A COGNITIVE TOOL FOR THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF ...



A COGNITIVE TOOL FOR THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF DYSLEXIA FROM ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER- PREDOMINANTLY INATTENTIVE TYPE.

Aaron, P.G.

Professor, Dept. of Educational Psychology, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA

epaaron@isugw.indstate.edu

Poor performance on tests of reading comprehension could be the result of weak word-recognition skills, inconsistent attention (ADD), or a combination of the two. Identifying the source of the reading disability (RD) reliably has been difficult because inconsistent attention interferes with reading and weak word recognition skill makes attention to wander. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are no objective diagnostic tests for ADD (Breggin, 1998; Diller, 1998). We proposed a new model of differential diagnosis of ADHD-I/RD and field-tested its utility in two studies. The new diagnostic procedure utilizes intra-individual differences seen in the performance of at-risk learners on tasks related to reading which vary in the degree of sustained attention required for successful performance. The hypothesis is that children with inconsistent attention would perform poorly on tests such as listening comprehension which require sustained attention than on tests such as reading comprehension which are more tolerant of inattention. Such differences will not be seen in the test scores of children who have only reading disability because their performance on reading tests is determined more by the difficulty level of the tests than by the sensitivity of the tests to attention.

The validity of this proposition was tested in two studies. These two studies were

conducted in two different schools in two separate years. The children involved in the study came from grades 2 through 5 and were considered to be at risk for reading by their classroom teachers. There were 50 children in Study I and 37 children in Study II.

They were administered tests of reading comprehension (Woodcock, Cloze format) and Gates McGinitey (Paragragrah format). They were also administered the test of Listening comprehension from Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery.

In addition, they were also administered Woodcock listening and reading vocabulary as well as informal oral and written spelling tests. The validity of the model was tested by comparing the differential performance of the children on these tests with that of Conners Continuous Performance test (CPT).

The CPT provides a measure of inconsistency of attention. The expectation was that the performance of children who have higher listening comprehension score than reading comprehension score (dyslexics) will not show signs of inconsistent attention on the CPT. In contrast, children with higher reading comprehension scores than listening comprehension scores (ADHD) will show a profile of inconsistent attention on the CPT. By administering all the tests described above and analyzing the scores for statistical significance, we found that the following pairs of tests were successful in separating children with dyslexia from children with ADHD:

(1). Reading comprehension test vs. Listening comprehension test;

(2). Reading comprehension test in Cloze format vs. Reading comprehension test in Paragraph format;

(3). Administration of reading comprehension test in one session vs. Administering an equivalent format in two sessions.

The tests used in the two studies can be administered by teachers in the classroom

and will be helpful in identifying children with ADHD and separating them from those who have Dyslexia.

Electrophysiological evaluation in children with ADHD

AGAPITOU, P. 1 & KARAPETSAS, A. 2

1 PHD LABORATORY OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY,VOLOS, GREECE.

2 Professor, Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece.

1 agapitou@uth.gr 2 akar@uth.gr

THE COMPREHENSION OF ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD) IS STILL EVOLVING AND THE EXISTENCE OF THE SYNDROME IS STILL ACTIVELY DEBATED. THE SYMPTOMS INCLUDE DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE LEVELS OF ATTENTION, CONCENTRATION, ACTIVITY DISTRACTIBILITY AND IMPULSIVITY. CHILDREN WITH ADHD USUALLY HAVE FUNCTIONAL IMPAIRMENTS ACROSS MULTIPLE SETTINGS INCLUDING HOME, SCHOOL, AND PLAY. HOWEVER, THESE CHILDREN’S IMPAIRMENTS ARE SPECIALLY EVIDENCE AT SCHOOL. SEVERAL ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES HAVE REPORTED DIFFERENT FINDINGS IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM OF CHILDREN WITH ADHD. EMISSION TOPOGRAPHY HAS SHOWED DECREASED BLOOD FLOW IN STRIATAL AREAS. SPECT STUDIES HAVE REVEALED GREATER HEMISPHERIC ASYMMETRY WITH LESS ACTIVITY IN THE LEFT FRONTAL AND LEFT PARIETAL HEMISPHERES IN SUBJECTS WITH ADHD.

