that have taken place during each period and a range of historical evidence used to classify those changes by disturbance regime. Results demonstrate an increase in wetland and rangeland recovery under VCT management based on evaluating several ancillary datasets. This leads to the conclusion that adaptive management strategies were beneficial for these cover types. The impact of the VCT’s adaptive management strategies on forests is difficult to understand due to large wildfire-induced cover changes that occurred during VCT management.GeographyMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of GeographyLippitt, ChristopherLippitt, ChristopherCaitlin, LippittLane, Mari