186,253 research outputs found
Crossing barriers: Profiles of reading and comprehension skills in early and late bilinguals, poor comprehenders, reading impaired, and typically developing children
No full textThe aim of the present study was to analyze the performance of primary school children with different cognitive (specific learning disorders and poor comprehenders) or language (early and late bilinguals) profiles, considering reading and comprehension skills. In particular, it focused on a transparent orthography (Italian), complementing existing studies conducted mainly on children during their acquisition of an opaque orthography such as English, either as a first or second language. Five groups of children (N = 600) were involved in the study: children diagnosed with specific learning disorders, poor comprehenders, early bilinguals, late bilinguals, and a control group. They were tested for reading speed and accuracy of words, non-words, and text, and for reading and language comprehension when using the battery for Assessment of Reading and Comprehension in Develop- mental Age (Bonifacci, Tobia, Lami, & Snowling, 2014). Mean group differences and profiles within each group were analyzed. The comparison of different groups evidences how, within each dimension, there might be similar profiles across different groups (e.g., the same reading comprehension skills in early bilinguals, late bilinguals, and children with specific learning disorders) and highly discrepant skills within the same group (e.g., word and non-word reading in late bilinguals). These results provide some insight into the importance of assessing a complete functional profile aside from categorical classifications and reinforce the concept of dimensional models in developing trajectories of reading and comprehension skills (Snowling & Hulme, 2012)
The Simple View of Reading in Bilingual Language-Minority Children Acquiring a Highly Transparent Second Language
No full textThe present study evaluated which components within the simple view of reading model better predicted reading comprehension in a sample of bilingual language-minority children exposed to Italian, a highly transparent language, as a second language. The sample included 260 typically developing bilingual children who were attending either the first 2 years (n = 95) or the last 3 years (n = 165) of primary school and who had Italian as an instructional language. Children were administered a comprehensive battery for the assessment of decoding skills, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension latent variables. Results showed that, in both groups, listening comprehension was the most powerful predictor of reading comprehension, followed, only for younger children, by reading accuracy. Reading speed was not a significant predictor. These results confirmed the primary role of listening comprehension in predicting reading comprehension in bilinguals and added important evidence regarding the role of reading accuracy as a predictor of reading comprehension
Subjects at risk for developmental coordination disorder: Emotional and cognitive aspects
No full textThe study was directed to an evaluation of intellectual and emotional profiles of children at risk for Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The participants were 136 children (aged 6-10 yrs). On the basis of a test for the evaluation of gross-motor abilities (TGM; Ulrich, 1985), two groups of children were identified: «risk for DCD» and controls. Participants were administered an intelligence test (K-BIT; Kaufman and Kaufman, 1990), and self-report questionnaires for the evaluation of anxiety and depression (TAD; Newcomer, Barenbaum and Bryant, 1995; Scala d'ansia per l'età evolutiva; Busnelli, Dall'Aglio and Faina, 1987; CDI; Kovacs, 1992). Results highlight significantly higher levels of anxiety in subjects at risk for DCD
Look back at text or rely on memory? Efficacy of reading comprehension strategies in good and poor oral comprehenders
No full textBackground: Reading comprehension is a multifactorial process, but one of its features has been relatively under-investigated: it is the strategy used when answering reading comprehension questions. In order to find the correct answer, children can either respond to questions about a text relying on their text memory or look back at the written text. This study analyses (i) which strategy, memory or look-back is more frequently adopted in primary school children according to grade level and type of text (expository vs narrative) and (ii) the preferred (most frequently used) and more efficient (higher number of correct responses) strategy for poor oral comprehenders. Poor oral comprehenders were selected for having adequate nonword decoding skills but impaired oral comprehension, compared with good oral comprehenders. Methods: The total sample comprised 1,417 primary school children. A standardised test assessing reading and comprehension of oral and written language was administered. Results: In the comparison among children attending different grades, older children showed a more frequent use of the look-back strategy for the expository text, whereas no age-related difference emerged for the narrative text. Poor oral comprehenders (n = 88) showed a different pattern, compared with matched good oral comprehenders (n = 88), for both preference and efficiency of strategies. Despite having a globally poorer performance in reading comprehension, poor oral comprehenders were more accurate than good oral comprehenders when using the look-back strategy. Conclusions: The complex pattern of results obtained reinforces the idea that intervention strategies should be personalised based on individual characteristics and specific for the type of task and text
Apprendere nella scuola dell’infanzia. Lo sviluppo dei prerequisiti