The purpose of this paper is to compare brain-stem auditory (short latency) evoked responses (BSAER) and long latency auditory evoked responses (LLAER) in school children with and without ADHD.

This study was carried out at the Laboratory of Neuropsychology University of Thessaly. The diagnosis of ADHD was done using a behavioral assessment scale according to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, which was completed by parents and teachers. The parents of 19 children agreed to participate in the evaluation. Two children were females and 17 males. The methods of brain-stem auditory evoked responses (BSAER) and long latency auditory evoked responses (LLAER) were applied.

The results of this study indicate that school children with ADHD show significant abnormalities in LLAER.

The differences which several authors have reported in different procedures including electrophysiological, biochemical and imaging studies could in theory be the basis of ADHD. There has to be a distinction in causation and correlation. The claim that the results of LLAER in children with ADHD reported in this study, may be useful as a diagnostic tool can be misleading. In the future, the results from these electrophysiological measures can detect children with ADHD more likely to respond to specific therapeutic agents.

THE CURRENT STATE OF DYSLEXIA IN KUWAIT AND HOW TO IMPROVE SERVICES: THE ROLE OF THE KUWAIT DYSLEXIC ASSOCIATION

Al- Qatami, M.

Chairman Kuwait Dyslexia Association P.O. Box 24409 Safat 13105 Kuwait



The aim was to come up with a service that can provide help for dyslexics in Kuwait.

Dyslexia in Kuwait affects at least 50,000 people (the Kuwait population is around 1.5 million.). This gives an indication of how large is the problem that the KDA is facing. There is a huge need for specialists to do the job. There should be tools to screen and diagnose dyslexics. Treatment is a big problem because Arabic is different from the English language therefore we cannot translate teaching program from English to Arabic. We have to come up with an Arabic version for teaching dyslexics and to educate the people about dyslexia. Therefore, the KDA’s strategies are:

1. Training people to be qualified

2. Prepare diagnostic tools in Arabic for screening and assessment in Kuwait

3. Increase public awareness for dyslexics, specially to their family, work, place and society

4. Having an international centre concerned with dyslexia locally and internationally

5. Priority on prognosis and early diagnosis.

6. Provide help for schools to be specialized in treating dyslexia

7. Conferences and meetings concerned with dyslexia

8. Helping center to support dyslexics either by telephone, mail, personal contact or by the internet.

The aim is to built clear strategies and good planning so it can provide services for people concerned with dyslexics in a proper way and also to give a strong base for other organizations to follow. What KDA has done in the last two years can be consider an elementary step for the goal that it seeks and can be looked upon as seeds for the bright future.

Comparison between Cognitive maps' for children with L.D., & M.R. in Cognitive Assessment System (PASS) - among Egyptian School Children

Al sheikh, H. F. [1]

[2] Ph.D. researcher -Ain Shams university & teacher in general mental retarded school - Egypt, Gharbia- Mahalla Kobraa-14st.Abd Elrehiem Sabry-Sabaa Banat-street number 31952

hena302002@

Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, & Successive (PASS) theory is based on the neuropsychological, information processing & cognitive psychological research of Luria. PASS theory could be the identification of specific LD children on this basis or a dysfunction in basic cognitive processing related to the academic failure. CAS measures of cognitive processes can assist in differential diagnosis using Feuerstein's delineation of the cognitive functions that could be determined & analyzed from the mental acts, according to the three phrases (input, elaboration, and output) that itemize the cognitive map. The illustration of the range & nature of the differences of the zone of proximal development "ZPD" in the cognitive maps for children with learning disabilities, learning difficulties, mental retardation wiil be shown by analyzing their performance in cognitive assessment system (PASS) and focussing the discussion of ways that given as mediation. Dynamic Assessment used as an application approach, structural equation modelling was used to analyze the data. The results illustrated that: There are differences between the cognitive maps' of children with L.D. & M.R. with & without neurological conditions or with & without educational deprivation.

Language and reading Deficits following cerebellar Disorders

Andreou, G. & Vlachos, F.

