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Development and validation of a reading-related assessment battery in Malay for the purpose of dyslexia assessment.

Ann Dyslexia. 2008 Jun;58(1):37-57

Authors: Lee LW

Malay is an alphabetic language with transparent orthography. A Malay reading-related assessment battery which was conceptualised based on the International Dyslexia Association definition of dyslexia was developed and validated for the purpose of dyslexia assessment. The battery consisted of ten tests: Letter Naming, Word Reading, Non-word Reading, Spelling, Passage Reading, Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Elision, Rapid Letter Naming and Digit Span. Content validity was established by expert judgment. Concurrent validity was obtained using the schools’ language tests as criterion. Evidence of predictive and construct validity was obtained through regression analyses and factor analyses. Phonological awareness was the most significant predictor of word-level literacy skills in Malay, with rapid naming making independent secondary contributions. Decoding and listening comprehension made separate contributions to reading comprehension, with decoding as the more prominent predictor. Factor analysis revealed four factors: phonological decoding, phonological naming, comprehension and verbal short-term memory. In conclusion, despite differences in orthography, there are striking similarities in the theoretical constructs of reading-related tasks in Malay and in English.

PMID: 18293088 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Annals of Dyslexia)

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The role of visual and auditory temporal processing for Chinese children with developmental dyslexia.

Ann Dyslexia. 2008 Jun;58(1):15-35

Authors: Chung KK, McBride-Chang C, Wong SW, Cheung H, Penney TB, Ho CS

This study examined temporal processing in relation to Chinese reading acquisition and impairment. The performances of 26 Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia on tasks of visual and auditory temporal order judgement, rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge, morphological, and phonological awareness were compared with those of 26 reading level ability controls (RL) and 26 chronological age controls (CA). Dyslexic children performed worse than the CA group but similar to the RL group on measures of accurate processing of auditory and visual-order stimuli, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and phonological awareness and a minority performed worse on the two temporal processing tasks. However, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that visual but not auditory temporal processing contributed unique variance to Chinese character recognition even with other cognitive measures controlled, suggesting it may be as important a correlate of reading ability in Chinese as in alphabetic scripts.

PMID: 18483866 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Annals of Dyslexia)

Original post by Annals of Dyslexia

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Differentiating the neural response to intervention in children with developmental dyslexia.

Ann Dyslexia. 2008 Jun;58(1):1-14

Authors: Odegard TN, Ring J, Smith S, Biggan J, Black J

Developmental dyslexia is associated with functional abnormalities within reading areas of the brain. For some children diagnosed with dyslexia, phonologically based remediation programs appear to rehabilitate brain function in key reading areas (Shaywitz et al., Biological Psychiatry 55: 101-110, 2004; Simos et al., Neuroscience 58: 1203-1213, 2002). However, a non-trivial number of children diagnosed with dyslexia fail to respond to these interventions (Torgesen, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 15: 55-64, 2000). A cross-sectional fMRI study investigating post-treatment effects was conducted in an effort to better understand differences in brain function between treatment responders and non-responders. Educational testing and brain activation measured after treatment suggested that the reading intervention used in the present study rehabilitated several basic level reading processes in all participants diagnosed with dyslexia. However, activation in the left inferior parietal lobe differentiated treatment responders and non-responders in comparison to non-impaired readers. Children with persistent deficits in single word decoding (treatment non-responders) demonstrated significantly less activation in the left inferior parietal lobe when compared to non-impaired readers.

PMID: 18483867 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Annals of Dyslexia)

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Dyslexia speed problems in a transparent orthography.

Ann Dyslexia. 2008 Jun;58(1):81-95

Authors: Serrano F, Defior S

This study was intended to help clarify the nature of dyslexia in Spanish. A sample of 30 children, 8 to 16 years old, participated in this study. Dyslexic children were compared to two control groups, a chronological age-matched control group and a reading level-matched control group. Measures included nonword and pseudohomophone reading (phonological procedure), homophone choice (orthographic procedure), and phonological awareness tasks (syllabic, intrasyllabic, and phonemic level). For each task, accuracy (error percentage) and performance time were measured. Results showed a deficit in the dyslexic group on all the tasks, which was more evident when time was considered. With the results consistent with studies in other transparent orthographies such as Italian and German, speed problems seem to be more evident and relevant than accuracy problems in Spanish dyslexic children.

