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Il “tempo scuola” nell’integrazione degli alunni disabili in Italia, Psicologia e scuola, settembre-ottobre.
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Language risk and temperamental profiles in Italian toddlers
No full textOur research investigates relations between aspects of toddler temperament and multiple indices of early language acquisition. Young children’s positive or neutral emotional states are associated with better expressive and receptive vocabulary (Bloom, 1993; Dixon & Shore, 1997; Slomkowski et al., 1992). We investigate multiple dimensions of both temperament and expressive language. In this presentation, we describe the complex relations among dimensions of temperament and aspects of expressive language. Our work is based on a sample of 152 children (78 females) aged between 28 and 29 months who were recruited in 22 day-care centres. Language development and temperament were assessed using two questionnaires completed by day-care teachers over a period of two weeks of observation.
Language measure. The Italian version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (Words & Phrases; Fenson et al., 1993: PVB, Caselli & Casadio, 1995) was used to assess language. We analysed: (a) vocabulary size; (b) vocabulary composition (single words, predicates); (c) decontextualised comprehension and production of words; (d) morphological ability: the use of inflected forms of nouns, adjectives and verbs; and (e) combinatory language. We also created an overall risk score (range 0-3, with 3 indicating highest risk) using three indicators (vocabulary size below 1.5 standard deviations from standardization sample mean and absence of either morphological ability or combinatory language).
Temperament. Teachers also completed the Italian Questionnaires of Temperament (QUIT, Axia, 2002). The QUIT consists of 56 questions, rated on a 1-6 scale, involving children’s day-to-day behaviours and generates six temperament scales: social orientation, inhibition to novelty, motor activity, positive emotionality, negative emotionality and attention.
We focus on three main findings. First, we examined correlations between the six temperament dimensions and the multiple aspects of expressive language. Where two significant correlations are expected by chance, we found 17 significant correlations. Notably, their magnitudes are relatively low (range .24 to -.23). Temperamental social orientation, positive emotionality, and attention accounted for 14 of the 17 relations to language aspects. Second, we grouped children by level of risk language (0 to 3) and related risk status to each temperament dimension (Table 1): ANOVAs reveal a significant effect of risk on two temperament dimensions: positive emotionality ( and attention (Greater risk is associated with lower positive emotionality and attention. Finally, we identified two temperament profiles associated with increased language risk: (1) an inattentive profile, characterized by low attention and high motor activity and (2) an inhibited profile, characterized by high inhibition to novelty and high negative emotionality (Table 2).
Our discussion focuses on the importance of examining temperament using all its dimensions, including emotionality. We consider how toddler temperament may facilitate receiving language input or parent-toddler interaction. We also discuss the value of looking at specific aspects of language. For example, morphological ability, use of predicates, and combinatory language appeared more sensitive to temperament dimensions than other language aspects.
Table 1. Temperament scales by level of risk for language development.
Temperament
Level of risk N Social orientation (mean s.d.)
F(3,150)= 1.838 n.s Inhibition novelty (mean s.d.)
F(3,141)= 1.818 n.s Motor activity (mean s.d.) F(3,149)= 1.291 n.s Positive emotion (mean s.d.) F(3,150)= 3.062 p<.05 Negative emotion (mean s.d.) F(3,151)= 0.693 n.s. Attention (mean s.d.) F(3,151)= 3.353 p<.05
0 63 4.12 .85
2.71 .84
2.94 1.04
4.68 .93
2.81 1.10
4.51 .86
1 26 4.11 .64
2.56 .87
3.26 1.01
4.87 .62
2.90 .98
4.61 .78
2 37 3.73 .99
2.89 .89
3.34 1.02
4.37 .95
2.77 1.00
4.07 .92
3 26 3.93 .79
3.10 .05
3.01 1.23
4.23 .96
3.15 1.38
4.17 .70
Table 2. Distribution of risk indices among the three temperamental profiles
Temperamental profiles and language development: A replication and an extension
No full textIndividual differences in child temperament are associated with individual differences in language development. The present study examined the relationship between tempera- ment and language ability in 109 twenty-four- to 30-month-old children. Parents and day-care teachers completed two questionnaires: the Primo Vocabolario del Bambino (Caselli & Casadio, 1995) and the Questionari Italiani del Temperamento (Axia, 2002). Researchers administered the First Language Test (Axia, 1993) to assess productive and receptive lan- guage in each child.
Replicating previous research (Usai, Garello, & Viterbori, 2009), day-care teachers iden- tified three temperamental profiles: most of the children fit into the first profile, typical of the Italian population; another profile was made up of easily distractible and not very persistent children, with a poor capacity to modulate motor activity; and the third profile of children were inhibited in new situations. A relationship was found between temperament assessed by day-care teachers and different levels of linguistic competence. In particular, the groups of “inattentive” and “inhibited” children showed poorer lexical and morpho- logical abilities and a more immature vocabulary, characterised by the presence of more primitive components of the lexical repertory compared to the group of “typical” chil- dren. Unlike the results from day-care teachers, temperament questionnaires completed by parents revealed a 4-cluster-solution. Also, for parents, the “typical” profile is charac- terised by the largest vocabulary (productive and receptive) and the most mature semantic production
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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