University of Thessaly Department of Special Education Volos, Greece

kgourg@med.uth.gr

Introduction:The interest in the role of cerebellum in cognitive functioning has been increasing in recent days, based on both theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. It is claimed that the cerebellum is involved in the acquisition of skills related to language, making cerebellar dysfunction a prime candidate for an underlying cause of dyslexia. The aim of this preliminary study was to examine further the hypothesis of cerebellar involvement in word generation as well as in the reading process – justified by its emergent role in language and cognition.

Method: Two standardized verbal fluency tasks (a phonological task and a semantic task) were administered to three patients who suffered from cerebellar dysfunction due to hemorrhage or tumour at the right cerebellum area. No patient included in the study had history of neurologic illness or developmental learning disorder in childhood nor clinical or neuroradiological evidence of extracerebellar disease and mini mental state examination was within the normal range. Patients’ reading skills were assessed using the Greek adaptation of the reading scale of the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery.

Results and Discussion: The present study showed that all three cerebellar patients performed lower than normal people do in verbal fluency tasks, according to normative verbal fluency data stratified by age and education in the Greek population More specifically, in the letter verbal fluency test they produced fewer words than normals which reveals that the verbal fluency deficit seen in cerebellar patients is specifically linked to phonological processing. In the semantic task they produced fewer words than normals for all three semantic categories they were given which reveals the active role the cerebellum plays in semantic word generation. In contrast to their verbal fluency deficit, no obvious difficulty was obtained in cerebellar patients during reading tasks. This could be due to the fact that the reading impairment following cerebellar dysfunction is very mild and difficult to be observed by an instrument designed to detect cognitive deficits after cerebral lesions. Overall, the results of this preliminary study support the view of cerebellar influence on verbal fluency, extending its role in linguistic processing.

THE LINKS BETWEEN PSYCHOSOCIAL FUNCTIONING AND MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION IN DYSLEXIC CHILDREN

Barkauskiene, R. 1, Bieliauskaite, R. 2

1 Vilnius Psychological Pedagogical Service, Lithuania, 2 Vilnius University, Lithuania

1 rasabark@takas.lt, 2 ratema@

Though psychological studies reveal that dyslexic children are at greater risk for psychosocial disturbances than other children are, little is known about environmental factors related to behavioral and emotional difficulties in these children. The present study aimed at investigation the relationship between behavioral emotional problems and mother-child interactions (reflected by the level of child’s “goodness of fit” within maternal expectations, mother’s positive and negative feelings toward a child and mother’s involvement with child’s learning) in dyslexic children subject to the comorbidity of dyslexia with arithmetic disabilities.

The sample of the present study consisted of 102 children with learning disabilities aged 8-11. The subjects were subdivided into two subgroups: 1) 39 children with dyslexia (RD); 2) 63 children with dyslexia comorbid to arithmetic disabilities (RD/ArD).

Though children with pure dyslexia cases and comorbid cases did not differ on measures of mother-child interactions, the different tendencies of its relationship to child’s psychosocial outcomes revealed. For the group of children with pure dyslexia cases, mother’s positive feelings, negative control of homework and mother-child discussion about learning were negatively to emotional-behavioral difficulties. In contrary, child’s “goodness of fit” with maternal expectations level and positive feelings were negatively associated with child’s problems. In the subgroup of children with dyslexia/arithmetic problems, two measures of mother-child interaction - mothers’ negative feelings and mother-child discussions about learning - correlated with child’s psychosocial outcomes.

The obtained results may show children with pure dyslexia to be more vulnerable to the environment’s changes. Secondly, results allow hypothesize about different mechanisms involved in association of mother-child interaction to psychosocial difficulties of dyslexic children. Despite the correlational design of this study, its findings do highlight the importance of the family factors for psychosocial functioning of children with dyslexia and this association needs further study to determine the precise nature of the relationship.

Symbol Imagery: A Sensory-Cognitive Factor Underlying Phonological & ORTHOGRAPHIC Processing

Bell, N.

Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes 416 Higuera Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

nbell@

The ability to visually image the identity, number, and sequence of letters in words is directly related to reading and spelling skills. Data on over a thousand subjects indicates that symbol imagery is more predicative to work attack, word recognition, spelling and paragraph reading than phoneme awareness. What is this factor and how does it relate to literacy skills?

Objectives:

1. Understanding that reading relies on an integration of the three sensory-cognitive functions, concept imagery, phonemic awareness, and symbol imagery.