PMID: 18483868 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Annals of Dyslexia)

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Training reading fluency: is it important to practice reading aloud and is generalization possible?

Ann Dyslexia. 2008 Jun;58(1):59-79

Authors: Hintikka S, Landerl K, Aro M, Lyytinen H

Outcomes of three different types of computerized training in sub-lexical items (word-initial consonant clusters) on reading speed for 39 German-speaking poor readers in Grades 2 and 3 were evaluated. A phonological-orthographic association group, a reading aloud group, and a combined group were compared in performance with an untrained control group. During short-term training, the intervention groups showed higher gains than the control group in reading speed of the trained sub-lexical items and of the words containing the trained segments. No differences were found between the intervention groups. In the development of pseudoword reading, the groups did not show differential improvements. The generalization effect to pseudoword reading was similar, whether the pseudowords contained the trained segment as a syllable or as a non-syllabic letter string. The gains induced by training were specific to the materials used in training and did not induce gains in general reading speed.

PMID: 18483869 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Annals of Dyslexia)

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Précis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition.

Behav Brain Sci. 2008 Jun;31(3):321-31; discussion 331-56

Authors: Sirois S, Spratling M, Thomas MS, Westermann G, Mareschal D, Johnson MH

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment.

PMID: 18578929 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: The Behavioral and Brain Sciences)

Original post by The Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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Today we rode from San Francisco, around Tiburon, to Nicasio and towards the lighthouse at Point Reyes and back. The weather was cool and cloudy at first but sunshine broke through for the second half of the ride. I initially felt weak from low BG’s last night and especially this morning before the ride, but I felt stronger after about an hour. I used the basal rates shown in the chart and decreased them throughout the ride. I was consistently eating about 300 calories per hour with a slight increase towards the end of the ride. Most interesting to me was how steady my BG was right around 80-100 despite the changing basal rates. And for the second half of the ride, the Dexcom was completely flat. It didn’t seem to matter whether I ate something small (chocolate GU at 20 g) or big (40 g of honey fruit snacks). It was almost as if my body wanted to stay right there! But there is a more likely explanation, of course. Initially, when my basal rates were a bit higher (0.7-0.9) I was rising a bit after each snack and then falling again. But when my basal rate was lower at 0.5 for the second half, I stayed pretty steady after eating. So it appears that the glucose entering my blood from the gut was leaving at about the exact same rate there.The basal rates were a touch too high initially and need some adjusting; however, I want to make sure I don’t start off high, since it seems to make things much more difficult to manage overall.The ride was a great confidence-booster for Ironman Coeur d’Alene, which is approaching quickly! (Source: Annetics)

Original post by Annetics

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Here is one for you… and it involves something yummy!

For people with diabetes, sipping a mug of steaming, flavorful cocoa may seem a guilty pleasure. But new research suggests that indulging a craving for cocoa can actually help blood vessels to function better and might soon be considered part of a healthy diet for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

It is important to note that the reason for the positive spin on cocoa has to do with natural plant compounds, ie. flavanols. In no way is Dr. Kelm suggesting that diabetes should guzzle cocoa, but dietary flavanols hold promise as a way to prevent heart disease among diabetics.
to read more about this chocolate research…
Tags: chocolate, cocoa, Diabetes, diet, flavanols, heart-disease, type-2-diabetesShare This (Source: Diabetes Notes)

Original post by Diabetes Notes

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According to a study published on the British Medical Journal website, the traditional Mediterranean diet provides as prevention for type 2 diabetes. This consists of a high intake of fiber and vegetable fat and a low intake of trans fatty acids. Just what does this entail?

The Mediterranean diet is rich in olive oil, grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and fish, but low in meat, dairy products and alcohol.

Olive oil is thought to be very key in this preventative diet. This makes me crave some fresh tomatoes with olive oil and toasted garlic. Yum….
via Science Daily 
Tags: Diabetes, diet, exercise, food, journal, mediterranean diet, nutrition, prevention, type-2-diabetesShare This (Source: Diabetes Notes)

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This could be the result of a doctoral dissertation by Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson at the Department of Food Science.The food, called tempe, is moreover a whole-grain product with high folate content. It is generally accepted in medicine that whole-grains reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and it is also believed that it protects against age-related diabetes and certain forms of cancer.

Original post by Annetics

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