No full textLa scuola dell’infanzia rappresenta un periodo importante per lo sviluppo dei prerequisiti dell’apprendimento, ovvero per sviluppare quelle competenze di base che permettono ai bambini di essere preparati alla successiva acquisizione degli apprendimenti scolastici. La fase evolutiva dell’età prescolare richiede però che vengano rispettati alcuni principi importanti, relativi al carattere ludico, esperienziale e multi-sensoriale delle attività proposte.Il volume prende in esame i prerequisiti delle competenze di lettura, abilità matematica, scrittura e comprensione del testo, presentando i modelli teorici di riferimento e discutendo alcuni aspetti applicativi: quali abilità è importante osservare nei bambini in età prescolare? Come osservarle? E come potenziarle nel contesto quotidiano? Inoltre, viene considerato il ruolo delle competenze attentive e delle funzioni esecutive, illustrando anche in questo caso proposte di attività per la scuola dell’infanzia. Il libro propone una modalità di lavoro, basata su modelli teorici, che favorisce l’espressione del potenziale dei bambini, permettendo un passaggio più “fluido” alla scuola primaria. È destinato a insegnanti, educatori e genitori e può costituire un riferimento per studenti universitari in formazione su tematiche psicologiche e scolastiche
The simple view of reading in a transparent orthography: the stronger role of oral comprehension
No full textComprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, but it is a very complex task consisting of multiple component skills. A number of studies have tested the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986) in opaque languages, but few investigations of the SVR components have been conducted on transparent languages. In the present study, we tested the SVR model in a sample of 1,895 Italian children attending primary school, from first to fifth grade. An assessment battery was used, which included five different tasks: word and non-word reading, passage reading, reading comprehension, and oral comprehension. Hybrid models combining confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with path analysis were run separately for each grade. Results indicated that oral comprehension was always the best predictor of reading comprehension, whereas reading accuracy played a significant but minor role. Implications for research and practice are discussed
Disentangling the Impact of Bilingualism and SES in Literacy Skills of Language-Minority Bilingual Children and Monolingual Peers Exposed to French
No full textIn the present study, we aimed to disentangle the impact of bilingualism and socioeconomic status (SES) on literacy in language-minority bilingual children (LMBC) and monolinguals exposed to French. We also wanted to explore the role of these two factors on cognitive and language skills, i.e., verbal knowledge (VK), morphosyntactic comprehension (MC), and phonological short-term memory (PSTM), well known to be important predictors of literacy acquisition. We compared LMBC with low and medium-high SES, and monolinguals with low and medium-high SES. All the children attended Grades 3, 4, and 5. We found that LMBC underperformed monolinguals on VK and MC. Low SES children showed lower scores compared to medium-high SES children on VK, MC, and PSTM. With regard to literacy, LMBC underperformed monolinguals on text and irregular word reading. Low SES children underperformed medium-high SES children only in regular word reading and pseudoword spelling. As a whole, bilingualism had an effect on measures involving lexical components, while SES had a more widespread effect on cognitive and language skills. The results are discussed considering implications for research, clinical, and educational settings
Prerequisiti dell’apprendimento di letto-scrittura e matematica: due domini a confronto
No full textL’area della letto-scrittura e della matematica costituiscono i due ambiti d’apprendimento scolastico più importanti nei primi anni della scuola primaria; alcuni studi hanno recentemente preso in esame la connessione tra questi domini in età prescolare, evidenziando come siano già presenti strette connessioni a livello di precursori. 327 bambini del 2° e 3° anno della scuola dell’infanzia (51.6% femmine; età media 59.56 ± 6.73 mesi) sono stati coinvolti in uno studio per indagare i prerequisiti della letto-scrittura e dell’apprendimento della matematica, e le relazioni tra questi due domini in età prescolare. Ai bambini sono state somministrate due batterie: Indicatori di Difficoltà di Apprendimento (IDA; Bonifacci et al., in corso di stampa) per i precursori della letto-scrittura e Senso del Numero, Prerequisiti (SNUP; Tobia et al., in preparazione) per quelli della matematica. Con un’analisi fattoriale sono stati individuati i fattori che emergono dai compiti somministrati, ed analizzate le correlazioni tra di essi
Children with low motor ability have lower visual-motor integration ability but unaffected perceptual skills
No full textEtude des capacités perceptives, visuo-motrices et intellectuelles d'enfants âgés de 6-10 ans fréquentant l'école élémentaire
Familiarity of faces: Sense or feeling? An exploratory investigation with eye movements and skin conductance
No full textWhere does the experience of familiarity come from? Is it the same as sensory perception? Two novel approaches were combined to investigate the highly adaptive process of familiar face recognition: the inclusion of friends and family members as personally familiar faces and measures of eye movements and skin conductance responses (SCR). A sample of 16 university students was asked to look at photographs of 8 personally familiar faces (friends and relatives) and 8 unfamiliar faces. From the analysis of eye movement patterns, a preference for internal features (mouth, eyes, nose) for both familiar and unfamiliar faces emerged and a significant increase in electrodermal activity was found for personally familiar compared to unfamiliar faces. Higher SCR recovery values were found in response to friends. Findings from this exploratory investigation suggest that familiar faces are not looked at in a special way; instead we ‘‘feel’’ a sense of familiarity that comes and goes faster for relatives than for close friends
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