2. Understanding that symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters within words—is a critical factor in phonemic awareness, word attack, word recognition, spelling and contextual reading.

3. Understanding of the role of symbol imagery in relationship to phonemic awareness, especially in the area of automatically.

4. Understanding the role of symbol imagery for the development of sight words, spelling and contextual reading fluency.

5. Understanding the research documenting the significant correlation of symbol imagery to phoneme awareness, word attack, word recognition, spelling, and contextual reading.

The neural basis for reading acquisition in alphabetic scripts: an fMRI study

Blomert, L.1, van Atteveldt, N.2, Formisano, E. 3 & Goebel, R. 4

Dept. of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands

1L.Blomert@psychology.unimaas.nl

Most people acquire literacy skills with remarkable ease even though the human brain is not evolutionary adapted to this relatively new cultural phenomenon. Associations between letters and speech sounds form the basis of reading acquisition in alphabetic scripts. We investigated the functional neuroanatomy of associations between letters and speech sounds using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The most interesting finding is a modulation of the response to speech sounds in early auditory cortex by visual letters. Based on the analyses of single-subject data and group data aligned on the basis of individual cortical anatomy, we will present a model for the integration of graphemes and phonemes. Our data indicate that the efficient processing of culturally defined associations between letters and speech sounds may be based on a naturally evolved neural mechanism for integrating audiovisual speech (VanAtteveldt, Formisano, Goebel & Blomert, submitted). This insight contrasts with a recently advanced cerebellar account of the integration of graphemes and phonemes.

Neural correlates of a phonological core deficit in dyslexia: ERP studies

Blomert, L. 1, Bonte, M. 2 & Mitterer H. 3

Dept. of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands

1L.Blomert@psychology.unimaas.nl

Dyslexics seem to suffer from a categorical-speech perception deficit. This deficit may be an emergent property of poor context-sensitivity in speech perception. Thus we tested the use of acoustic, phonetic, and phonological context cues. Dyslexics did not show any evidence of a speech-perception deficit and the results do not support a general auditory deficit in dyslexia. Dyslexics also perform below average on a variety of phonological tasks. Because it is not clear how this relates to on-line speech perception, we investigated possible deviant processes by means of event-related potential (ERP) measures of implicit phonological processing. The ERP results of phonological priming experiments indicated deviant pre-lexical phonological processing in dyslexics. To further investigate these deviancies we measured the ERP response to phonotactic regularities. The mismatch negativity (MMN) data reveal a different sensitivity to the statistical regularity of phonological sequences in dyslexics. The results together make a strong case for a phonological deficit in the neural basis of the spoken language system in dyslexia and do not support a magnocellular deficit hypothesis.

The Rights of Dyslexic Children in Europe

Bogdanowicz, M.2 & Petrus, P.1

1University of Gdansk, Institute of Psychology, Gdansk, Poland ul. Okrętowa 8, 80-299 Gdańsk

1marta.bogdanowicz@wp.pl

The results presented came from a survey on rights of dyslexic children in Europe conducted in co-operation with associations gathered in European Dyslexia Association (EDA) in years 2002-3. Nineteen EDA Members replied to the survey, which provided very interesting results. It appeared that although all the countries represented by Associations signed The UN Convention on Rights of the Child (1989), the situation of dyslexic children in most of them is not satisfying yet.  The level of awareness of dyslexia-related problems is described mostly as poor. Both legal and educational situation of dyslexic pupils differs significantly in various countries. In some of them certain special rights for dyslexic at school are provided ( 70% of respondents claimed to have such privileges), but not fully respected (in 60% of the countries they were guaranteed by law). Generally it should be stated that not all the dyslexic pupils are treated as children with Special Educational Needs in the sufficient range. Special rights of dyslexic children are applied at schools in more than a half of the surveyed countries but guaranteed by law in 2/3 of countries applying them.  Special rights of dyslexic children include the following areas: assessing dyslexic children according to their abilities; allowing them alternative ways of performance at school; supplying them with special conditions during examinations and learning foreign languages. In most cases the only people responsible for applying special rights are teachers. One of the most important bases for allowing dyslexics special rights is the request of teachers   and   parents. However both teachers and parents have insufficient awareness of dyslexia-related problems (in most countries described as 'poor ') .It is especially important to raise the level of awareness of dyslexia and quality of education among school teachers and parents in many European countries.

