Children’s language and behavioural, social and emotional difficulties and prosocial behaviour during the toddler years and at school entry

The ability of young children to manage their emotions and behaviours is an important prerequisite for social adjustment and school readiness. With an increase in early-onset behavioural difficulties in children, understanding changes in child behaviour during the preschool years and the factors that influence it is a priority for policy and practice. Despite much evidence on the association between language and behavioural difficulties in children, few studies have examined longitudinally language and problem/prosocial behaviour in early years. Using a UK community-based sample, Dimitra Hartas, from the University of Warwick, examines the association between language, gender and behavioural, social and emotional difficulties and prosocial behaviour during the toddler years and at school entry. The findings showed a moderate decline in behavioural and social difficulties during preschool, and stability in emotional difficulties. Moderate associations were found between vocabulary and problem behaviour but not prosocial behaviour, with literacy-based language emerging as a substantive predictor of teacher-rated behaviour. These findings have important implications for early years provision.

from the British Journal of Special Education

Content presentation modes in mobile language listening tasks: English proficiency as a moderator

This study investigated whether the modality effect of content presentation modes on students’ cognitive load and listening comprehension depends on the moderating effect of the learners’ language proficiencies in a mobile learning context. One hundred and sixty-two students majoring in English in a technology university used personal digital assistants (PDAs) as the learning tool for a mobile listening comprehension activity. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two presentation modes: (1) a single mode in which students were engaged in auditory materials only and (2) a dual mode in which they were exposed to audio and textual inputs simultaneously. Hierarchical regression was employed to examine the moderating effect of the learners’ proficiencies. The results confirmed the moderator role of English proficiency on cognitive load: students with lower proficiency appeared to be more perceptive of the text aid. However, the moderating effect was not obtained on the task performance in that students provided with the dual mode outperformed their single mode counterpart across the proficiency level. This study recommends that written text be displayed when students are engaged in a mobile English listening comprehension task to reduce learners’ cognitive load. The study also provides pedagogical implications for mobile language learning.

from Computer Assisted Language Learning

High frequency of autosomal-recessive DFNB59 hearing loss in an isolated Arab population in Israel

Autosomal-recessive nonsyndromic hearing impairment (DFNB) is usually of prelingual onset with a moderate to profound degree of hearing loss. More than 70 DFNB loci have been mapped and ∼40 causative genes have been identified. Nonsyndromic hearing impairment caused by mutations of DFNB59 (encoding pejvakin) has been described in a couple of families in which affected individuals presented with either auditory neuropathy or hearing loss of cochlear origin. We have identified and clinically evaluated three consanguineous families of Israeli Arab origin with prelingual nonsyndromic hearing impairment and absent otoacoustic emissions with a total of eight affected individuals. All the families originate from the same village and bear the same family name. We have identified a c.406C>T (p.R136X) nonsense mutation in the DFNB59 gene in affected individuals from these families. Among the inhabitants of the village, we found an exceptionally high carrier frequency of approximately 1 in 12 individuals (7/85; 8.2%). The high prevalence of hearing impairment can be explained by a founder effect and the high consanguinity rate among the inhabitants of this village.

from Clinical Genetics

Narrative Language in Traumatic Brain Injury

Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) often show impaired linguistic and/or narrative abilities. The present study aimed to document the features of narrative discourse impairment in a group of adults with TBI. 14 severe TBI non-aphasic speakers (GCS < 8) in the phase of neurological stability and 14 neurologically intact participants were recruited for the experiment. Their cognitive, linguistic and narrative skills were thoroughly assessed. The group of non-aphasic individuals with TBI had normal lexical and grammatical skills. However, they produced narratives with increased errors of cohesion and coherence due to the frequent interruption of ongoing utterances, derailments and extraneous utterances that made their discourse vague and ambiguous. They produced a normal amount of thematic units (i.e., concepts) in their narratives. However, this information was not correctly organized at micro- and macrolinguistic levels of processing. A Principal Component Analysis showed that a single factor accounted for the production of global coherence errors, and the reduction of both propositional density at the utterance level and proportion of words that conveyed information. It is hypothesized that the linguistic deficits observed in the participants with TBI may reflect a deficit at the interface between cognitive and linguistic processing rather than a specific linguistic disturbance.

from Neuropsychologia

The perceptual basis of the modality effect in multimedia learning.

