1,720,967 research outputs found

    Dyslexia

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    This book brings together dyslexia research from different perspectives and from different parts of the world, with the aim of providing a valuable source of information to medical professionals specializing in paediatrics, audiology, psychiatry and neurology as well as general practitioners, to psychologists who specialise in developmental psychology, clinical psychology or educational psychology, to other professions such as school health professionals and educators, and to those who may be interested in research into developmental dyslexia. It provides a comprehensive overview of Developmental Dyslexia, its clinical presentation, pathophysiology and epidemiology, as well as detailed descriptions of particular aspects of the condition. It covers all aspects of the field from underlying aetiology to currently available, routinely used diagnostic tests and intervention strategies, and addresses important social, cultural and quality of life issues

    Cognitive processes and neural correlates of reading in languages with graded levels of orthographic transparency: Spanish, English and Hebrew

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    This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis examined the cognitive processes and neural correlates involved in reading Spanish (a transparent orthography), English (an intermediate orthography) and Hebrew (an opaque orthography) by bilinguals and trilinguals. The main objectives of the five experiments were to: (i) extend previous findings which demonstrated that orthographic transparency influences the degree of reliance on lexical and sublexical processing, and (ii) assess the effects of orthographic transparency and language proficiency on strategies employed for reading in a second and third language. Word/non-word naming tasks undertaken by Spanish-English bilinguals, Hebrew-English bilinguals and English monolinguals, where frequency, length and lexicality were manipulated, showed a predominant reliance on sublexical processing in Spanish, lexical processing in Hebrew, and a balanced interplay in English. Effects of language proficiency were also observed as slower naming and lower accuracy in English as a second language. Concurrently, while showing an efficient adaptation of reading strategy to the level of orthographic transparency of English, Hebrew bilinguals appeared to show stronger reliance on sublexical processing than Spanish bilinguals, suggesting a compensatory mechanism. fMRI experiments showed that reading in all languages was associated with a common network of predominantly left-lateralised cerebral regions. Reading in each language was associated with some preferential activation within regions implicated in lexical and sublexical processing, in keeping with their graded levels of orthographic transparency. Effects of language proficiency were demonstrated as increased activation within medial frontal regions implicated in attentional processes as well as right-lateralised homologous language-processing regions. Furthermore, the patterns of activation seen in Hebrew readers in English strengthened the notion of a compensatory mechanism. Finally, a trilingual experiment replicated findings observed in bilinguals, revealed the acute complexity of reading in Hebrew as an additional language and further strengthened the concept of a compensatory mechanism in English and Spanish. The present findings further contribute to current knowledge on teaching methods, diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies for developmental and acquired reading disorders

    Investigation of the influence of visual attention span (VAS) on spelling in Chinese-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years

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    This study explored the influence of a range of literacy-related variables on word spelling in Mandarin-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years. The children were assessed with tasks of nonverbal ability, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual attention span, character identification, morphological awareness (MA), and verbal short-term memory. Visual attention span (VAS) was assessed with a global report task using Chinese characters. In the analysis of results, the dependent variable was children’s accuracy in spelling a 60-word target list to dictation. Results of stepwise regression analysis, with chronological age and nonverbal ability entered as the first step, revealed that PA, RAN, MA, character identification and VAS were significant predictors of spelling accuracy. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed

    Investigation of the influence of visual attention span and a range of literacy-related variables on writing (spelling) to dictation in Mandarin-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years

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    This study explored the influence of a range of literacy-related variables on writing (spelling) to dictation in Mandarin-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years. The children were assessed with tasks of nonverbal ability, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatised naming (RAN), visual attention span, character identification, morphological awareness (MA), vocabulary, and verbal short-term memory. Visual attention span (VAS) was assessed with a global report task using Chinese characters. Results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that PA, RAN, MA and character identification significantly explained 54% of the variance in spelling accuracy. After controlling for these predictors, age and nonverbal ability, VAS scores predicted a further 6% of the variance. The path analysis suggested the mediating role of VAS between RAN and spelling accuracy. The results support the view that visual simultaneous processing plays an important role in spelling in Chinese due to the complex nature of the orthography

    Cognitive processes and neural correlates of reading in languages with graded levels of orthographic transparency : Spanish, English and Hebrew

    Get PDF
    This thesis examined the cognitive processes and neural correlates involved in reading Spanish (a transparent orthography), English (an intermediate orthography) and Hebrew (an opaque orthography) by bilinguals and trilinguals. The main objectives of the five experiments were to: (i) extend previous findings which demonstrated that orthographic transparency influences the degree of reliance on lexical and sublexical processing, and (ii) assess the effects of orthographic transparency and language proficiency on strategies employed for reading in a second and third language. Word/non-word naming tasks undertaken by Spanish-English bilinguals, Hebrew-English bilinguals and English monolinguals, where frequency, length and lexicality were manipulated, showed a predominant reliance on sublexical processing in Spanish, lexical processing in Hebrew, and a balanced interplay in English. Effects of language proficiency were also observed as slower naming and lower accuracy in English as a second language. Concurrently, while showing an efficient adaptation of reading strategy to the level of orthographic transparency of English, Hebrew bilinguals appeared to show stronger reliance on sublexical processing than Spanish bilinguals, suggesting a compensatory mechanism. fMRI experiments showed that reading in all languages was associated with a common network of predominantly left-lateralised cerebral regions. Reading in each language was associated with some preferential activation within regions implicated in lexical and sublexical processing, in keeping with their graded levels of orthographic transparency. Effects of language proficiency were demonstrated as increased activation within medial frontal regions implicated in attentional processes as well as right-lateralised homologous language-processing regions. Furthermore, the patterns of activation seen in Hebrew readers in English strengthened the notion of a compensatory mechanism. Finally, a trilingual experiment replicated findings observed in bilinguals, revealed the acute complexity of reading in Hebrew as an additional language and further strengthened the concept of a compensatory mechanism in English and Spanish. The present findings further contribute to current knowledge on teaching methods, diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies for developmental and acquired reading disorders.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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