Decoding, monitoring and reading comprehension of good and poor readers

Botsas, G. 1 Iatraki , E. 2 & Hatzigianni, A.3

1 University of Thessaly Volos, Greece 2 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 3 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Halkidiki, Greece

1 gmpotsas@eled.auth.gr 2aiatraki@sch.gr

Monitoring refers to student’s online awareness of reading comprehension process and achievement.

There are a lot of data suggesting that poor readers do not monitor their reading comprehension actively and consequently they have a rather low understanding of texts. Monitoring activity has been studied very few times along with other reading parameters such as decoding ability.

The aim of this study was to explore the profiles of good and poor readers in regard to decoding, metacognitive monitoring and reading comprehension. Further, the relationship among the three variables and the contribution of decoding and monitoring in reading comprehension were examined.

One hundred and two 5th and 6th graders from Central Macedonia took part in the study (mean age 11 years and 3 months). Half of them (N = 51) were good and half were poor readers.

The use of a “think-aloud” protocol, in which inconsistencies were included, provided data for metacognitive monitoring and decoding (reading elapsed time and reading accuracy). Reading comprehension performance scores were collected through the reading comprehension part of TORP (Test Of Reading Performance).

Based on the analysis data, poor readers needed significantly more time to finish their reading task and made significantly more decoding errors, compared to good readers. Further, they were not able to metacognitively monitor their comprehension, and therefore, could not remedy problems that came up during reading. On the contrary, good readers completed their reading earlier and without making reading errors, while they were monitoring their comprehension. It was also found that decoding and metacognitive monitoring could explain a major part (75.9%) of the reading comprehension performance.

The results are discussed in the context of understanding reading disability.

Interpreting Dyslexia Documentation in Adolescents and Adults: An International Perspective  

Brinckerhoff, L.

Director, Office of Disability Policy Educational Testing Service 57 Gorham Street, Apt. #3 Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Lbrinckerhoff@

Educational Testing Service (ETS) is the world's largest producer of   standardized tests. Each year over 8,000 persons with disabilities request testing accommodations for a variety of examinations such as the GMAT, GRE, and TOEFL tests. An increasingly large number of individuals taking examinations are from countries outside of North America. The intent of this session is to discuss the complexities of reviewing disability documentation from an international perspective. Actual case studies will be used from a variety of foreign countries.

How adequately do dyslexic student cope with the academic demands of Higher Education in the UK? The First degree results of three cohorts of dyslexic and non-dyslexic students.

The phonological hypothesis of developmental dyslexia : does a history of language delay matter?

Brizzolara, D.1, Chilosi, A.M.1,2, Pecini, C.1, Lami, L.2, Pignatti, B.2 Pizzoli, C.2, Cipriani, P.1, De Filippi, G.3 & Zoccolotti, P.3

1IRCCS Stella Maris - University of Pisa -

2 CRLD- USL Bologna –

3 IRCCS S. Lucia - University of Roma ITALY

1 daniela.brizzolara@inpe.unipi.it;

The core deficit of dyslexia has been identified as a language-related condition in which specific reading disabilities may stem largely from an impairment in the representation and manipulation of phonemes ('phonological core deficit' Stanovich and Siegel, 1994). The aim of this study is to verify whether phonological deficits are a common marker of all cases of dyslexia or specifically affect dyslexic children with a history of previous language delay. 120 dyslexic children (age ranging from 8 to 13 years) were selected on the basis of a deficit in reading speed (2 or more sd below the mean value expected for school level) and divided in two groups according to the presence (LD) or absence of a history of early language delay (NoLD). A standardised neuropsychological battery was used in order to assess: intelligence, reading and writing of single words, non words and texts. Phonological processing abilities were measured with tasks tapping verbal working memory, phoneme awareness and phonemic fluency. In a sub-group of 37 children (LD = 15, NoLD = 22), rapid automatized naming (RAN) was assessed with a test requiring fast retrieval of names of colours, figures and digits.

The results showed that a higher proportion of LD than NoLD children were more impaired in reading accuracy than in reading speed, whereas the reverse pattern was observed among NoLD subjects (p ................
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