Various studies have demonstrated an advantage of auditory over visual text modality when learning with texts and pictures. To explain this modality effect, two complementary assumptions are proposed by cognitive theories of multimedia learning: first, the visuospatial load hypothesis, which explains the modality effect in terms of visuospatial working memory overload in the visual text condition; and second, the temporal contiguity assumption, according to which the modality effect occurs because solely auditory texts and pictures can be attended to simultaneously. The latter explanation applies only to simultaneous presentation, the former to both simultaneous and sequential presentation. This paper introduces a third explanation, according to which parts of the modality effect are due to early, sensory processes. This account predicts that—for texts longer than one sentence—the modality effect with sequential presentation is restricted to the information presented most recently. Two multimedia experiments tested the influence of text modality across three different conditions: simultaneous presentation of texts and pictures versus sequential presentation versus presentation of text only. Text comprehension and picture recognition served as dependent variables. An advantage for auditory texts was restricted to the most recent text information and occurred under all presentation conditions. With picture recognition, the modality effect was restricted to the simultaneous condition. These findings clearly support the idea that the modality effect can be attributed to early processes in perception and sensory memory rather than to a working memory bottleneck. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

from Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

The relationship between gross motor skills and academic achievement in children with learning disabilities

The present study compared the gross motor skills of 7- to 12-year-old children with learning disabilities (n = 104) with those of age-matched typically developing children (n = 104) using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2. Additionally, the specific relationships between subsets of gross motor skills and academic performance in reading, spelling, and mathematics were examined in children with learning disabilities. As expected, the children with learning disabilities scored poorer on both the locomotor and object-control subtests than their typically developing peers. Furthermore, in children with learning disabilities a specific relationship was observed between reading and locomotor skills and a trend was found for a relationship between mathematics and object-control skills: the larger children’s learning lag, the poorer their motor skill scores. This study stresses the importance of specific interventions facilitating both motor and academic abilities.

from Research in Developmental Disabilities

MuteButton Secures 200,000 Euro ($285,000) Investment To Accelerate Launch Of Novel Tinnitus Treatment Device, Ireland

The funding will enable MuteButton to accelerate large scale clinical trials of its tinnitus treatment device and to secure ISO certification in advance of regulatory approval and device manufacturing. The company plans to launch its new device into the market during 2013.

from Medical News Today.com

The First Slow Step: Differential Effects of Object and Word-Form Familiarization on Retention of Fast-Mapped Words

Recent research demonstrated that although 24-month-old infants do well on the initial pairing of a novel word and novel object in fast-mapping tasks, they are unable to retain the mapping after a 5min delay. The current study examines the role of familiarity with the objects and words on infants’ ability to bridge between the initial fast mapping of a name and object, and later retention in the service of slow mapping. Twenty-four-month-old infants were familiarized with either novel objects or novel names prior to the referent selection portion of a fast-mapping task. When familiarized with the novel objects, infants retained the novel mapping after a delay, but not when familiarized with the novel words. This suggests familiarity with the object versus the word form leads to differential encoding of the name-object link. We discuss the implications of this finding for subsequent slow mapping. Copyright © International Society on Infant Studies (ISIS).

from Infancy

Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Language Processes: Interview with Lise Menn, PhD

Douglas L. Beck, AuD, speaks with Dr. Menn about her new book, Psycholinguistics—Introduction and Applications, as well as cognitive processes, top-down compensation for bottom-up sensory deficits, language development, and more.

from the American Academy of Audiology

In search of the memory molecule, a key protein complex discovered

“It is now quite clear that memory is encoded not by the change in the number of cells in the brain, but rather by changes in the strength of synapses,” Lisman says. “You can actually now see that when learning occurs, some synapses become stronger and others become weaker.”

from EurekAlert.org

Researchers identify components of speech recognition pathway in humans

Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have defined, for the first time, three different processing stages that a human brain needs to identify sounds such as speech — and discovered that they are the same as ones identified in non-human primates.

from EurekAlert.org

Assessment of Health State in Patients With Tinnitus: A Comparison of the EQ-5D and HUI Mark III

Conclusion: This study shows that different utility measures lead to different health state descriptions and utility scores among tinnitus patients. However, both measures are capable of discriminating between clinically different groups. The HUI mark III is more responsive than the EQ-5D, and therefore preferred in a tinnitus population.

from Ear and Hearing

Cognitive Load During Speech Perception in Noise: The Influence of Age, Hearing Loss, and Cognition on the Pupil Response

Conclusions: The pupil response systematically increased with decreasing speech intelligibility. Ageing and hearing loss were related to less release from effort when increasing the intelligibility of speech in noise. In difficult listening conditions, these factors may induce cognitive overload relatively early or they may be associated with relatively shallow speech processing. More research is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms explaining these results. Better TRTs and larger word vocabulary were related to higher mental processing load across speech intelligibility levels. This indicates that utilizing linguistic ability to improve speech perception is associated with increased listening load.

from Ear and Hearing

Determining Perceived Sound Quality in a Simulated Hearing Aid Using the International Speech Test Signal

Conclusions: Since the ISTS is intended for use with hearing aids, the accuracy of the HASQI predictions for the HI listeners reinforces the validity of using this signal for hearing aid sound quality ratings and predictions.

from Ear and Hearing

Effects of Extreme Tonotopic Mismatches Between Bilateral Cochlear Implants on Electric Pitch Perception: A Case Study

Conclusions: Pitch perception may have adapted to reduce perceived spectral discrepancies between bilateral CI inputs, despite 2–3 octave differences in tonotopic mapping.

from Ear and Hearing